Search found 125 matches

by aseem.keyal
Sat Aug 12, 2023 9:07 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 Chicago Open - General Discussion and Thanks
Replies: 41
Views: 19530

Re: 2023 Chicago Open - General Discussion and Thanks

3) The Visual Fine Arts tossups also felt a little unbalanced in topic selection. I think the set would've benefited from more tossups along the lines of the ones on Ottoman sultans, The Jewish Bride , and Spain. To be fair, there was many more of these questions in the bonuses. Overall though, I t...
by aseem.keyal
Sat Aug 12, 2023 7:12 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 Chicago Open - General Discussion and Thanks
Replies: 41
Views: 19530

Re: 2023 Chicago Open - General Discussion and Thanks

Thanks to the editors, writers, directors, and staffers for a very enjoyable CO! Having been in a similar situation about six years ago, I especially appreciate the willingness of a team of newer editors to take the plunge and produce such a difficult event on a compressed timeframe. Things I really...
by aseem.keyal
Mon Apr 10, 2023 6:43 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 BHSU: Specific question discussion
Replies: 59
Views: 35956

Re: 2023 BHSU: Specific question discussion

First, can I see the current text of the New York City painting tossup from packet 1? It struck me as extremely hard to get a grip on what the clues were pointing to when I played, and I was able to identify some potential reasons why by looking at the version of the question in the previously-uplo...
by aseem.keyal
Mon Mar 20, 2023 2:22 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 BHSU: Specific question discussion
Replies: 59
Views: 35956

Re: 2023 BHSU: Specific question discussion

I enjoyed most of the questions in this question set, but I was a bit annoyed by the question on the Farm Security Administration. Both me and another player in the room could recognize the photographs in the second half of the tossup but weren't able to connect them to what we both felt was a kind...
by aseem.keyal
Thu Mar 16, 2023 3:33 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 BHSU: Specific question discussion
Replies: 59
Views: 35956

Re: 2023 BHSU: Specific question discussion

Strictly speaking, the Khmer empire was not confined to present-day Cambodia and included substantial parts of present-day Thailand, as well as parts of today's Myanmar and Vietnam, at its height. I see what the writer is trying to get at but unless we can show that the oldest prang are from sites ...
by aseem.keyal
Tue Mar 14, 2023 3:28 am
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 BHSU: Specific question discussion
Replies: 59
Views: 35956

Re: 2023 BHSU: Specific question discussion

Could I see the text of the Cambodia question? I buzzed in at what I recall was a line that went "later empires used the prangs..." and I buzzed and said Thailand and felt sorta hosed, since I'm not sure how, without waiting for the rest of the clue, I could have at that point chosen betw...
by aseem.keyal
Mon Aug 22, 2022 12:22 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Eminent Victorians (a 19th century side event)
Replies: 12
Views: 4639

Re: Eminent Victorians (a 19th century side event)

I had a blast playing this set at the Stanford side event weekend! There were a ton of great ideas in each packet and I'd highly recommend people try to play this event if they're able to.
by aseem.keyal
Mon Feb 21, 2022 6:13 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2022 WORKSHOP: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 19
Views: 4635

Re: 2022 WORKSHOP: Specific Question Discussion

-I know "Cobb-Douglas" is marked as medium and "substitute" is marked as easy, but it played the opposite way for my team. I don't know much about econ, but I think my talented teammates should be converting social science easy parts (and thus, substitute is probably too hard fo...
by aseem.keyal
Fri Feb 11, 2022 6:57 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: aseemsDB: Not just another database (hopefully)
Replies: 13
Views: 15126

Re: aseemsDB: Not just another database (hopefully)

aseemsDB now has a dark mode and a multiselect feature for tournament names.
by aseem.keyal
Sat Nov 06, 2021 3:42 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl General Discussion
Replies: 12
Views: 1571

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl General Discussion

EDIT: There seemed to be a lot of film. As I'm neither a film nor a trash player by any stretch of the imagination, I'm not sure how much was art film and how much was "trash" film, but it seemed like it was present far more than would be expected, at the expense of the other subcategorie...
by aseem.keyal
Tue Nov 02, 2021 2:02 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 41
Views: 4844

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion

I remember being confused at the "Thor's children" bonus part and missing it, due to the indicator being (as I recall) "these people" (which I took to mean a large/general group). Would I be able to see that bonus? Though nothing is known about one of these people named Modi, hi...
by aseem.keyal
Mon Nov 01, 2021 4:13 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 41
Views: 4844

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion

Also, could I see the tossup on Cormac McCarthy? Just want to make sure there weren't any early Blood Meridian clues I didn't recognize--if so, it does not bode well for my upcoming English exam. Thanks! In a novel by this author, a 13-year-old character who claims to be deaf in one ear after being...
by aseem.keyal
Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:47 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl Errata
Replies: 4
Views: 379

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl Errata

From moderating yesterday: Packet 1 Edward Said comes up twice Instruction says to accept procession, and also to prompt on it Packet 2 Steven Spielberg’s name is misspelled Round 4 Hegel occurs twice Jonathan occurs twice For the Cello Sonata bonus part, saying “all” rather than “both” is misleadi...
by aseem.keyal
Thu Oct 28, 2021 3:04 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 41
Views: 4844

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion

Can I see the poetry tossup on Jews? The lead-in on Charles Reznikoff felt to me like real neg-bait. I buzzed with something like _people in court_ and got negged. I guess you were referencing his work Holocaust ? But, the description sounded just like his much more famous work Testimony . And, in ...
by aseem.keyal
Wed Oct 27, 2021 2:01 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 41
Views: 4844

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion

I really enjoyed this set! Can I see the tossup on probability density functions? 16. Approaches to estimating this function often seek to minimize the mean integrated squared error. The Parzen–Rosenblatt window is a common non-parametric method used to estimate this function using kernels. This fu...
by aseem.keyal
Sun Oct 24, 2021 12:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl General Discussion
Replies: 12
Views: 1571

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl General Discussion

I want to thank the Penn club for bringing me on to edit the visual art for this year's Penn Bowl (besides the film, which was edited by Taylor Harvey). Like in 2019, my goal first and foremost was to write questions that players would find interesting. This resulted in some ideas that could not be ...
by aseem.keyal
Mon Oct 11, 2021 2:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ARCADIA: Announcement
Replies: 10
Views: 10580

Re: ARCADIA: Announcement

Having played the playtesting mirror, I would highly recommend this set, it’s one of the better regular difficulty sets I’ve seen in a while. Co-sign. In the categories I pay attention to (visual fine arts, science, etc.), the questions balanced both novelty and accessibility in a way that made the...
by aseem.keyal
Sat Aug 14, 2021 8:10 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: aseemsDB: Not just another database (hopefully)
Replies: 13
Views: 15126

Re: aseemsDB: Not just another database (hopefully)

Apologies for being late on set uploads for the last couple weeks, all requested sets have been uploaded now.
by aseem.keyal
Mon Feb 22, 2021 4:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: PAveMEnT: A Remote Cooperation Audio Tournament (Winter 2020)
Replies: 31
Views: 12241

Re: PAveMEnT: A Remote Cooperation Audio Tournament (Winter 2020)

I've been really enjoying both the event and using Qblitz so far! However, I think there could be some improvements to the "Review Questions" page: Display the question prompt when showing each question The ability to jump to a particular question number (rather then clicking forward multi...
by aseem.keyal
Wed Feb 17, 2021 5:04 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: aseemsDB: Not just another database (hopefully)
Replies: 13
Views: 15126

Re: aseemsDB: Not just another database (hopefully)

Looks like people are using the set request form, which is great! I've added all the requested sets so far to the database. Here's a list of requested and added sets that I will update until I add a feature on aseemsDB for this.
by aseem.keyal
Fri Dec 18, 2020 9:30 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: aseemsDB: Not just another database (hopefully)
Replies: 13
Views: 15126

Re: aseemsDB: Not just another database (hopefully)

aseemsDB has been completely rewritten and several new features have been added: 1. Search results now automatically scroll to the PDF page containing the query when the packet is opened 2. Snippets now have case and punctuation (this didn't require any work and came along with an update to recoll) ...
by aseem.keyal
Tue Dec 08, 2020 12:49 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: aseemsDB: Not just another database (hopefully)
Replies: 13
Views: 15126

Re: aseemsDB: Not just another database (hopefully)

I've uploaded a video going over how to write advanced queries for aseemsDB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WYlzOyLaVo. The slides (which have examples) are linked in the video description.
by aseem.keyal
Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:20 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Fall Open Online Mirror (Dec. 7, 2019)
Replies: 4
Views: 3559

Re: Fall Open Online Mirror (Dec. 7, 2019)

Against all odds (and the worst Discord outage in a while), this tournament happened. Coates et al. cleared the field going 9-0. I apologize profusely for all the delays and the haphazard transition to Skype when Discord stopped working. To make up for this, I'll be running a reading of a couple mor...
by aseem.keyal
Tue Dec 03, 2019 8:25 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Fall Open Online Mirror (Dec. 7, 2019)
Replies: 4
Views: 3559

Re: Fall Open Online Mirror (Dec. 7, 2019)

I've capped the field to 4 teams, free agents please form teams or add yourselves to the existing 2 teams. I've also added a team email field, please add your team's contact email to the sheet.
by aseem.keyal
Sat Nov 30, 2019 3:25 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl Detailed Stats
Replies: 3
Views: 2151

Re: 2019 Penn Bowl Detailed Stats

11/30 detailed stats have been added, but do not share these publicly.
by aseem.keyal
Thu Nov 28, 2019 8:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)
Replies: 7
Views: 4316

Re: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)

A logistics email was just sent out to the team contacts listed on the spreadsheet, and should be forwarded by the team contact to each teammate. If you do not get the logistics email in a timely manner, feel free to PM me.
by aseem.keyal
Wed Nov 27, 2019 4:45 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)
Replies: 7
Views: 4316

Re: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)

To accommodate all the free agents, I've decided to allow teams of 5. Please add yourselves to teams before Friday, when I will assign the remaining free agents to teams myself.
by aseem.keyal
Wed Nov 27, 2019 3:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Fall Open Online Mirror (Dec. 7, 2019)
Replies: 4
Views: 3559

Re: Fall Open Online Mirror (Dec. 7, 2019)

If this mirror doesn't get enough signups for 4 teams by the middle of next week, I plan to cancel this mirror. If those who intended to play are interested in hearing some packets, I can host an informal reading session of 3 to 4 packets on the Discord at the same date/time the tournament was going...
by aseem.keyal
Mon Nov 25, 2019 3:06 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)
Replies: 7
Views: 4316

Re: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)

Yes, payment information will be in the logistics email (which I'm planning on sending on Thursday), and was also included in my reply to your email last week. If you cannot use Venmo or need payment to be taken care of earlier due to reimbursement reasons, please let me know and we can figure out h...
by aseem.keyal
Mon Nov 25, 2019 2:45 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 66
Views: 14356

Re: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion

The only question that really bothered me on a factual basis was, funnily enough, the very first bonus of the tournament, on 'books artlovers might use'. While I actively like the idea - asking about how people actually engage with art like this is really cool - the first part perhaps lost somethin...
by aseem.keyal
Sat Nov 23, 2019 2:37 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Detailed Stats
Replies: 10
Views: 2680

Re: 2019 Fall Open Detailed Stats

The links for detailed stats for 11/23 mirrors have been posted. Feel free to follow along throughout the day, but do not share these stats with people who haven't played the tournament yet.
by aseem.keyal
Fri Nov 22, 2019 10:54 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)
Replies: 7
Views: 4316

Re: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)

I've added a column for a team contact email, please add one for your team when you have a chance.

EDIT: We are still looking for 1-2 more readers who are willing to read the morning half of the tournament, please PM me if interested!
by aseem.keyal
Thu Nov 21, 2019 5:25 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)
Replies: 7
Views: 4316

Re: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)

As this tournament approaches, I've capped the field to 10 teams for now, which should cover the current 8 + the remaining free agents. Please form teams by next Monday. I am looking for mods, who will be paid $40 dollars to read and scorekeep ~10 rounds, or alternatively pairs of readers and scorek...
by aseem.keyal
Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:16 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Detailed Stats
Replies: 10
Views: 2680

Re: 2019 Fall Open Detailed Stats

Courtesy of Ophir, a combined sheet for the 11/16 mirrors has been posted.
by aseem.keyal
Tue Nov 19, 2019 6:41 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 66
Views: 14356

Re: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion

There was a similar problem with the hard part on Mankiw in a Packet 5 bonus; sure, he writes a ton of highly-cited papers worth knowing, and it seemed the question wanted you to specifically know his thought on the issue at hand, but you could have gotten this hard part from knowing “he’s somewhat...
by aseem.keyal
Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:29 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Detailed Stats
Replies: 10
Views: 2680

Re: 2019 Fall Open Detailed Stats

The links for detailed stats for 11/16 mirrors have been posted. Feel free to follow along throughout the day, but do not share these stats with people who haven't played the tournament yet.
by aseem.keyal
Sat Nov 09, 2019 10:35 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Fall Open at NYU (Nov. 9, 2019)
Replies: 28
Views: 14421

Re: Fall Open at NYU (Nov. 9, 2019)

Thanks for playing, a discussion forum with detailed stats and web packets is now available!
by aseem.keyal
Sat Nov 09, 2019 10:33 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Errata
Replies: 14
Views: 2351

2019 Fall Open Errata

Please post any errors you noticed in this thread.
by aseem.keyal
Sat Nov 09, 2019 10:32 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open General Discussion
Replies: 20
Views: 2632

2019 Fall Open General Discussion

Thanks to everyone for playing the set! Here's a brief breakdown of who worked on what: Literature: Itamar, with contributions from Nick and Jason History: Kenji, Jason, and Itamar, with contributions from me Science: Jonathen and me, with contributions from Samir, Itamar, Nick, and Eddie Fine Arts:...
by aseem.keyal
Sat Nov 09, 2019 10:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 66
Views: 14356

2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion

Please post any thoughts about specific questions in this thread.
by aseem.keyal
Sat Nov 09, 2019 10:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Detailed Stats
Replies: 10
Views: 2680

2019 Fall Open Detailed Stats

Here are links to the detailed stats of every mirror that chose to use them. Ophir has asked me to mention he was not involved with this set outside of generating the scoresheets and helping me in generating and hosting the web packets. I will add links here to each additional mirror as they use the...
by aseem.keyal
Sat Nov 09, 2019 10:16 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Web Packets
Replies: 1
Views: 1034

2019 Fall Open Web Packets

Here are the web packets for Fall Open 2019, please do not share with those who have yet to play the set: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~akeyal/tournaments/fo/packets/ Master username: architecture Master password: circumstance List of packets and passwords: continuation Packet 1 refrigerator Packet ...
by aseem.keyal
Sun Nov 03, 2019 2:43 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)
Replies: 7
Views: 4316

Penn Bowl 2019 Online Mirror (Nov. 30, 2019)

We're pleased to announce the online mirror of Penn Bowl on November 30, 2019. I've made a team formation spreadsheet if you're looking to assemble a team. After deciding on a team, please send me a registration email that includes your roster to aseem.keyal at gmail dot com. The tournament will cos...
by aseem.keyal
Thu Oct 31, 2019 9:05 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - Specific Question Discussion Thread
Replies: 60
Views: 10258

Re: Specific Question Discussion Thread

While I said I liked most of the painting, I didn't understand why the 16th century tossup wasn't just a tossup on Mannerism, and while I realize negging with 17th century is stupid and makes my knowledge seem "fake" or whatever, I knew the paintings were Mannerist. Thanks for the kind wo...
by aseem.keyal
Thu Oct 31, 2019 7:24 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Fall Open Online Mirror (Dec. 7, 2019)
Replies: 4
Views: 3559

Fall Open Online Mirror (Dec. 7, 2019)

We're pleased to announce the online mirror of Fall Open on December 7, 2019. I've made a team formation spreadsheet if you're looking to assemble a team. After deciding on a team, please send me a registration email that includes your roster to aseem.keyal at gmail dot com. The tournament will cost...
by aseem.keyal
Thu Oct 31, 2019 10:39 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - Specific Question Discussion Thread
Replies: 60
Views: 10258

Re: Specific Question Discussion Thread

I enjoyed this tournament a lot and might get chance to feedback on a few more questions later, but I did want to point out that the leadin to the Picasso tossup made it abundantly clear that the answer was a) a notably sexist artist who b) painted a lot of warped faces - this seemed to turn the re...
by aseem.keyal
Wed Oct 23, 2019 9:33 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - General Discussion Thread
Replies: 26
Views: 3626

Re: General Discussion Thread

This set had a lot of interesting questions that I enjoyed reading. I was bothered, however, by a number of long, complex sentences that were difficult to process. Many of these sentences parse correctly if you have the time to sit down and read them on paper or screen, as I imagine the editors of ...
by aseem.keyal
Mon Oct 21, 2019 5:20 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - Specific Question Discussion Thread
Replies: 60
Views: 10258

Re: Specific Question Discussion Thread

The question on Ovid in painting was probably my favorite regular-difficulty art tossup ever, as an excellent way to draw connections between a bunch of important Italian Renaissance paintings that would be challenging to ask on their own and test knowledge of the mythological sources that inspired...
by aseem.keyal
Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - General Discussion Thread
Replies: 26
Views: 3626

Re: General Discussion Thread

I want to thank Nitin and the Penn team for bringing me on to edit Painting for this set, especially after some dumb comments I made in last year's discussion forum. My general approach for the painting was: a little less visual description clues, a little more contextual clues, and a decreased emph...