Search found 201 matches
- Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:12 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Why aren't NAQT bonuses different from all other bonuses?
- Replies: 13
- Views: 1480
Re: Why aren't NAQT bonuses different from all other bonuses?
The current approach is to say that bonus prompts are meant to be heard in their entirety; if a team interrupts a prompt and says something that fits the clues they've heard but not some later clues, that's the penalty (sometimes) paid for the risky strategy of interrupting bonuses. I don't think t...
- Tue Feb 12, 2013 1:25 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: NAQT writer feedback thread
- Replies: 34
- Views: 7992
Re: NAQT writer feedback thread
(13) Chester A. Arthur Loved it. Arthur doesn't get enough respect, in quizbowl or in wider culture. Bonus (9) - weak nuclear force, Steven Weinberg, Z-zero boson Because of timing issues (we were I think about 40 points behind Georgia Tech with seconds left on the clock, and we needed another toss...
- Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:59 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: DI specific question discussion
- Replies: 40
- Views: 9262
Re: DI specific question discussion
So on the Bolzano-Weierstrass clue, it's just kind of begging you to neg with "compactness" -- which is what I did. I get that compactness is closely related to convergence, and B-W is often formulated as being about bounded sequences rather than bounded spaces, but if you've never heard o...
- Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:49 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: DI specific question discussion
- Replies: 40
- Views: 9262
Re: DI specific question discussion
Can someone post the answer lines to all of the math questions and what packet they appeared in? I think I had some problems with the math in this set, but I'd like to check my memories of it before I say anything. Tossups: curvature (2), Kronecker (3), quaternions (4), Poincaré (8), Niels Abel (12...
- Mon Feb 11, 2013 7:15 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Region 5 SCT - Feb. 9 at UT - Knoxville
- Replies: 66
- Views: 21042
Re: Region 5 SCT - Feb. 9 at UT - Knoxville
In the grand tradition of Aaron Swartz and Julian Assange (but for way more trivial stuff), I am hereby liberating (some of) the stats for this tournament from the Jeff Hoppes and Steve Burrell-imposed prison of secrecy. DII team stats are here . Thanks to my co-conspirators in obtaining this inform...
- Sun Feb 03, 2013 2:45 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: VCU Closed discussion
- Replies: 50
- Views: 13029
Re: VCU Closed discussion
I didn't play the tournament, but I read at the Emory site. I think the fixed 5/5 science distribution in general was a noble experiment that didn't work out that well. People have already mentioned their problems with the mandatory science history (and I'll add that there at least two bonuses on ps...
- Sat Feb 02, 2013 9:41 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: VCU Closed: Emory mirror
- Replies: 6
- Views: 2515
Re: VCU Closed: Emory mirror
This happened. Georgia Tech A swept the field going 10-0, and Norcross and Georgia Tech B I believe both went 7-3, with Tech B taking second on a PPB tiebreaker.
- Fri Nov 16, 2012 3:52 am
- Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
- Topic: Why is the shortcut icon for hsquizbowl.org a bee?
- Replies: 12
- Views: 8881
Re: Why is the shortcut icon for hsquizbowl.org a bee?
Also, what do they call middle schools in Canada? The Forbidden Zone? Oh, the many mysteries of quizbowl. This change happened pretty soon after 2012 ICT Guerrilla. I got a tossup on Nova Scotia pretty early, and jokingly called it middle school trivia. Someone on the other team, maybe Weiner, then...
- Sat Nov 10, 2012 8:17 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
- Replies: 42
- Views: 14701
Re: Minnesota/Penn Open IV Discussion
Note that despite the fact that I am presenting on algorithms related to that conjecture this Tuesday, I would strongly recommend against tossing it up. I'm not sure where people get the idea that I'm in favor of tossing up hard math answerlines. I am very much against this. I am in favor of people...
- Sat Nov 10, 2012 5:12 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
- Replies: 42
- Views: 14701
Re: Minnesota/Penn Open IV Discussion
So was my dad, but that doesn't mean he could write a good tossup on Feit-Thompson, or anything else. Question writing clearly is somewhat divorced from real knowledge, as can be seen from the fact that I've written history questions that have made it into tournaments, ever in my life. EDIT: There's...
- Sat Nov 10, 2012 5:01 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
- Replies: 42
- Views: 14701
Re: Minnesota/Penn Open IV Discussion
Yeah, okay, you're probably right, Auroni. I don't think that all science editors have that problem -- Eric's tossup on Feit-Thompson was pretty damn good, just on something far too hard -- but I'll grant that it's easier to find people who understand chemistry and physics and don't understand hard ...
- Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:41 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
- Replies: 42
- Views: 14701
Re: Minnesota/Penn Open IV Discussion
To me, your manifesto reads "I want more hard math questions because I'm totally good at them. For evidence, look at all the obscure named things I can mention." You're going to need a more convincing argument Since I have maybe a 5% chance of going to grad school next year, I don't reall...
- Sat Nov 10, 2012 3:31 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
- Replies: 42
- Views: 14701
Re: Minnesota/Penn Open IV Discussion
I'm pretty sure that the number of math answers that come up is limited because math is probably the single hardest subject (or at least, jointly the hardest subject with computer science) for lay people. And it's also a difficult subject to write for people who are otherwise good writers or editor...
- Sat Nov 10, 2012 3:04 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
- Replies: 42
- Views: 14701
Re: Minnesota/Penn Open IV Discussion
To be clear, I wasn't dissing social science people, I was dissing Lacan, who's pretty infamously obscure, isn't he? Maybe I should have said Derrida instead -- then I'd at least have the backing of, like, John Searle. My point is more that just like most quizbowl players don't get Derrida or Lacan ...
- Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:32 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
- Replies: 42
- Views: 14701
math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
This topic was split from the discussion of Minnesota Open 2011 . --mgmt. So, um, since I just only saw the set a couple days ago, I'm going to post my (inflation-adjusted) $0.02 on the Feit-Thompson tossup and the more general phenomenon of quizbowl math. First, full disclosure: I would have total...
- Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:27 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: The Ideal Schedule
- Replies: 13
- Views: 2843
Re: The Ideal Schedule
I would argue Early College Novice should be pushed back to allow for new teams that have just formed to be able to attend (it took about 2 months for Kentucky to get put together, with me pushing it along, to the point where it could send a team of more than one person to a tournament). Well, this...
- Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:53 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ACF editors and dates for 2012-2013
- Replies: 29
- Views: 9156
Re: ACF editors and dates for 2012-2013
Hey, so I know it's a little early, but since I'm writing questions for VCU Closed and WIT right now anyway, do we know what the packet submission deadlines for Regionals are going to be?
- Mon Nov 05, 2012 5:28 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ACF Fall 2012 Discussion
- Replies: 61
- Views: 13746
Re: ACF Fall 2012 Discussion
[10] Karl Popper formulated this criterion, which rejected scientific claims that could not be DIS proven scientifically. Thomas Kuhn argued against it in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . Or, in fewer words, I think changing so little in that bonus part rather hurts your argument, Eric. ED...
- Mon Nov 05, 2012 3:12 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12
- Replies: 40
- Views: 17770
Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12
I have one question: why was Centre advanced to the top bracket over Alabama B? According to the current stats Centre was 4-2 and Alabama B was 5-1. This is not a good thing to have happen! I know the team did not do that great after Harrison "Heisham" Brown went to read but that is quite...
- Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:59 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12
- Replies: 40
- Views: 17770
Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12
I do want to stress that it was a fun event, both as a player and as a reader, and I've seen everything I listed as problems done way worse. But my impression was that Vanderbilt hadn't had much experience hosting tournaments and I'd like to help them improve as much as possible. I would also like t...
- Mon Nov 05, 2012 4:51 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12
- Replies: 40
- Views: 17770
Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12
So I was hoping someone else would do this, but since no one's stepped up, I'd like to provide some (hopefully constructive) criticism of Vandy's hosting practices. I'll start by saying that I know from experience that running a tournament is hard, and shit happens, and that Vanderbilt being active ...
- Sun Nov 04, 2012 10:26 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ACF Fall 2012 Discussion
- Replies: 61
- Views: 13746
Re: ACF Fall 2012 Discussion
On the positivism bonus, the only thing I can find that makes falsifiability unacceptable for verifiability is that Popper was only loosely associated with the Vienna Circle instead of being a straight up member. Not sure if that's a problem or not. Pretty sure it's not actually, I'm just annoyed f...
- Sun Nov 04, 2012 9:32 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ACF Fall 2012 Discussion
- Replies: 61
- Views: 13746
Re: ACF Fall 2012 Discussion
From my limited perspective as a reader both this year and last year, I want to commend the editing team for making a set which, it seemed to me, was considerably better at a cosmetic level -- i.e., fewer typos, fewer sentences that were hard to parse on-the-fly, fewer obvious factual boners (althou...
- Wed Oct 31, 2012 9:43 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12
- Replies: 40
- Views: 17770
Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12
I am coming with Alabama with the expectation of serving as a moderator, by the way, in case you need to know how many moderators people are bringing. (I will also happily play if you have sufficiently many experienced moderators.)
- Wed Oct 31, 2012 9:39 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: VCU Closed: February 2, 2013
- Replies: 38
- Views: 18876
Re: VCU Closed: February 2, 2013
All teams comprised of people who go to the same actual school may participate. Though this tournament is intended for colleges, high schools are welcome under the below conditions. Weird edge cases like people who go to a branch campus without a team who wish to play for their university system's ...
- Sun Oct 28, 2012 10:09 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: Penn-ance at Ohio State (10/27/2012)
- Replies: 32
- Views: 9636
Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Penn-ance at Ohio State (10/27/2012)
I'm not sure that Michigan's team should count as a Michigan team, since they apparently had a Tang Dynasty poet playing alongside them...
- Sun Oct 28, 2012 6:11 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
- Replies: 63
- Views: 12667
Re: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
I'd just like to say that for the sphere tossup, certainly disc and maybe circle should be accepted or at least promptable. The Mobius transform notably maps the plane into the unit disk. Quick note that a disc isn't a sphere, it's a ball. Once again, these are different things and should not be co...
- Mon Oct 22, 2012 10:22 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
- Replies: 63
- Views: 12667
Re: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
Jerry: Okay, that's good to know. I of course did buzz and say "solar system"; feel free to draw conclusions about my reasonableness and intelligence, or lack thereof, as you see fit. 18. The protagonist of this work is asked by an engineer to change the patenting rules for Yoyodyne, a com...
- Mon Oct 22, 2012 1:30 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
- Replies: 63
- Views: 12667
Re: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
I'm confused as to how "resupply transports" makes the railroad one transparent--unless I'm confused, doesn't it just refer to transports bringing supplies? How does that imply the actual project is transportation related? I could need resupply transports to bring food and drink to people...
- Mon Oct 22, 2012 12:46 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
- Replies: 63
- Views: 12667
Re: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
I know that several of the clues in this tossup do specifically refer to the Oort cloud, but I still wonder if you shouldn't prompt on "solar system" -- certainly clues like the Gliese 710 clue, the Tyche and Nemesis clues, and a buzz after "scattered disc" refer to the solar sy...
- Mon Oct 22, 2012 3:27 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
- Replies: 63
- Views: 12667
Re: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
I'm going through the packets I didn't hear Saturday, and you probably already caught this, but the bonus in Packet 11 on the Philippines mentions the answer to the last part in the clue to the first part. Also, I love that there's a question about the planet in Alpha Centauri like two days after th...
- Sun Oct 21, 2012 11:53 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
- Replies: 63
- Views: 12667
Re: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
I think according to the proof I know you have to have some sort of solid structure there, so I don't think anything homeomorphic to a sphere can be duplicated in this way. So I looked up the proof of Banach-Tarski, and in fact you can decompose a sphere in the Banach-Tarski manner -- actually it's...
- Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:27 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Penn-ance: MIT mirror (10/20)
- Replies: 25
- Views: 10578
Re: Penn-ance: MIT mirror (10/20)
Quizbowl history people, has there ever been anyone else who routinely put up stat lines like that? I don't think I've ever even seen anyone toward the top of a regular-difficulty tournament have more 15s than 10s.TheKingInYellow wrote:Also Josh from MIT is absolutely ridiculous. 31/5/2?!?!
- Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:26 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
- Replies: 63
- Views: 12667
Re: Penn-ance Question Specific Discussion
I'll second everything Cody said about the Laplace transform question. In fact, both Jake and I buzzed after the Dirac delta clue with the intention of saying "integration," since that applies to both the Dirac clue and the convolution clue. It might be worth adding "It's not integrat...
- Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:19 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Interest in southern Minnesota Open mirror?
- Replies: 7
- Views: 2669
Re: Interest in southern Minnesota Open mirror?
I'm interested, although (a) I would need to figure out transportation and (b) I'd be more able to come if it were the 25th.
- Wed Oct 17, 2012 4:46 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Question-specific discussion
- Replies: 116
- Views: 44912
Re: Question-specific discussion
This is a pretty minor quibble and I doubt it would make much of a difference in any actual match, but it's bad practice so I'll mention it anyway: You have an art tossup on Ophelia that mentions her drowning herself and then a bonus part on committing suicide that mentions Ophelia.
- Sat Oct 13, 2012 8:53 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: QUARK at Alabama (10/13)
- Replies: 33
- Views: 11299
Re: QUARK at Alabama (10/13)
Team results: 1. Billy Beyer 10-0 2. Alabama A 6-4 3. Auburn A 6-4 4. WKU 5-5 5. Alabama B 3-7 6. Auburn B 0-10 Top scorers: Billy 117 ppg Matthew Riggle, WKU: 36.5 ppg Jonathan Thompson, Bama A: 30.0 ppg Joey Mannor, Auburn A: 29.0 ppg Nick Conder, WKU: 27.5 ppg Full statistics to come when Jake re...
- Wed Oct 10, 2012 2:07 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: QUARK at Alabama (10/13)
- Replies: 33
- Views: 11299
Re: QUARK at Alabama (10/13)
Incidentally, we are writing trash tossups to be played for "fun" before the real rounds, in the spirit of QUARK at Michigan. (Only with an Alabama quizbowl flavor; expect references to hard math, Arkansas politics, analytic philosophy, obscure Nintendo games, college sports, David Foster ...
- Wed Oct 03, 2012 2:53 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Question-specific discussion
- Replies: 116
- Views: 44912
Re: Question-specific discussion
Whether a task is completed or uncompleted affects this phenomenon, according to an effect named for a student of Kurt Lewin, Bluma Zeigarnik. One model of this phenomenon was originally a two-stage model, but later incorporated the “sensory” type of this phenomenon; that model was developed by Atk...
- Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:17 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Question-specific discussion
- Replies: 116
- Views: 44912
Re: Question-specific discussion
It's entirely possible that I'm remembering a round that we read in practice, or making it up altogether, but was there a round in which there was a tossup on cytokines and a bonus that dealt with cytokinesis? And one of the clues for the cytokine tossup had to do with cytokinesis? If so, that shou...
- Mon Oct 01, 2012 6:25 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Question-specific discussion
- Replies: 116
- Views: 44912
Re: Question-specific discussion
It's entirely possible that I'm remembering a round that we read in practice, or making it up altogether, but was there a round in which there was a tossup on cytokines and a bonus that dealt with cytokinesis? And one of the clues for the cytokine tossup had to do with cytokinesis? If so, that shoul...
- Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:31 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Question-specific discussion
- Replies: 116
- Views: 44912
Re: Question-specific discussion
So looking at the Chisholm entry on the SEP, it seems like that clue came from this section? I'm a big fan of the SEP, but obviously not every sentence from it makes a good clue, just like, say, "Sharp contrasts and elements of the grotesque characterize much of his music" would be a bad c...
- Sun Sep 30, 2012 11:29 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Question-specific discussion
- Replies: 116
- Views: 44912
Re: Question-specific discussion
18. This city’s Advertiser and Tribune newspaper blamed its rival, led by William Quinby, for inciting its 1863 race riot by printing stories charged against African-Americans. The book Arc of Justice discusses a black man who was tried for defending his own home from a racially charged mob in this...
- Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:45 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Question-specific discussion
- Replies: 116
- Views: 44912
Re: Question-specific discussion
I feel like these types of threads don't often have praise for questions, but I want to commend Michigan for the bonus on snarks. Combinatorics is probably somewhat underrepresented in quizbowl, and it'd be fantastic if this were the impetus for people to write more graph theory questions, even if t...
- Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:30 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: General discussion
- Replies: 19
- Views: 3102
Re: General discussion
One of the weird things that we noticed was the sheer quantity of tossups with cities as answerlines -- I'm pretty sure there was at least one in every round (or perhaps all but one), and round 2, I think, had 3 such tossups(!). There's nothing inherently wrong with this, of course, especially since...
- Thu May 03, 2012 3:40 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Fall 2012 schedule discussion
- Replies: 52
- Views: 11543
Re: Fall 2012 schedule discussion
I guess I'll pile on and mention that Alabama's looking to write/co-write a regular difficulty tournament for 2012-13. PM me if you're interested in teaming up, Avengers-style.
- Sun Apr 29, 2012 8:00 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: MUT 2012 Discussion
- Replies: 53
- Views: 12140
Re: MUT 2012 Discussion
For context: Timothy Glowers called for a boycott of journals run by this company for its support of the Research Works Act, and this publication is the subject of the Cost of Knowledge protest movements. For 10 points each: [10] Name this Dutch publishing company, which runs the Science Direct and...
- Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:48 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Women in college quizbowl
- Replies: 21
- Views: 12536
Re: Player Poll 2011-2012 Season
EDIT: Ah, bad joke in the wrong thread. Delete this, mods!
It's been moved to the right thread, but it was still a terrible joke. - mgmt
It's been moved to the right thread, but it was still a terrible joke. - mgmt
- Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:43 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Women in college quizbowl
- Replies: 21
- Views: 12536
Re: Player Poll 2011-2012 Season
If you're talking about the player poll, I'd say: because there aren't many women in quizbowl. If you're talking about the "why aren't there women in quizbowl" thread, I'd say because it should probably be spun off as a separate thread so people with an opinion (and you know what they say ...
- Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:22 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Women in college quizbowl
- Replies: 21
- Views: 12536
Re: Player Poll 2011-2012 Season
Henry, I don't think claiming that a lot of women are turned off by hypercompetitiveness is a necessarily essentialist claim (feminist words!). Girls are, in general, socialized to be a lot less competitive and aggressive than boys. It's possible -- hell, likely-to-certain -- that some women are tur...