Question Specific Discussion
Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 11:08 am
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This is a mistake on my part; I was trying to describe a throttling process, but forgot that all adiabatic processes are isenthalpic. Good catch.samus149 wrote:For that enthalpy tossup, that fact that an adiabatic process does not change in enthalpy probably shouldn't be in power.
Jacob was not mentioned in the question, so this may have been a moderator mistakesamus149 wrote: There was a bonus on Virginia Woolf stuff in one of that later playoff rounds, and we didn't answer Jacob's Room for the third part because the question already name-dropped Jacob. Was that supposed to be like that?
Cardiac muscle is also striated. It will be edited in the future to include a prompt. Also, Kannon should be fine as well.Steak and Kidney Pie wrote:I answered the skeletal muscle tossup with "striated muscle" and was ruled incorrect. I'm pretty sure they are the same thing. Also, as I said on discussion, "Kannon" should be acceptable for Guanyin/Avalokitesvara.
I'm interested to see the answer line here too. I imagine you have to say something other than just Thermopylae or even "pass at Thermopylae" because the site itself (i.e. the non-secret path) is a narrow pass between two cliffs, but I'm curious what was and wasn't accepted here. (After being prompted, I rambled out something descriptive that I don't remember.)gyre and gimble wrote:(secret?) pass at Thermopylae - I didn't know until I read this thread that you needed to say "secret" to get points, because Dartmouth's answer of "Thermopylae pass" was accepted. Was it not clear in the packet to prompt? This is also probably an idea to be saved for CO or something.
Yeah, I've heard the "garden of the Caribbean" thing before, or whatever it is, but I couldn't pull this.gyre and gimble wrote: Dominica - This went dead between us and Yale. I'm sure there is a good number of normal regular difficulty things for which that might happen but I don't think this is one of them. At least give the capital? You know, instead of saying it's famous for being beautiful.
RyuAqua wrote:I'm interested to see the answer line here too. I imagine you have to say something other than just Thermopylae or even "pass at Thermopylae" because the site itself (i.e. the non-secret path) is a narrow pass between two cliffs, but I'm curious what was and wasn't accepted here. (After being prompted, I rambled out something descriptive that I don't remember.)gyre and gimble wrote:(secret?) pass at Thermopylae - I didn't know until I read this thread that you needed to say "secret" to get points, because Dartmouth's answer of "Thermopylae pass" was accepted. Was it not clear in the packet to prompt? This is also probably an idea to be saved for CO or something.
More later.
Round 1 wrote: ANSWER: goat path of Ephialtes at Thermopylae [or Thermopylae goat path; or Anopaia path; or Vardates
route before mention; or descriptive answers such as hidden path of Thermopylae, flanking path at
Thermopylae, secondary path at Thermopylae, or path secretly taken by Persian forces at Thermopylae;
prompt on goatpath; prompt on Thermopylae path; prompt on Thermopylae pass; prompt on Thermopylae path
taken by Persian Immortals; prompt on Malis]
Just a note that Myrtilus sabotaged somebody else's chariot; he didn't die because his own chariot was sabotaged.For example, Myrtilus died because his chariot was sabotaged, and then he fell into the sea.
This reads like a parody of what answer lines should not be. I was cracking up reading this out loud until I realized it was real and it happened.t-bar wrote:Round 1 wrote: ANSWER: goat path of Ephialtes at Thermopylae [or Thermopylae goat path; or Anopaia path; or Vardates
route before mention; or descriptive answers such as hidden path of Thermopylae, flanking path at
Thermopylae, secondary path at Thermopylae, or path secretly taken by Persian forces at Thermopylae;
prompt on goatpath; prompt on Thermopylae path; prompt on Thermopylae pass; prompt on Thermopylae path
taken by Persian Immortals; prompt on Malis]
It did, in fact, say that word.vinteuil wrote:The question on Messiah included a lengthy description of the first section of a generic french overture, which basically just says "this piece is a large baroque piece"—not incredibly helpful (maybe more helpful with the word "Sinfony" or something).
I'm not sure that "pedal point" is applicable to the beginning of Rach 2, but people can correct me if I'm wrong. The wording I used was "that concerto begins with a repeated anchor note on the lowest F."vinteuil wrote:Could I see the Rachmaninoff question? The description of the piano concerto No. 2 included some very strange term instead of "pedal point" or similar for the opening.
I generally remember slight confusions like this being a staple of the auditory arts in the tournament, but otherwise, I liked it.
I would call this, The Decameron, and The Arabian Nights short story collections because, even though they have frame stories, they are primarily made up of lots of separate stories.gyre and gimble wrote:Here's my round-by-round take on some of the tossups in this tournament. I thought the tossups were really where I had a lot of issues, and the bonuses were all right for the most part. Some of these criticisms are obviously much less important than others.
R2
Canterbury Tales - Is calling this a short story collection confusing, or am I just dumb?
I'm not sure what this criticism is going for. Are you suggesting that the answer lines are equivalent to each other? I could see a conversion argument being made, but I think asking about things in different ways makes quiz bowl feel new and interesting even when we keep asking about the same stuff over and over.gyre and gimble wrote:R4
All the world's a stage - Should just be a tossup on As You Like It, because once you figure out what play it is, what other speech could it be?
If this question was too hard then I apologize, but it seemed that people knew the title of that painting.gyre and gimble wrote:R7
Fuseli - So this was a really tough powermark, because (I think) the writer of this question confused the famous Fuseli Lady Macbeth for another Fuseli Lady Macbeth. Here they are: http://www.backtoclassics.com/images/pi ... aggers.jpg, http://www.cgfaonlineartmuseum.com/f/fuseli1.jpg. I'm guessing the popularity of the Tate's website makes the sketch show up first on the Google image search.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gai ... xt-summary <- that website references the effect he was going for in some landscapes, but I do apologize for the confusion. I'll try to fix this for the next mirrors.gyre and gimble wrote:R9
Gainsborough - I can't find the reference to Gainsborough and peepholes anywhere, but that clue sounded a lot like this! I can't claim it was a hose without seeing the question again but it definitely felt like one.
This is true and has been fixed in the packetChimango Caracara wrote:Pedro Camacho is definitely Bolivian in Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.
I probably overshot the middle part by a little since it required some in depth knowledge of the Cairo TrilogyChimango Caracara wrote:The Mahfouz bonus seemed much harder than most of the world literature bonuses.
I guess I'm ok with people knowing about common themes in Mexican murals and getting 15 points off of that knowledge at a regular tournamentChimango Caracara wrote:Maybe my perspective on this is skewed due to regularly seeing The Epic of American Civilization in my day-to-day life, but it seems like you can get the murals tossup pretty early without actually knowing that or Man at the Crossroads particularly well. For one thing, skeletons, masks, bayonets and soldiers appear in a lot of Mexican murals. For another, it seems like the majority of generic "these paintings" tossups (as distinct from tossups on "this scene" or "this figure" are about Mexican art. I guess this is a baseless assertion and I might be totally wrong but this just seems transparent to me.
Whoops, guess who needs to work on listening.Ras superfamily wrote:It did, in fact, say that word.vinteuil wrote:The question on Messiah included a lengthy description of the first section of a generic french overture, which basically just says "this piece is a large baroque piece"—not incredibly helpful (maybe more helpful with the word "Sinfony" or something).
OK, yeah, I have absolutely no clue what an "anchor note" is. Any note that stays put like that despite becoming a dissonance is definitely a pedal point, especially if it's the lowest pitch like that.Ras superfamily wrote:I'm not sure that "pedal point" is applicable to the beginning of Rach 2, but people can correct me if I'm wrong. The wording I used was "that concerto begins with a repeated anchor note on the lowest F."vinteuil wrote:Could I see the Rachmaninoff question? The description of the piano concerto No. 2 included some very strange term instead of "pedal point" or similar for the opening.
I generally remember slight confusions like this being a staple of the auditory arts in the tournament, but otherwise, I liked it.
I thought pedal points need to be held out through the bar, not just played after another chord is already being held out. Is this a misunderstanding on my part?vinteuil wrote:OK, yeah, I have absolutely no clue what an "anchor note" is. Any note that stays put like that despite becoming a dissonance is definitely a pedal point, especially if it's the lowest pitch like that.
I wrote this one from a textbook: http://tinyurl.com/kxukuxw. My intention was to use an economic/administrative history clue instead of just endless rebellion and clan word salad.R9: Heian Period - A bad first clue. I do believe it's a reference to the shoen period and the writer wanted us to buzz in on Heian period on it, but that's not possible. For one, they were first established by the Taika reforms, which happened in the Asuka period. Then they were fully established during the Nara Period. And they characterized agriculture in much of the Heian period. But they still existed throughout the Kamakura, Muromachi, and Sengoku periods (while declining in importance). So that clue was basically worthless and probably encourages negging which would naturally lead to legitimate protests.
For the actual difficulty of this tournament, I think this was fine. I think he'd have been a medium part of a bonus at this tournament, had they asked for something like "this man names a line" in the context of Poland.krojeaueluo wrote:Curzon - Cool tossup, but really really really damn hard. I suspect I can count the number of people who converted this on my right-hand. Don't think it was appropriate for the difficulty level. This is a kind of guy who comes up in a hard part in a bonus about Poland/USSR.
Yeah, I made a dumb neg on this one with "Zhou" because of bad quizbowl-related habits, since the concept of "hegemony" ("ba") from my experience is almost always discussed in the context of the Spring and Autumn period. Had I waited, I could have gotten it at "Shang Yang" (which by the way was a well-placed clue, along with the rest of the information in the question).krojeaueluo wrote: Qin - Actually a really cool way of asking about the Qin besides the typical THIS DYNASTY DID BLAH BLAH BLAH. I approved of this toss-up a lot.
The moderator in our room thankfully had the good sense to prompt when Neil Gurram gave that answer.krojeaueluo wrote:Deep Play - Should be at least prompted on Notes from a Balinese Cockfight. It's called that just as often as it's called Deep Play in the academic literature.
I did as well, for the same reasons.Kenneth Widmerpool wrote:I'm glad you liked the PRI tossup.
I was able to get Timoleon with only a cursory knowledge of Syracuse, so I don't think it was an unfair medium part. I could be wrong, though.gamegeek2 wrote:-Are Timoleon of Corinth and the Battle of Himera really medium and hard parts? I'm pretty bad at Ancient Greece but I've usually at least heard of the medium part in these questions, and neither of these rings a bell.
I negged on this with just "Balinese Cockfight." Should I have been prompted? I didn't think so, but since we're on the topic...gamegeek2 wrote:The moderator in our room thankfully had the good sense to prompt when Neil Gurram gave that answer.krojeaueluo wrote:Deep Play - Should be at least prompted on Notes from a Balinese Cockfight. It's called that just as often as it's called Deep Play in the academic literature.
That's my fault, that was originally written as a tossup and it had to be hastily converted on the last day since it was actually supposed to be a bonus. It's been fixed for future mirrors.Wasabi wrote: Parthia/Crassus/Surena, where there's no medium part in sight.
Edward Teller was actually academic other, since Eric didn't want science history in science and I didn't want it in history.gyre and gimble wrote:
Edward Teller - Was this science or history? Either way both science and history players got ripped-off on this one.
The Thermopylae goatpath was my attempt to write on something that's very real and important, but which unfortunately is too similar to Thermopylae itself to play well, and the bloated answerline - which was very specific about what should have been prompted - seems to have confused readers at the MIT site. In future mirrors, this will be changed to a tossup on Thermopylae with some of the clues moved around.gyre and gimble wrote: (secret?) pass at Thermopylae - I didn't know until I read this thread that you needed to say "secret" to get points, because Dartmouth's answer of "Thermopylae pass" was accepted. Was it not clear in the packet to prompt? This is also probably an idea to be saved for CO or something.
I disagree, the powermark was just before Trimalchio, so the entire description of Trimalchio's feast is power.gyre and gimble wrote: R6
Fellini - Yeah, I'm just complaining here but it's a pretty tough power mark when buzzing on a description of Satyricon isn't good enough.
This has been fixed.gyre and gimble wrote: R7
Dallas - Love Field doesn't belong in the second line.
Yeah, this is a thing that doesn't have a set name and was a "description acceptable" answer, so I tried to provide clear directions. In a hypothetical world where this question played well, it's not an absurd answerline. It didn't play well, so it will be changed for future mirrors.kroeajueluo wrote: This reads like a parody of what answer lines should not be. I was cracking up reading this out loud until I realized it was real and it happened.
Can you expand on this?Chimango Caracara wrote: The...Shakespeare authorship tossups seemed pretty transparent.
I was only thinking of the British military base when I wrote the question. I've taken it out entirely.Chimango Caracara wrote: I realize now that Akrotiri the military base is different from Akrotiri the place with Minoan frescoes on Santorini, but maybe other people negged with "Greece" on that too thinking it was the same and maybe that's not good?
Whateverism is a word. Two Whatevers was acceptable. And there were not oblique references: I literally gave exactly what the two whatevers were! I have changed the wording just in case it trips up some one else though.kroeajueluo wrote: For example, the Chinese history bonus that referred to the Two Whatevers as an "ideology" and wanted me to answer "whateverism", which is not a real term or word. The Two Whatevers is perfectly appropriate for a hard part of a bonus - it doesn't need to be further obscured by very oblique references to it.
What? I don't even think that the Young Pioneers have national level leadership (or at least not one drawn from its own membership) and since its for like kids who aren't even 15, it's kind of hard to rise in the ranks through it. On the other, hand both Li Keqiang and Hu Jintao were both first secretaries of the Communist Youth League, which is a major faction in Chinese politics, unlike the Young Pioneers.kroeajueluo wrote: Another example was the bonus that asked about the Communist Youth but didn't really differentiate between it and the Young Pioneers.
It never said it wasn't real, it said that it was often used as a scapegoat by conspiracy theorists who blame it for a lot of things.kroeajueluo wrote: Another example of funky bonus-prompts was the Turkish bonus asking for the Deep State as an "internet conspiracy theory", which is exceedingly confusing because the Deep State is actually real.
Many people have no idea about the details of the First-Sino Japanese War, but I have made that part less of easy part by removing the name of the Treaty of Shimonoseki.kroeajueluo wrote: An example of an easy-easy-hard bonus was the bonus on the Sino-Japanese War. It awarded you 10 points for having heard of the First Sino-Japanese War before and then awarded 10 more points for naming an East Asian nation that wasn't China or Japan.
I'm glad you liked most of my questions then.kroeajueluo wrote:Specific tossup commentary. Absence of commentary on history/CE/geography tossups can probably be interpreted as me liking the tossup, since I really did enjoy the vast majority of history questions.
The White Wolf Rebellion clue could definitely be tightened up. Sun Yat-Sen gave the inaugural address at the opening of the Whampoa Military Academy and was the leader of the KMT. Chiang Kai-Shek presided over most of its operations and was its first director, but its opening was definitely under Sun.kroeajueluo wrote:R1: Sun Yatsen - Generally inaccurate and confusing. Supporters of Sun Yatsen didn't carry out the white wolf rebellion, they were bandit leaders who Sun Yatsen endorsed long after the conflict started. The Whampoa clue was confusing because Sun Yat-sen designed the Whampoa Military Academy, but Chiang Kai-shek was the one who ultimately opened and ran it.
Gillard has some amazing quotations. :)kroeajueluo wrote:R2: Gillard - I love this question because "murderous rage" is just a hilarious anecdote.
This was one of my favourite tossups because the first clue is basically an example of the classic bandwagoning (horizontal) vs. balancing (vertical) debate except in the Qin Dynasty.kroeajueluo wrote: Qin - Actually a really cool way of asking about the Qin besides the typical THIS DYNASTY DID BLAH BLAH BLAH. I approved of this toss-up a lot.
Ike and Eric can tell you all about how I originally did this quite poorly.kroeajueluo wrote: War - A cool common-link philosophy tossup, which is cool since they're usually done poorly.
You don't need any real knowledge about Shakespeare's works, just knowledge about what conspiracy theories have formed about him. Could you explain how this was transparent?kroeajueluo wrote: R6: Shakespeare - Exceedingly transparent. I picked this up on 0 real knowledge, because I have 0 knowledge about Shakespeare works.
It's a specific reference to the disastrous troop deployments of Conrad von Hotzendorf, Austro-Hungarian chief of staff during the Great War and the poor inter-ally communications between Germany and Austria-Hungary. German wanted Austria-Hungary to deploy most of its troops in Galicia to fight the Russians, but Conrad wanted to take out Serbia and wasn't too worried about Russian mobilization. So at the outbreak of war, he ordered the Austro-Hungarian reserves all south on a single rail line to the Serbian border. While they were in transit, Conrad learned of the Russian declarations of war on the Central Powers and tried to reverse this troop movement, but was told that there was no way to reverse the trains until the troops had reached the Serbian border because Austro-Hungarian infrastructure was that bad. So the Austro-Hungarian troops were forced to immediately take the long train trip to the Russian border after taking the long trip to the Serbian border, and this really messed up the Austro-Hungarian mobilization plans.kroeajueluo wrote:R7: Austria-Hungary - First clue was very vague. Its troops went south and then went north. Cool tossup besides that though. Naturally, I converted it on the Tianjin clue.
Truman Committee is really famous and gave Truman the clean reputation that earned him the VP nod. I don't think it's that egregious.kroeajueluo wrote:R8: Truman - There was kind of a difficulty cliff between Truman Committee and Adlai Stevenson, but mostly good.
This was my favourite question in the set. At our site it seemed to elicit some negs, so I wonder what people were buzzing in with. This is a thing that's taught in most high school that the First World War.kroeajueluo wrote:Austrian ultimatum to Serbia - Pretty much the only "description acceptable" tossup in the entire set that I didn't think blew. Was pretty cool actually, and I understand why it was asked in this way.
Baron Nishi is pretty famous and appeared in Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima. Holland "Howling Mad" Smith is probably the most famous (and controversial) Marine general in the war. The defense-in-depth strategy of Kuribayashi is also very famous, because it led to much higher US casualty rates.kroeajueluo wrote:Iwo Jima - A lot of trivial information that didn't really matter and a lot of vague stuff that could apply to a lot of pacific war battles. The first convertable clue is Tadamachi Kuribayashi, which is both well-out of power and actually pretty damn hard.
This might be true, but I don't think it's that important, since Pearse/Connolly were two of the ringleaders and have Irish names. I've switched the wording to Roger Casement appears just before Pearse/Connolly, though, instead of before the mention of German arms.kroeajueluo wrote: Easter Rising - Minor complaint, I think Roger Casement is an easier clue that Pearse/Connolly. I like this being tossed up though.
It's not 100% proven, but it's generally accepted that Cixi did it.kroeajueluo wrote: Cixi - Just an annoying fact, still no proof that Cixi poisoned the Guangxu Emperor and it's a theory I lean strongly against.
It was admittedly hard to find clues that were't about types of incendiary bombs or flying tactics to put in power. However, this bombing raid notably ordered its bombers to use the space taken up by defensive guns/ammunition to store more incendiaries, since they new flying tactics were expected to help avoid Japanese AA tactics. It's not a perfect clue and requires a bit of lateral thinking, but it's more useful than most alternatives.kroeajueluo wrote: Firebombing of Tokyo - "The perpetrators of this event were ordered to carry out this event without defensive guns or ammunition." That is so damn vague, it's just a waste of a line.
Eric told me to put that clue where it was, but can others comment on this?gamegeek2 wrote: R1:
-I think this Otto the Great question mentioned Eberhard of Franconia too early, but I think that may just be because I've heard that come up in several questions here. I don't know if other people know this clue as well, though.
Yes. Timoleon is pretty famous (he's in Plutarch's Parallel Lives alongside Lucius Aemilius Paullus).gamegeek2 wrote:R2:
-Are Timoleon of Corinth and the Battle of Himera really medium and hard parts? I'm pretty bad at Ancient Greece but I've usually at least heard of the medium part in these questions, and neither of these rings a bell.
Maybe I could've put the Battle of Mars-La-Tour between the Battles of Worth/Spichere and the Battle of Gravelotte to smooth the transition a bit.gamegeek2 wrote: -Gravelotte is a massive difficulty cliff for Franco-Prussian war
Many, many people did stuff in Utica, sometimes more notably (e.g. Julius Caesar). I don't think this is a huge issue.gamegeek2 wrote: R9:
-I guess a lot of people did stuff in Utica, but I still think it's ill-advised to mention that city early on in a Scipio Africanus tossup
Defense-in-depth was an important component of Japanese military strategy in the Pacific War in general, from my understanding.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:The defense-in-depth strategy of Kuribayashi is also very famous
Well, it's a debate that seems to hinge on reading texts and seems to concern somebody's identity. I didn't notice the honorificabilitudinitatibus clue when I played it though (maybe the moderator had trouble pronouncing it); that's a cool clue. But I still think it's transparent.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:Can you expand on this?Chimango Caracara wrote: The...Shakespeare authorship tossups seemed pretty transparent.
No, Japanese attrition strategy of inflicting enough damage so that US morale fails isn't really a defense-in-depth. What happened on most islands was that the Japanese garrison would take a lot of damage actually contesting the landing, then make a loud, suicidal banzai charge on the first night that inevitably failed and left to few defenders to effectively resist for the rest of the battle. None of this happened at Iwo Jima (though I should've done a better job of differentiating it from Peleliu).gamegeek2 wrote:I really like the idea of using legit military history clues on military history questions, but the problem is that these clues often aren't uniquely identifying (with some exceptions, like the very famous double envelopment at Cannae). Consider the following:
Defense-in-depth was an important component of Japanese military strategy in the Pacific War in general, from my understanding.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:The defense-in-depth strategy of Kuribayashi is also very famous
That's good. It's still a really cool idea and a cool tossup, just the answer line was a little awkward.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote: The Thermopylae goatpath was my attempt to write on something that's very real and important, but which unfortunately is too similar to Thermopylae itself to play well, and the bloated answerline - which was very specific about what should have been prompted - seems to have confused readers at the MIT site. In future mirrors, this will be changed to a tossup on Thermopylae with some of the clues moved around.
Yeah, this is a thing that doesn't have a set name and was a "description acceptable" answer, so I tried to provide clear directions. In a hypothetical world where this question played well, it's not an absurd answerline. It didn't play well, so it will be changed for future mirrors.
Fair enough. I was probably just bitter for missing something I knew really well because I was stupid and sleepy.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:Whateverism is a word. Two Whatevers was acceptable. And there were not oblique references: I literally gave exactly what the two whatevers were! I have changed the wording just in case it trips up some one else though.
Fair enough. It's still a little confusing, though if you hear "sketchy-ass shit" and "turkish military", you could reasonably guess Deep State.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:It never said it wasn't real, it said that it was often used as a scapegoat by conspiracy theorists who blame it for a lot of things.
White Wolf at least tells you what time period/country it is. The Whampoa clue is still something that would cause people to wait. I still don't think it's a very good clue.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:The White Wolf Rebellion clue could definitely be tightened up. Sun Yat-Sen gave the inaugural address at the opening of the Whampoa Military Academy and was the leader of the KMT. Chiang Kai-Shek presided over most of its operations and was its first director, but its opening was definitely under Sun.
Hard to explain. I had vaguely heard of some dispute over Shakespeare identity dispute from high-school English and I just buzzed on lateral knowledge. In all fairness, I'm not sure if you can make it non-transparent, and it is a cool answer-line.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:You don't need any real knowledge about Shakespeare's works, just knowledge about what conspiracy theories have formed about him. Could you explain how this was transparent?
That's actually pretty awesome and tossupable. The problem is that it's still kind of vague. I know one quizbowler who negged with Israel on that clue because it also sort of applies to Israel in the Yom Kippur War (which is their most recent real war).Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:It's a specific reference to the disastrous troop deployments of Conrad von Hotzendorf, Austro-Hungarian chief of staff during the Great War and the poor inter-ally communications between Germany and Austria-Hungary. German wanted Austria-Hungary to deploy most of its troops in Galicia to fight the Russians, but Conrad wanted to take out Serbia and wasn't too worried about Russian mobilization. So at the outbreak of war, he ordered the Austro-Hungarian reserves all south on a single rail line to the Serbian border. While they were in transit, Conrad learned of the Russian declarations of war on the Central Powers and tried to reverse this troop movement, but was told that there was no way to reverse the trains until the troops had reached the Serbian border because Austro-Hungarian infrastructure was that bad. So the Austro-Hungarian troops were forced to immediately take the long train trip to the Russian border after taking the long trip to the Serbian border, and this really messed up the Austro-Hungarian mobilization plans.
Fair enough, I stand corrected.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote: Truman Committee is really famous and gave Truman the clean reputation that earned him the VP nod. I don't think it's that egregious.
Stand corrected again. I know who Baron Nishi is, but I didn't know he died at Iwo Jima. That's my failing.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:Baron Nishi is pretty famous and appeared in Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima. Holland "Howling Mad" Smith is probably the most famous (and controversial) Marine general in the war. The defense-in-depth strategy of Kuribayashi is also very famous, because it led to much higher US casualty rates.
Sounds solid.Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:This might be true, but I don't think it's that important, since Pearse/Connolly were two of the ringleaders and have Irish names. I've switched the wording to Roger Casement appears just before Pearse/Connolly, though, instead of before the mention of German arms.
Alright, so as an ex-neuroscientist I'll have this fight with you. We actually learned GHK as a generalization of Nernst applied to each ion and taking permeability into account. There's more than one textbook that calls it that. Also, GHK reduces to Nernst when you only have one ion and set the permeability to 1 - this is why it's called a generalization in many places. It has nothing to do with its derivation.Edmund wrote:I hate to write this after every tournament but - the Goldman-Hodgkin-Katz (GHK) equation is NOT a generalisation of the Nernst equation. Stop using this clue.
The Nernst equation is a quite general and powerful statement about the nature of electrochemical equilibria. The GHK equation is an approximate method for estimating the potential at a membrane, typically not at true equilibrium due to the presence of mass transport. Both equations are interesting and important but if anything, GHK is derived as a simplification or approximate use of the Nernst equation, rather than vice versa. I don't know how this non-fact crept into the collective consciousness of quizbowl science writers, but it's time it left.
I'm glad you enjoyed these.In the same bonus set I thought the appearance of _cyclic voltammetry_ as an answer line was great.
I think that although other acids can be used to cleave t-Boc, trifluoroacetic is certainly the one most associated with it and the "standard" method as taught in class. I liked this clue and this tossup in general, in the sense that it rewarded knowing chemistry above knowing a set of facts in chemistry.
This in fact pleases me greatly.It may please those griping about the _Curzon_ tossup to know that this was powered on the first clue by my (British, Indian history expert) teammate. We appreciated it.
What on earth? It's called Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. You don't deserve a prompt if you said that.Deep Play - Should be at least prompted on Notes from a Balinese Cockfight. It's called that just as often as it's called Deep Play in the academic literature.
It's often referred to in the academic literature SOLELY as Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. It's definitely promptable.Ike wrote:What on earth? It's called Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. You don't deserve a prompt if you said that.
The hell?If you're going to say that a tossup is good because you knew an early clue, then Matt Jackson should really like that one round he got like 10 tossups, while Evan Adams should like significantly less than that.
I don't see why you're assuming those motives. It's simply not true. Most of the questions I complimented were questions I horribly failed at. I did not get most of the questions I mentioned. I did get most of the questions I had long criticisms about, but that's a side-effect of me being hesitant to criticize a question at length unless it's in a subject that I know well. Which I think everyone here does.Renesmee LaHotdog Voight wrote:Kirk: Ike is completely right about your posts, which are incredibly unhelpful. Nobody cares to see you masturbating over how awesome you are at East Asian history or your various other antics. Any sane person would be pretty upset at receiving such useless, contradictory, and flat-out wrong feedback.
Also, you claimed you said "Notes from a Balinese Cockfight". Once again, Ike is correct.
I will bring my ex-physical chemist hat to this fight. Let me set out my opinion on this matter. Apologies to everyone besides Eric for the length of this post.The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:Alright, so as an ex-neuroscientist I'll have this fight with you. We actually learned GHK as a generalization of Nernst applied to each ion and taking permeability into account. There's more than one textbook that calls it that. Also, GHK reduces to Nernst when you only have one ion and set the permeability to 1 - this is why it's called a generalization in many places. It has nothing to do with its derivation.
Quizbowl isn't about sussing out minute nuances in wording where both choices are correct and don't confuse anyone. There are sources that refer to GHK as a generalization of Nernst and "generalization" is often used colloquially in a freer manner. Even were this not the case, it was a bonus lead-in at this tournament - I realize you're trying to instruct all of quizbowl here, but seriously dude.Edmund wrote:My concern with the term "generalisation" is that it implies the GHK somehow is more complete, or goes deeper, than Nernst.
sbraunfeld wrote:I would have to see the question to be sure, but I believe the leadin to the "grammars" tossup applied equally to "pushdown automata", since they are equivalent to context-free grammars in expressive power.
Penn Bowl wrote:The “proper” distinction can be applied to one type of these systems if it has no cycles or epsilon productions, in addition to two other requirements;
First, I totally accept that this issue is pretty ephemeral to Penn Bowl 2013 so if there is a better place for this argument I will have it there.Renesmee LaHotdog Voight wrote:Quizbowl isn't about sussing out minute nuances in wording where both choices are correct and don't confuse anyone. There are sources that refer to GHK as a generalization of Nernst and "generalization" is often used colloquially in a freer manner. Even were this not the case, it was a bonus lead-in at this tournament - I realize you're trying to instruct all of quizbowl here, but seriously dude.Edmund wrote:My concern with the term "generalisation" is that it implies the GHK somehow is more complete, or goes deeper, than Nernst.
I guess it was the next line, which I recall being something like "a canonical one of these describes the language of matching parentheses". This would apply to pushdown automata for the reason mentioned before, although I may be missing some distinguishing detail from the clue.Ras superfamily wrote:sbraunfeld wrote:I would have to see the question to be sure, but I believe the leadin to the "grammars" tossup applied equally to "pushdown automata", since they are equivalent to context-free grammars in expressive power.Penn Bowl wrote:The “proper” distinction can be applied to one type of these systems if it has no cycles or epsilon productions, in addition to two other requirements;
I've never heard of a "proper" pushdown automaton and I don't think that this clue makes sense for a pushdown automaton but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong
I'll tackle the above posts in a second, but I'm going to take issue with Saajid's response.Ras superfamily wrote:sbraunfeld wrote:I would have to see the question to be sure, but I believe the leadin to the "grammars" tossup applied equally to "pushdown automata", since they are equivalent to context-free grammars in expressive power.Penn Bowl wrote:The “proper” distinction can be applied to one type of these systems if it has no cycles or epsilon productions, in addition to two other requirements;
I've never heard of a "proper" pushdown automaton and I don't think that this clue makes sense for a pushdown automaton but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong
When I was reading through most of the categories in the week before the tournament, I found a recurring problem of writers using wonky pronouns for whatever reason. The tossup on Circe before I commented on it, used the phrase "this goddess" through out the entire tossup, which is not cool, especially for the lower level teams.I would call this, The Decameron, and The Arabian Nights short story collections because, even though they have frame stories, they are primarily made up of lots of separate stories.
I'm sorry my semantics weren't perfect. I should have said, "I've never heard of a "proper" pushdown automaton despite looking for such a thing to make sure that my clue is not mistakenly pointing to two answers." By the way, context-free grammars with no epsilon productions are a subset context sensitive grammars, but that's not really misleading since you could still buzz and say grammar. Also, a cycle is a series of values that, when passed into the production rules of a grammar, get you back to one of the already seen arguments to the production rules of that grammar, not a production that pumps a string. However, if the wording is too ambiguous to be parseable then perhaps there is an issue here.Ike wrote:Quizbowl should be about rewarding positive knowledge (e.g. - I know some of the properties of a PDA are) as opposed to negative knowledge (e.g. - I know that there are four (or however many) and only four types of PDA's) - expecting a player to know the second type of facts is unrealistic. The most common thing that players who have knowledge of the subject and can parse your wording are going to do is assume that proper pushdown automata refers to most normal automata, much like how a "proper function" probably would refer to most mathematical functions, outside of something whacky like the Delta Function.Ras superfamily wrote:sbraunfeld wrote:I would have to see the question to be sure, but I believe the leadin to the "grammars" tossup applied equally to "pushdown automata", since they are equivalent to context-free grammars in expressive power.Penn Bowl wrote:The “proper” distinction can be applied to one type of these systems if it has no cycles or epsilon productions, in addition to two other requirements;
I've never heard of a "proper" pushdown automaton and I don't think that this clue makes sense for a pushdown automaton but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong
Also, How are we supposed to know that you want a "proper" distinction instead of "proper distinction?" There's no way that we, as players, can infer that you are talking about "proper" types of grammars, since we don't hear the quotes. Furthermore, the actual clues themselves are vague and ambiguous at best. I would not be able to parse what you mean by "has no cycles or epsilon productions, in addition to two other requirements;" the phrasing is so awkward. Also, doesn't this also apply to context-sensitive grammars, because you can't produce the empty string (epsilon) nor can context-sensitive grammars produce the same output repeatedly? Even if hypertechnically one of the properties doesn't apply to CSG's, you can't expect players to parse through those clues and somehow infer what the "two other properties" are to really understand what is going on in the question.