Search found 188 matches

by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Fri Sep 29, 2023 9:23 pm
Forum: Trash
Topic: Some Trash from a washed up player
Replies: 3
Views: 2980

Some Trash from a washed up player

Hi, It's probably been about 7 years since I posted on this forum, but I used to be active in quizbowl in HS/College, and I help run quizbowl tournaments for very casual players at my current job, and also enjoy playing with friends. I used to get paid to write quizbowl questions, and while I haven'...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:22 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: WHAT (LIST Mirror) @ Williams College, MA (1/11/14)
Replies: 10
Views: 6829

Re: WHAT (LIST Mirror) @ Williams College, MA (1/11/14)

Stats are here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/1839/stats/all_games/ Congratualations to AMSA, who won, clearing the field, and congratulations to Sharon A, who finished in second place. Both teams qualified for PACE NSC. Thank you everyone for coming, I hope you all enjoyed the tournament...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:05 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: WHAT (LIST Mirror) @ Williams College, MA (1/11/14)
Replies: 10
Views: 6829

Re: WHAT (LIST Mirror) @ Williams College, MA (1/11/14)

An e-mail just went out to teams with additional information on the tournament. If you did not receive the email, tell me (either here, by private message, or by emailing [email protected]) so that you can get the information.
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Fri Nov 01, 2013 5:21 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: WHAT (LIST Mirror) @ Williams College, MA (1/11/14)
Replies: 10
Views: 6829

Re: WHAT (LIST Mirror) @ Williams College, MA (1/11/14)

This tournament is now Gold certified by PACE, so the top 20% of the field will qualify for the PACE NSC on the weekend of May 24-25th at the Hyatt Regency Reston outside of Washington, D.C.
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Oct 14, 2013 12:53 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: New England (CT, MA, VT, NH) Date Claims, 2013-14
Replies: 47
Views: 22829

Re: New England (CT, MA, VT, NH) Date Claims, 2013-14

Hello, I would like to informally announce that Williams plans on hosting a tournament on January 11th which will probably be a mirror of whatever we determine to be the best set that will be available and not used by any school that is too nearby (we are considering GSAC, but have yet to come to a...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Oct 14, 2013 12:52 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: WHAT (LIST Mirror) @ Williams College, MA (1/11/14)
Replies: 10
Views: 6829

WHAT (LIST Mirror) @ Williams College, MA (1/11/14)

The first (annual?) Williams Highschool Academic Tournament (WHAT) will be at Williams College in Williamstown, MA on January 11, 2014. The tournament will be open to any and all teams that wish to attend, and all teams will be playing on the LIST question set written by students from Ladue (more de...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Thu Sep 12, 2013 1:35 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: New England (CT, MA, VT, NH) Date Claims, 2013-14
Replies: 47
Views: 22829

Re: New England (CT, MA, VT, NH) Date Claims, 2013-14

Hello, I would like to informally announce that Williams plans on hosting a tournament on January 11th which will probably be a mirror of whatever we determine to be the best set that will be available and not used by any school that is too nearby (we are considering GSAC, but have yet to come to an...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:40 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2013 NAC
Replies: 89
Views: 47058

Re: 2013 NAC

First - I totally agree that there does not seem room for another nationals - even if it had questions everyone could agree were good, the additional nationals would still not really contribute as a true "nationals" - NSC and HSNCT are two tournaments that should be enough to determine a ...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Jun 03, 2013 10:59 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2013 NAC
Replies: 89
Views: 47058

Re: 2013 NAC

A postscript, and one that I'd be interested in hearing people's opinions regarding: I am actually one of the people on this board who thinks that a post- :chip: NAC -does- have a legitimate place in the high school quizbowl world. Although he would always be working against the ethical lapses of t...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sat May 25, 2013 10:48 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2013 NAC
Replies: 89
Views: 47058

Re: 2013 NAC

What are they supposed to do for their two hours between games Saturday morning. Are they allowed to watch other games (this is a serious question, are questions used for multiple rounds or can teams watch other matches on their byes?), or do they go back to their rooms? They certainly don't have t...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Thu May 23, 2013 2:26 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2013 NAC
Replies: 89
Views: 47058

Re: 2012 NAC

Why is Irvington still going to the NAC? Why? I do not know, I am no longer with the team, being in college and all, but I tried my best to get them to stop going in my last year. As for other decent teams going, I presume Ardsley might be going because they didn't qualify for anything else (not th...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Thu May 23, 2013 2:15 pm
Forum: Middle school area archives
Topic: Natl History Bowl Middle School Nationals 5/18-19 (DC/N VA)
Replies: 14
Views: 5723

Re: Natl History Bowl Middle School Nationals 5/18-19 (DC/N VA)

Speaking personally, and not as a writer of the set, I think that it would make sense for NHBB to release the set online. There is a distinct lack of free middle school practice material available, and the potential monetary gains for NHBB, I think, would be outweighed by the increase in quality of...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sat May 04, 2013 3:10 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2013 NAC
Replies: 89
Views: 47058

Re: 2012 NAC

It should be noted that while NAC generally "runs well" strictly in terms of rounds happening on time, there are still often various other in how it is run, including but not limited to protest resolution inconsistencies or scoring inaccuracies/issues.
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:39 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: New York Discussion 2012-13
Replies: 92
Views: 26862

Re: New York Discussion 2012-13

I'm unsure of what our next opportunity to go to an NAQT or housewrite tournament will be, if someone could let me know, that'd be much appreciated. http://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=13166 lists the upcoming tournaments very well - Harvard Fall and GSAC at St. Joe's (if you choo...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Oct 08, 2012 11:42 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Odd Ways of Learning Things
Replies: 177
Views: 198091

Re: Odd Ways of Learning Things

I have gotten at least one tossup related to Japanese Internment from the Fort Minor song "Kenji"
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Oct 08, 2012 11:40 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Question Specific Discussion
Replies: 53
Views: 9764

Re: Question Specific Discussion

One math bonus describes a method for obtaining a set with cardinality aleph_1 by taking the power set of N, but this is only true if the continuum hypothesis is taken to be true, which can't really just be assumed due to the whole independence from ZFC thing. I may have just not heard something whi...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:28 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: New York Discussion 2012-13
Replies: 92
Views: 26862

Re: New York Discussion 2012-13

I will add to the moving-away from Chip from Westchester advice, having again gone through many of the same trials (minus the cross country). First of all, in general, as indeed 4-quarterness often seems "ingrained" in players' thinking after years of playing it, arguing the merits of pyra...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sat Sep 15, 2012 11:50 pm
Forum: New High School Teams
Topic: Funding help?
Replies: 11
Views: 5519

Re: Funding help?

Wow thanks for the suggestions! @pk14ster What's the rate we can charge for those things? Plus don't we have to pay for questions and awards? Most tournaments cost ~$70-80 a team with discounts for buzzers/moderators/more teams (you can browse the "Regular Season Tournament Announcements"...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Aug 27, 2012 1:02 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NY/NJ Date Claims 2012-2013
Replies: 107
Views: 620940

Re: NY/NJ Date Claims 2012-2013

It is also worth noting that despite just about running out of NAQT sets, if all other NAQT sets are claimed (including DII SCT maybe even), hosts have plenty of other available options like LIST, DCCAT, the MSU/UD Housewrite, BDAT, etc. Also only one HSAPQ set has been claimed in the area (at QuAC)...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Thu Aug 16, 2012 2:44 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Clock theory
Replies: 22
Views: 9796

Re: Clock theory

I'm interested to hear thoughts about this policy. Is it commonly used? (Perhaps in :chip:bowl) Are there other issues I haven't considered? Are the problems I mentioned worth living with to ensure smooth tournament operation? Just to answer this question, to my knowledge, no Chip events (including...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Aug 13, 2012 12:45 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

I bit over a month after the end of this, is there any word on when Friday and Sunday's stats will be available?

EDIT: Friday's are here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... all_games/
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sun Aug 12, 2012 6:48 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: HSQBRank 2012-2013: No, I do not mean HSA Bank
Replies: 138
Views: 150105

Re: HSQBRank 2012-2013: No, I do not mean HSA Bank

Will :chip: Bowl be taken into account? or more generally, "I don't see the results from tournament x listed, what kind of tournaments are not taken into account? " as there are plenty of other things, (like-single subject NHBB) that are not counted also, "Why is team x ranked above ...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sun Aug 12, 2012 6:39 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Coach Reading for Own Team: Advantage?
Replies: 14
Views: 4514

Re: Coach Reading for Own Team: Advantage?

A companion question is whether it could be unfair for a college student to read for his or her former high school teammates. In some areas, I suspect this is even more common than a coach reading for his or her team. At least with coaches, you're talking about adult employees of a school in a posi...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Thu Aug 02, 2012 1:33 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Hey it's time to talk about tone! (LIVE CHAT AUGUST 13)
Replies: 116
Views: 42564

Re: Hey it's time to talk about tone!

I think the idea of "moral shaming" is an odd one. Look, I don't want to rip on people who don't know any better. I don't want to "shame" anyone. But we should be allowed to say that Chip-bowl is an ethical sewer and a complete waste of time and point this out. While this is tru...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Fri Jul 27, 2012 8:44 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: New York Discussion 2012-13
Replies: 92
Views: 26862

Re: New York Discussion 2012-13

I've thought for a while that the college teams in New York would be the other potential hosts, and given their location, NYU and Columbia both could do a really decent job of helping to get city teams more involved. I would suggest bringing this up with them instead of trying to find high schools ...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Thu Jul 19, 2012 1:10 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: New York Discussion 2012-13
Replies: 92
Views: 26862

Re: New York Discussion 2012-13

Regarding the "Upstate New York," for practical purposes, I have found that the "upstate" line moves father north as you move farther upstate. To people in Westchester, I think we tend to define it as Albany-ish. However, I think that for the current quizbowl conversation at hand...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:39 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Buzzer systems
Replies: 52
Views: 33314

Re: Buzzer systems

I highly recommend the systems from buzzersystems.com. They are durable (though you'll occasionally need to crimp the broken phone extensions on the cords), we've had ours for over fifteen years. They have excellent service and often have a 48 hr turnaround. As another note on Zeecraft buzzers, whi...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:26 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: New York Discussion 2012-13
Replies: 92
Views: 26862

Re: New York Discussion 2012-13

MasterMinds teams I would guess can be safely written off, as even the better teams in that competition struggle to reach 300 points in a game on NAQT A-set questions. Do they play with different rules that lead to lower scoring games? I can't believe that the teams are weaker than some Westchester...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Tue Jul 17, 2012 4:10 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Buzzer systems
Replies: 52
Views: 33314

Re: Buzzer systems

Charlie-I know that Zeecraft is not the only company to use hand grips, but I'm pretty sure that grips are present on all its models, or at least every one I've seen. As I kind of mentioned in my post, they also produce a "box" model http://zeecraft.com/catalog/wiredregularbuzzer8-p-61.ht...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Tue Jul 17, 2012 3:45 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Buzzer systems
Replies: 52
Views: 33314

Re: Buzzer systems

A lot of players on my team prefer Boxy buzzers like what Zeecraft tends to provide, but Zeecraft sets can definitely be annoying due to their bulk and the ease with which the telephone-cord connectors break. Wireless buzzers are certainly nice in the easy-to-setup regard, but I do not think that th...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sun Jul 15, 2012 5:54 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: New York Discussion 2012-13
Replies: 92
Views: 26862

Re: New York Discussion 2012-13

Ok, I will lend my own analysis of what things will be like, building off of Robert's post because I agree with most things there Well, it's another year. Things are looking a bit more promising this year in terms of activity (as far as the Metro area goes) with Scarsdale already locking in two NAQT...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:22 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

Salt Lake Dream wrote:In addition to what has been written above, most of my bonus points from the Kate Smith DAR game are missing.
Somehow all the issues are with your stats...3 of the Walt Whitman games have Bonus Points numbers ending in 5.
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:09 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

I don't doubt that he would get better/fuller/more helpful feedback from someone who is a far more experienced writer than I, and I certainly would think that it would be best for the writers/editors of this set to get feedback from people more experienced than I so that they can learn for the futur...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:28 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

Once this furor dies down, I would appreciate if somebody could go through what I edited and give criticism (especially math and non-modern physics, and hopefully not in the same form as the brutal SUB-OPTIMAL critique of IMSANITY I could probably give you some critiques on a lot of the science if ...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Jul 09, 2012 3:09 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

Ok so, it appears that many people have been having issues with our set, so I'd like to defend our efforts. I'll acknowledge, it was our first time writing a set, and I know that first time sets usually have at least a few errors. But listen, this was meant to be a very casual, fun tournament, and ...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Jul 09, 2012 2:32 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

So, after playing this, here is what I have to say... Regarding Friday's tournament, while I certainly think it was a good idea (packet submission => teams get to gain experience writing without a big "quantity" issue, packets if done right could/often did lean towards a slightly more fun/...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sun Jul 08, 2012 9:27 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?
Replies: 26
Views: 18466

Re: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?

I agree with the things such as what Charlie Dees have said on this topic, I just wanted to point out is that I think that as is clear both from my own experiences and from what has been said hear, the answer to the proposed question is two part. I doubt that anyone would argue that it is truly &quo...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Thu Jul 05, 2012 6:41 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Social science in high school quizbowl
Replies: 10
Views: 6797

Re: Social science in high school quizbowl

Why is geography, which is considered a social science by plenty of people, a separate part of the quizbowl distribution? I would assume just because geography tends to be something people write more questions about and sometimes want to occupy a large enough part of a packet to have its own place ...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Tue Jul 03, 2012 11:53 pm
Forum: New High School Teams
Topic: Books "for Quizbowl"
Replies: 217
Views: 224586

Re: Books "for Quizbowl"

http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus1.html Anyone have any thoughts on Bibliotheca for mythology? I mean, sure, that could help, but a combination of Graves/Hamilton/packet studying should be enough to cover high school-level Greek mythology pretty well. I personally like Apollodorus a lot for gre...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Tue Jul 03, 2012 6:45 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

I can say for certain now that Irvington will have 1 "expert" team on Saturday and 1 team on Sunday. Also, it didn't seem like anyone was interested when I mentioned it before, but if there is interest for the YMIR mythology tournament among people who haven't heard it/will not be hearing...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Jul 02, 2012 10:27 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

I can say for certain now that Irvington will have 1 "expert" team on Saturday and 1 team on Sunday. Also, it didn't seem like anyone was interested when I mentioned it before, but if there is interest for the YMIR mythology tournament among people who haven't heard it/will not be hearing ...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:08 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Famous People who played Quizbowl
Replies: 24
Views: 35214

Famous People who played Quizbowl

I was wondering if anyone knew of any now-famous people who played quiz bowl (in some form) at some point; obviously the list of quiz bowl players who have appeared on jeopardy is pretty long, but I don't know how many otherwise famous people there are who played the game - I recently saw this http:...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Tue Jun 26, 2012 4:47 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: I propose a quizbowl video project
Replies: 24
Views: 8322

Re: I propose a quizbowl video project

This video has a decent number of views on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFRj7Sl5Qdw as it was in that Slate article a while ago, and it has ok though certainly not perfect audio, and the video that looks at only at one team for each half If we are trying to make a video accessible for some...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sun Jun 24, 2012 10:56 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

What will be the format for Friday's tournament? Just a round robin with teams sitting out when their round is read followed by a final if necessary? And I guess you will be writing the Finals packet(s), Dave?
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:16 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NAC
Replies: 189
Views: 70711

Re: 2012 NAC

Well, I obviously knew that they had lied before but I thought that most of the lies were at least subjective very large bendings of the truth (like the questions' "Unsurpassed quality and variety" or Detroit Jesuit being the "No. 1 Academic Team in the Nation"), but especially o...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sat Jun 23, 2012 1:58 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NAC
Replies: 189
Views: 70711

Re: 2012 NAC

Oh, I guess I should mention that Irvington was not made "small school champion" because we forgot to explicitly tell Chip that we were a small school when registering. Though he now knows that we are a small school Irvington will not get recognized for the award (despite being the most su...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Sat Jun 16, 2012 10:22 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

I saw in the opening post that you mentioned side events as a possibility. If there is ample interest among people who did not play it already I could probably run a side event on the YMIR mythology set, as I noticed that it doesn't seem like anyone else has suggested anything else.
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Fri Jun 15, 2012 4:39 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NAC
Replies: 189
Views: 70711

Re: 2012 NAC

Out of sheer curiosity, when/why did people start leaving the NAC? Did :chip: questions start getting bad. I guess what I'm trying to ask is why did people go to pyramidal and leave the NAC. Though I did not experience this transition, I can say from experience of reading Chip packets from every ye...
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Fri Jun 15, 2012 12:30 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011-12 NAQT IS sets: question-specific discussion
Replies: 32
Views: 14161

Re: 2011-12 NAQT IS sets: question-specific discussion

Could you post the "pain" (French bread) tossup from IS 113 116? I remember it being hard to distinguish the answer as not just being "bread"
by Scaled Flowerpiercer
Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:46 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NAC
Replies: 189
Views: 70711

Re: 2012 NAC

Here are some "favorites" I recorded soon after the tournament: These questions are disgusting and insult all the teams who wasted their money on the N[A]C. I can't see how school administrators and coaches condone competition on these at any level. Uh, I think you mean they're "pyra...