Search found 654 matches

by Muriel Axon
Tue Apr 25, 2023 12:31 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 ACF Nationals Favorite Buzzes and Moments
Replies: 8
Views: 4223

Re: 2023 ACF Nationals Favorite Buzzes and Moments

3. I also enjoyed the bio, and I particularly had a lot of fun answering the bonus on Intestinal crypts and paneth cells! It was also fun to hear three questions that clued Duke biologists (Kathleen Pryer, Anne Yoder, and Emily Bernhardt–– I hear that Shan wrote all three questions), even if I coul...
by Muriel Axon
Thu Mar 09, 2023 2:05 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: How do we use "Description Acceptable"?
Replies: 8
Views: 2719

Re: How do we use "Description Acceptable"?

I remember an instruction from one of the Scattergories that said something like "Description acceptable, and indeed indispensable!" You can perhaps only say it in those words at a tournament with that sort of whimsy, but I could imagine a more formal phrasing being useful at times.
by Muriel Axon
Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:49 am
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: ACF Nationals 2022 Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 30
Views: 11975

Re: ACF Nationals 2022 Thanks and General Discussion

I encountered most of this set as a moderator rather than a playtester, so my perspective is more about the questions' aesthetics than how well they played. From that perspective, I thought this set was consistently among the most clever and interesting I've seen. Over the past few years, I've enjoy...
by Muriel Axon
Tue Apr 12, 2022 7:39 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: Where Are You Going Next Year? (Collegiate 2022)
Replies: 25
Views: 13528

Re: Where Are You Going Next Year? (Collegiate 2022)

I will be moving from my current postdoc at Université de Montréal to another postdoc at (confusingly) Université du Québec à Montréal. I'll probably continue my current practice: not really checking the forums, but staffing, writing, or playing on occasion when someone DMs me to ask.
by Muriel Axon
Fri Nov 19, 2021 12:42 am
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2021 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 17
Views: 6295

Re: 2021 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion

Thanks for your comments on the religion! The Jain monks tossup does not have any clues that apply to the laity. The Digambara and Svetambara schools are by and large distinguished by monastic practices, including renunciation of clothing, which is only performed by Digambara monks. Using a broom t...
by Muriel Axon
Sat Nov 06, 2021 4:03 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 41
Views: 4844

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion

Amusingly, I buzzed on the "stratified lakes" tossup with "meromictic" right before the tossup said "which are called meromictic" and was negged for that. This was at least partly my fault for ever thinking that that would be a primary answerline, but that should proba...
by Muriel Axon
Sun Oct 31, 2021 7:38 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 41
Views: 4844

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion

Could I see the bonus on markdown/documentation/Python? I thought it was very easy but would like to see it before I make any other critiques, since my team wasn't the one that received it. This language uses a triple backtick to create a code block. For 10 points each: [10h] Name this lightweight ...
by Muriel Axon
Wed Oct 27, 2021 1:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 41
Views: 4844

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion

I've been going through and fixing some of my questions based on data from this mirror, but I particularly wanted to apologize for the question on 'holomorphic functions,' which in retrospect contained blatant negbait for answers like 'conservative' or 'path-independent.' I've fixed it for future mi...
by Muriel Axon
Sun Oct 24, 2021 3:51 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl General Discussion
Replies: 12
Views: 1571

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl General Discussion

Two minor complaints: As far as I could tell, the only statistics content in this set was two bonuses on experimental design. The biology seemed heavily skewed towards animal science. Thanks for your feedback! I allocated 1/1 to probability and statistics: there was Ayush's tossup on probability de...
by Muriel Axon
Wed Sep 01, 2021 10:10 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: PSA: Lotka-Volterra is two separate things
Replies: 0
Views: 2371

PSA: Lotka-Volterra is two separate things

I've had the urge to write this post for years, and since we now have a 20-post thread on the Mali Empire, I finally feel like I have license to do so. The "Lotka-Volterra model" refers to two separate models of separate kinds of ecological interactions with no deep relationship between th...
by Muriel Axon
Fri Aug 13, 2021 1:35 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Thoughts on Question Writing Theory for Harder Tournaments
Replies: 4
Views: 3146

Re: Thoughts on Question Writing Theory for Harder Tournaments

The purpose and business of professional academia is far different than the business of quizbowl. The academic (let's say, the student of Ancient Rome) will likely spend most of her time working on very discrete and very specific material...if they're lucky, they may analyze some new coins that con...
by Muriel Axon
Wed Feb 03, 2021 2:08 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Regionals - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 39
Views: 15744

Re: 2021 ACF Regionals - Specific Question Discussion

hasnak wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 1:55 pmCarleton College A’s carnivorous plants tossup: a personal favorite; thanks for giving me the chance to take a deep dive into the biophysics of pitcher plants and sundews.
I thought this question was excellent.
by Muriel Axon
Wed Jul 15, 2020 4:53 pm
Forum: Community Discussion
Topic: Resisting one-upmanship
Replies: 3
Views: 6120

Resisting one-upmanship

I don't quite know how to articulate this, but: As a community, I think we could be a lot better at resisting the temptation to one-up each other with obscure references in casual conversation. My impression is that, at least if you're clever and funny enough about it (rather than just annoying), th...
by Muriel Axon
Fri Apr 10, 2020 10:40 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: This Time, A Stern Warning
Replies: 179
Views: 146923

Re: This Time, A Stern Warning

Count me as a skeptic that statistics alone could ever show that a major, elite (sufficiently savvy) player has cheated -- or even a pattern of unusual buzzes. (I mean, Chris is known for his ability to steal questions in anyone's category.) With that said: Second, statistical analysis is dangerous ...
by Muriel Axon
Sat Mar 28, 2020 7:38 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Which Online School are you Going to Next Year? (Collegiate 2020)
Replies: 21
Views: 11657

Re: Which Online School are you Going to Next Year? (Collegiate 2020)

After I finish my PhD in (fingers crossed) July, I'll be moving to Montreal to take up a postdoc at UdeM, based at the Montreal Botanical Garden. I can staff tournaments in Montreal, if there are any, or perhaps as far as Ottawa. But I will never call packets "[the thing Canadians call them].&q...
by Muriel Axon
Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:31 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: ACF Statistics Database
Replies: 4
Views: 7657

Re: ACF Statistics Database

This is a fun website, Ryan! Thanks for putting it together.
by Muriel Axon
Mon Nov 04, 2019 12:00 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall 2019 Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 15
Views: 4673

Re: ACF Fall 2019 Thanks and General Discussion

My first impressed was that this set was better polished, better controlled for difficulty, and had fewer clumsy tossups that most sets of the same difficulty. Thanks to the set editors and producers for your hard work!
by Muriel Axon
Sun Nov 03, 2019 11:56 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall 2019 Specific Question Discussion and Errata
Replies: 51
Views: 14551

Re: ACF Fall 2019 Specific Question Discussion and Errata

There were like 3 questions between tossups and bonus parts to which the answer was "water". I think two of them were in the same round, too. I don't remember what these questions were, but this is not necessarily a problem! (Here, I deleted the extremely banal sentence "Water is ubi...
by Muriel Axon
Sun Nov 03, 2019 11:52 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 ACF Fall at Minnesota (11/02/2019)
Replies: 5
Views: 2979

Re: 2019 ACF Fall at Minnesota (11/02/2019)

It was wonderful to see your NMU teams, Dr. Joy, and great to see a lot of the local liberal arts colleges come, too! Your comment about the location is noted -- I also like having tournaments on East Bank!
by Muriel Axon
Sun Nov 03, 2019 11:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall 2019 Specific Question Discussion and Errata
Replies: 51
Views: 14551

Re: ACF Fall 2019 Specific Question Discussion and Errata

The question on St. Thomas Aquinas should at least prompt on Thomas, for the same reason that questions on Leonardo da Vinci tend to accept Leonardo. Not a gameplay issue, but alleles don't have to become fixed through drift -- selection is often also important. Also not a gameplay issue, but I don'...
by Muriel Axon
Mon Oct 28, 2019 2:53 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 EFT - Specific Question Discussion and Errata
Replies: 56
Views: 7460

Re: Specific Question Discussion and Errata

In the bonus on sexual obsession in film, the plot of Nymphomaniac is described, but a parenthetical in the answer line says that plot belongs to Melancholia.
by Muriel Axon
Tue Oct 22, 2019 9:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - Specific Question Discussion Thread
Replies: 60
Views: 10258

Re: Specific Question Discussion Thread

I'm a bit confused by the instruction "do not accept UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles because hobbyist drones are not necessarily autonomous" in the question on quadcopters or drones. I've always taken the term "unmanned" to refer to the fact that no person is sitting on top of t...
by Muriel Axon
Tue Oct 22, 2019 2:49 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: No prizes is better than insulting prizes
Replies: 22
Views: 11010

Re: No prizes is better than insulting prizes

I have some sympathy for Jacob's post. I think it's true that TDs shouldn't provide book prizes that are falling apart or obsolete, and that they should ideally provide a varied selection of books. On the other hand (and I don't think this was a claim Jacob was making), individual players can't nece...
by Muriel Axon
Sun Oct 20, 2019 8:28 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - Specific Question Discussion Thread
Replies: 60
Views: 10258

Re: Specific Question Discussion Thread

Name this contrapuntal form in which each voice states a subject in turn. J.S. Bach paired a spooky toccata in D minor with a piece in this form. Whoops! Shows how well we listened. This is, of course, fine. I felt the bonus that went Young's modulus/Poisson's ratio/engineering strain had 2 easy pa...
by Muriel Axon
Sun Oct 20, 2019 6:56 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - Specific Question Discussion Thread
Replies: 60
Views: 10258

Re: Specific Question Discussion Thread

Two small notes: It sounded like the bonus on Henry James referred to Peter Quint as Peter Quilp. Could I see the bonus part on "fugues"? I was concerned that it didn't disambiguate them very well from canons (except for the Hovhaness part, which I didn't know). A bonus small note (EDIT): ...
by Muriel Axon
Sun Oct 06, 2019 4:05 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: EFT @ UMN (10/05/19)
Replies: 2
Views: 3689

Re: EFT @ UMN (10/05/19)

Minnesota Periwinkle (Tora Husar, Davis Everson-Rose, Lucas Pham, Alex Miles, and Hayden Binger) defeated Carleton A (Jakob Boeye, Ben Koppel, Peter Blanchfield, and Mitchell Anderson) in a one-game final (330-200). Congratulations to both teams, and thank you to everyone who came! I'm sending Brian...
by Muriel Axon
Wed Aug 21, 2019 6:15 pm
Forum: Community Discussion
Topic: Climate change and quizbowl
Replies: 29
Views: 26526

Re: Climate change and quizbowl

I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation for the amount of CO2 released due to printing packets at a very large tournament (think HSNCT). Here, I assume that an HSNCT-sized tournament would use ~31000 sheets of 80 gsm paper. I used two separate life-cycle assessments of paper product emissions -- on...
by Muriel Axon
Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:47 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Scattergories 3 discussion
Replies: 14
Views: 1082

Re: 2019 Scattergories 3 discussion

Could I see the question on lointain? I buzzed in with tout, so I just want to see whether that was an outright stupid decision or not. (In my defense, it is an adjective, and Will has written a common-link on the word 'all' before...)
by Muriel Axon
Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:44 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO 2019 Discussion
Replies: 48
Views: 31822

Re: CO 2019 Discussion

What to do: The Shapley-Curtis debate bonus. This was a major turning point in the history of modern cosmology. The correct side in this debate was actually right and it wasn't a pair of crackpots talking about two equally stupid theories . Both sides presented (at the time) quality scientific evid...
by Muriel Axon
Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Scattergories 3 discussion
Replies: 14
Views: 1082

Re: 2019 Scattergories 3 discussion

This tournament was delightful. I echo all the praise others left before in this thread. As Andrew wrote, the best thing about Scattergories is the feeling that the questions were written just out of sheer joy (which, as we learned, is a liquid). some of the more complex answer lines seemed to be ha...
by Muriel Axon
Thu May 02, 2019 2:20 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Why don't we have 1/1 math?
Replies: 59
Views: 30512

Re: Why don't we have 1/1 math?

frasier wrote: Thu May 02, 2019 2:17 pmthings which virtually no one uses or studies like earth science
wait, what?
by Muriel Axon
Mon Apr 29, 2019 7:18 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Why don't we have 1/1 math?
Replies: 59
Views: 30512

Re: Why don't we have 1/1 math?

Based on how one chooses to weigh criteria like 'importance in the real world / workplace,' 'number of majors,' 'interest to intellectually curious people,' etc., one could come up with a good argument for a lot of distributions that look nothing like each other, some of which are obviously undesira...
by Muriel Axon
Sun Apr 21, 2019 2:49 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Player Poll 2019
Replies: 92
Views: 63826

Re: Player Poll 2019

Geoffrey nearly out-powered me at ICT, tied Will Nediger and Mike Bentley for most powers at PIANO, and often beats grad students in the sciences (myself included) to questions in their own (broadly-defined) field. The difference between Minnesota coming 15th/8th at ICT/Nats last year and 4th/3rd th...
by Muriel Axon
Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:33 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2019 discussion: Question Content
Replies: 90
Views: 46667

Re: ACF Nationals 2019 discussion: Question Content

Comments on those three questions: Eyes -- this one is fine! The complaint I thought I had -- dropping scientific names absent context, in an obfuscatory way -- was avoided in the way I'd recommend -- which is to say, by providing contextualizing information about life history or (in this case) broa...
by Muriel Axon
Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2019 discussion: Question Content
Replies: 90
Views: 46667

Re: ACF Nationals 2019 discussion: Question Content

One thing that I appreciate about this set was that the questions were not just good on average, but also uniformly: There weren't very many duds. (One could compare this to PIANO, which -- as one of the writers -- I thought was of similarly high caliber overall, but had a handful of questions that ...
by Muriel Axon
Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:30 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2019 discussion: Question Content
Replies: 90
Views: 46667

Re: ACF Nationals 2019 discussion

The question of identifiers aside, I think the music in this tournament was quite good and accessible. So-called "score clues" are a common target for critics of music questions, but I felt like at least a fair number of the clues based on score instructions or note spellings were well-cho...
by Muriel Axon
Mon Apr 01, 2019 3:42 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30
Replies: 27
Views: 12598

Re: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30

Since I was so rudely ratted out, I put the stats back up. Congratulations to hamburger university lab school (Will Nediger, Auroni Gupta, Dylan Minarik, Andrew Wang), who cleared the field! We ran Eyes X, Guerrilla History, ACRONYM, and SHAWARMA II -- big thanks to the editors/writers of those tour...
by Muriel Axon
Mon Apr 01, 2019 3:28 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30
Replies: 27
Views: 12598

Re: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30

I regret to say that all scoresheets were lost, so no stats from the main event will be available. Whoops!
by Muriel Axon
Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:30 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 110
Views: 292280

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion

I intended the question on Aristotelian substances to be a deep-canon tossup, like one sees in literature questions that touch on central themes in Paradise Lost or Moby-Dick. I understand why one might see it as tough -- despite being the central concept in the metaphysics of one of the top three m...
by Muriel Axon
Thu Mar 21, 2019 2:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30
Replies: 27
Views: 12598

Re: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30

Our plan is to do what Mike says in his post. PIANO + Eyes will be a long day, but we'll have four efficient readers for the main event. We weren't able to negotiate a discount for Saturday rooms. (Brian checked our records, and it looks like last year, we just took a financial loss when booking bot...
by Muriel Axon
Sat Mar 16, 2019 4:57 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30
Replies: 27
Views: 12598

Re: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30

Here's the situation as it stands now: Erik would really like an ACRONYM mirror to happen so that people who play here can staff the bigger, more important mirror at HSNCT. To that end, he's willing to subsidize the mirror somewhat to make sure that it happens. For that reason, I think we can keep r...
by Muriel Axon
Wed Mar 13, 2019 12:26 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 110
Views: 292280

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion

Re: Neil's comments: I can understand the concern about the thermohaline circulation toss-up -- in fact, I thought for a while before deciding to keep the words "Sverdrup balance" in there. The most notable feature of the Stommel-Arons model is that it shows localized sources (sinking wate...
by Muriel Axon
Mon Mar 11, 2019 4:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 110
Views: 292280

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion

This stage occurs in steps 7-9 in the “normal table” developed by Nieuwkoop [NYOO-koop] and Faber. Transcription factors like Zelda accumulate during this stage in Drosophila to enable a transition in it governed by the ratio of nucleus to cytoplasm. Whitefish at this stage are frequently used in cl...
by Muriel Axon
Mon Mar 11, 2019 11:15 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Errata
Replies: 35
Views: 3819

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Errata

There was a bonus part with the answerline “yajna” that I answered with “homa,” which I think is roughly equivalent but was not in the answerline. I can see why you would say that. I had the impression that there was a stricter distinction, with yajna as a much more formal and public ritual. I'll r...
by Muriel Axon
Mon Mar 11, 2019 12:07 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 110
Views: 292280

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion

I was also somewhat annoyed that I couldn't have been prompted (or anti-prompted) when I buzzed with "estimating supply and demand" for the demand estimation tossup. I realize that all the substantive clues had to do with demand, but instrumental variables are obviously also used in the s...
by Muriel Axon
Sun Mar 10, 2019 11:12 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 110
Views: 292280

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion

A book by Michel de Vroey contrasts this title economist’s “Walrasian” style to the “Marshallian” style of Keynes. This economist argued that the “operational job” of economists was writing FORTRAN programs that take economic policies as inputs and then output time series. This economist began resea...
by Muriel Axon
Sun Mar 10, 2019 10:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 110
Views: 292280

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion

Can I see the East Germany TU? I felt like the coffee crisis stuff was a bit early, as it came up in this past year's NASAT. Susanne Lohmann studied the role of informational cascades in a series of protests in this country. This country started to invest in Vietnamese and Laotian coffee production...
by Muriel Axon
Sun Mar 10, 2019 9:18 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 50
Views: 9790

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Thanks and General Discussion

There were 3/3 ecology questions in the set (the tossups were primary productivity, population size, fisheries), which I do strongly believe is the appropriate amount of a biology distribution to dedicate to a subject that generally receives short shrift in quizbowl but is extremely commonly studie...
by Muriel Axon
Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:30 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30
Replies: 27
Views: 12598

Re: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30

Mike, you're right that I should have been more prompt in figuring this out -- basically, as someone who doesn't check the forums too often, I wasn't aware that these events existed until Tejas sent me messages about them. I also took too long to publicly announce that Sunday events were a possibili...
by Muriel Axon
Fri Mar 08, 2019 3:44 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30
Replies: 27
Views: 12598

Re: PIANO / Minnesota Open @ UMN, 3/30

Some of you have asked about side events. Thanks for your patience -- I'm sorry I didn't get back to you earlier! Here are my thoughts. There is some interest in the following events: ACRONYM, SHAWARMA, and Guerrilla History. We are considering hosting these on Sunday. (Eyes would be on Saturday at ...