Search found 80 matches

by matt979
Mon Feb 01, 2016 3:18 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2016 NAQT Northern California SCT: Saturday, February 6th
Replies: 1
Views: 2000

Re: 2016 NAQT Northern California SCT: Saturday, February 6t

(Note the edit to the above post to indicate Barrows 126.)
by matt979
Wed Jan 06, 2016 6:50 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2016 NAQT Northern California SCT: Saturday, February 6th
Replies: 1
Views: 2000

2016 NAQT Northern California SCT: Saturday, February 6th

I am pleased to announce that the northern California site of the NAQT Sectional Championship Tournament will be UC Berkeley. Location: UC Berkeley campus. Saturday, February 6, 2016. Teams and staff check in at Barrows 126 between 9 and 9:30 so that round 1 can start by 10. Fees: Base fees: $125 fo...
by matt979
Sun Jun 03, 2012 2:32 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81192

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

As long as were talking about logistics, I was really disappointed in NAQT's unwillingness to accomodate moderators who wanted to read for playoffs. I ran into Caleb Robbins on Saturday evening and found out that he was staffing the SS playoffs while I was stuck in consolation. Caleb informed me th...
by matt979
Sun Jun 03, 2012 12:49 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81192

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

"lack of alternate answer "Little Albert" for the so-called Baby Albert experiment, " Hmmm... I accepted "Little Albert" when I read this TU on Saturday, despite it not appearing on the answer line. It seemed like common sense to accept it. Should I not be doing that? ...
by matt979
Sat May 26, 2012 11:47 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NAQT HSNCT: Congratulations to Bellarmine!
Replies: 100
Views: 54793

Re: 2012 NAQT HSNCT: May 26-27, Atlanta

I'm curious, why does NAQT have double byes in the winners bracket, and how do they determine how many teams get them? Good question. The best way to answer it (and pardon the length here) involves the conceptual differences between NAQT's playoff bracket and a standard 64-team double elimination b...
by matt979
Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:34 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: HSNCT seeding discussion
Replies: 31
Views: 11359

Re: HSNCT seeding discussion

That's still really impressive though, to make that sort of commitment to teams playing other teams from different states. I'll bet that takes a lot of work for NAQT to set that up. The process used to take more time (and be more manual) than I'd care to admit, but now the seed adjustment and card ...
by matt979
Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:09 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 214
Views: 50363

Re: 2011 HSNCT discussion

They should write questions for it earlier and perhaps most importantly they shouldn't write "mixed" questions that are in fact just more geography questions. And if over time this category just keeps getting filled last, then maybe we should cut the number of "mixed" questions ...
by matt979
Tue Jun 08, 2010 3:31 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2010 NAQT HSNCT
Replies: 228
Views: 45628

Re: 2010 NAQT HSNCT

I'm confused by this. Do you mean that the 32+32 system can actually support up to 32 teams at 7-3 or better, plus up to (64 - 2w) teams at exactly 6-4? Otherwise I don't see how the above formula checks out for, say, 40 7-3 or better teams (since then there will be negative sixteen teams at 6-4......
by matt979
Tue Jun 08, 2010 3:06 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2010 NAQT HSNCT
Replies: 228
Views: 45628

Re: 2010 NAQT HSNCT

I know why the Sunday card system is constructed the way it is: so NAQT knows exactly how many trophies they need. That's partly true. Before any Sunday card system existed there would usually be 10-15 minutes between early Sunday playoff rounds, as we paired (I paired) teams once the previous roun...
by matt979
Thu Jun 03, 2010 10:28 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2010 NAQT HSNCT
Replies: 228
Views: 45628

Re: 2010 NAQT HSNCT

In the same rounds that Adair County played Walter Johnson (43), Hoover (27), and LASA B (11), Wilmington Charter had to play Stevenson (11), Torrey Pines (7), and GDS (5). As a result, Adair County placed ahead of Charter. Charter's case is merely corroborated by their strong stats: the real probl...
by matt979
Thu Jun 03, 2010 7:32 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2010 NAQT HSNCT
Replies: 228
Views: 45628

Re: 2010 NAQT HSNCT

If they turned in an end-of-day record card with a contact number, and there is a discrepancy, they should've gotten a call. Can't offer any more info than that. To elaborate on the (essentially true) statement above: If any team had turned in an end-of-day record card with a contact number, and th...
by matt979
Thu Jun 03, 2010 6:04 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2010 NAQT HSNCT
Replies: 228
Views: 45628

Re: 2010 NAQT HSNCT

EDIT: I see Jon has already reverse-engineered exactly what we're talking about here. The file that I've used for Sunday pairings for the past N years (where N >= 2) anticipates that Round 16 begins with up to 40 winner's bracket teams and up to 48 loser's bracket teams. We actually expect somewher...
by matt979
Tue Jun 01, 2010 6:37 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread
Replies: 194
Views: 51259

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

It seems more likely that we could get them to just record what rooms they were in when they had good or bad experiences. Even if you don't know people's names, which I totally understand, the rooms people are in are unchanged at least for all of Saturday. Blank cards to turn in somewhere after Sat...
by matt979
Tue Apr 13, 2010 2:20 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2010 ICT discussion
Replies: 100
Views: 20796

Re: 2010 ICT discussion

Yeah, that's actually one of the strongest reasons why I support the elimination of the categories that are almost uniformly disliked, like S:T:. They're always the last to be finished, the last, nagging needs! I don't know if no one wants to write them; that could be it. It could even be that we d...
by matt979
Mon Apr 12, 2010 1:42 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2010 ICT discussion
Replies: 100
Views: 20796

Re: 2010 ICT discussion

Yeah, I was really sick of literature questions that felt the need to be about "these novels take place in this city" type of thing. Again, I think a few questions like this are okay, but not a lot. Looking just at tossup lead-ins, I could only find two Literature questions in the first 1...
by matt979
Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:41 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.
Replies: 228
Views: 37028

Re: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.

While I'm here I'll offer a tepid defense of the _tilde_ (computer science) question, with which Andy and I had a roughly similar last-minute-review experience. Most Unix editors append this character to a filename to indicate a backup file. In algorithm theory, it indicates that two functions have ...
by matt979
Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:27 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.
Replies: 228
Views: 37028

Re: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.

If it weren't so close to the Super Bowl I'd look through the set for specific examples. Many of these are explicitly required to be "recent" (greater than 2000 -- I think that criterion was set a few years ago and I'll recommend changing it to a rolling "less than 2-3 years ago). I'...
by matt979
Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:10 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.
Replies: 228
Views: 37028

Re: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.

Then there was the "missile strike against Libya" not being accepted for "attack on Libya" or "bombing of Libya". Missiles were used against air-defense networks, so this is part of what happened. I also imagine that being a bit fuzzy on the details of airstrikes at th...
by matt979
Sun Feb 07, 2010 7:01 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.
Replies: 228
Views: 37028

Re: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.

As long as we're talking about trash: why does NAQT have an almost pathological aversion to things that are happening in sports right now? I think that's a fair criticism for NAQT sports tossups in upper-difficulty packet sets. (Not for the easy sets; at least I hope not.) For tossups, it's a lot e...
by matt979
Sun Feb 07, 2010 6:50 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.
Replies: 228
Views: 37028

Re: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.

College sports are the suck. Less sports trash, please. "When You Were Young" is emphatically not power for the Killers. "Gary Anderson, perfect all season, missed a field goal" is emphatically not power for the NFC championship. First, I'll echo the call for fewer non-academic ...
by matt979
Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:53 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.
Replies: 228
Views: 37028

Re: Welcome to the 2010 SCT discussion.

How is "Seattle Sonics" not an acceptable answer? Or just Seattle? Or just Sonics? The team often referred to themselves as just the Sonics! The actual answer line: answer: _Seattle_ _Supersonics_ (prompt on "Oklahoma City" or "Thunder" before "Oklahoma City Thund...
by matt979
Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: timer delenda est
Replies: 57
Views: 7712

Re: timer delenda est

If, for whatever reason, losing the timer is not an option, I think that having a 20-question floor for all games (as Jeff has proposed on IRC and possibly on the boards somewhere as well) is an absolute necessity. It's ridiculous to have 12- or 13-tossup games deciding anything. Quoted For Truth. ...
by matt979
Thu Jun 04, 2009 3:56 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2009 NAQT HSNCT
Replies: 349
Views: 102562

Re: 2009 NAQT HSNCT

First, I noticed that 6-4 Flushing played a total of 0 playoff games. I recognize that this may not at all be NAQT's fault - perhaps Flushing took off after the Saturday rounds and didn't check in on Sunday - but without knowing the circumstances, this seems eerily similar to the 2002 Hartland scen...
by matt979
Thu Jun 04, 2009 3:40 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2009 NAQT HSNCT
Replies: 349
Views: 102562

Re: 2009 NAQT HSNCT

Second, I also noticed that La Jolla B was eliminated in the playoffs, in the first round, by its own A team . Also, Moravian was eliminated in the first round by Lafayette, a team that it had already played on Saturday. My heart sank when I noticed the La Jolla pairing. Having already made some sp...
by matt979
Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:25 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2009 HSNCT question discussion
Replies: 262
Views: 49308

Re: 2009 HSNCT question discussion

if questions about purring and Sea World are anything to go by. This chain's Ohio property closed in 2001, but its remaining sites continue to operate roller coasters like the ~Kraken~ and shows featuring Clyde and Seamore doing things like "taking Pirate Island." It has plans to open a f...
by matt979
Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:05 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2009 HSNCT question discussion
Replies: 262
Views: 49308

Re: 2009 HSNCT question discussion

...and it wasn't like there were tossups on individual Chicago landmarks or stuff. Well, there was the Sears Tower tossup. Complete destruction of this entity was allegedly the goal of one leader of the Moorish Science Temple. Naming rights to this entity are now held by a British insurance broker,...
by matt979
Wed Jun 03, 2009 12:57 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2009 HSNCT question discussion
Replies: 262
Views: 49308

Re: 2009 HSNCT question discussion

This reminds me: In the semifinals, there was a comp math question asking for the interval over which a function is negative. Both teams (Dorman and State College) gave the answer [-3,-2], and both were counted wrong; the correct answer was said to be [-2,-3]. Could someone who knows more about mat...
by matt979
Wed Jun 03, 2009 4:22 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2009 NAQT HSNCT
Replies: 349
Views: 102562

Re: 2009 NAQT HSNCT

No matter what the result was, the protest resolution was insane. The committee was unknown to all of us, whether or not they were blind to the teams (which they should be) was unknown, and whether or not they even knew what the protests were about (which I was not convinced of, based on Matt Bruce...
by matt979
Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:04 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2009 HSNCT question discussion
Replies: 262
Views: 49308

Re: 2009 HSNCT question discussion

Was there really a tossup on Keyboard Cat at this tournament? I think the writer of this question owes it to all the teams that played this tournament to come forward and apologize. It was me; I hereby come forward and apologize. (The Freakonomics Blog and Fark.com tossups were also mine, but Pure ...
by matt979
Thu Apr 09, 2009 7:04 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2009 ICT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 29033

Re: 2009 ICT discussion

That should be allowed. You can't expect people to pronounce Shona correctly, especially the whistled sibilants. Thinking that the weird [ts] glide would be marginalized is rational. I've been thinking about this, in the context of the guideline that "a plausible or phonetic pronunciation is u...
by matt979
Wed Apr 08, 2009 10:19 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Protest Resolution: Best Practices?
Replies: 22
Views: 3891

Re: Protest Resolution: Best Practices?

As people have said, having a designated protest committee is something that needs to happen. Ad hoc protest committees are bad. My recommendation is that a three-man protest committee be formed This seems like a reasonable basic framework. If I'm reading it correctly, #1 would almost always be R. ...
by matt979
Wed Apr 08, 2009 5:07 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Protest Resolution: Best Practices?
Replies: 22
Views: 3891

Re: Protest Resolution: Best Practices?

With regards to this, wouldn't it make sense to have, instead of a 'protest committee' per se, a listing of "category protest handlers" akin to the category editors Makes sense to me. On factual disputes this is actually how it worked (for example, the decisive factor in resolving Minneso...
by matt979
Wed Apr 08, 2009 4:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Protest Resolution: Best Practices?
Replies: 22
Views: 3891

Protest Resolution: Best Practices?

Hi Everyone, Prequel question (inserted on edit, inspired by the longer ICT thread): What elements of protest resolution would you say absolutely must be covered in the pre-tournament moderator meeting? Here we're trying to achieve the right balance between good preparation and information overload;...
by matt979
Wed Apr 08, 2009 4:19 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2009 ICT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 29033

Re: 2009 ICT discussion

It seems to me that a tournament the size of ICT should have people staffing or at least contactable by phone that are reasonably competent with French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, German, and Japanese phonology. Why not just ask them? I'm inclined to call this necessary but insufficient. Someone co...
by matt979
Wed Apr 08, 2009 3:42 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2009 ICT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 29033

Re: 2009 ICT discussion

It seems to me that rule 29 is more applicable than rule 27 or 28. There is, in fact, a notable "Pom-pah-doo," but it's not unreasonable that whoever answered that was under the impression that the "r" sound was silent (because, you know, as Bruce said, French is weird, and a lo...
by matt979
Tue Apr 07, 2009 10:42 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2009 ICT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 29033

Re: 2009 ICT discussion

It is of little consequence whether the protest was right or wrong - after the tiebreaker it didn't affect the outcome of the game with Florida State anyway and it may very well have been the correct ruling (for reference, the question was whether "Pomp-eh-doo" was acceptable for Madame P...
by matt979
Tue Apr 07, 2009 10:18 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2009 ICT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 29033

Re: 2009 ICT discussion

Something that I think has come up in other places (but I don't recall where offhand), but would be a great idea - especially for tournaments of this size - would be an official cell phone contact number for each team during the tournament. Cell phone contact number should have been on the ICT 2009...
by matt979
Mon Mar 30, 2009 11:28 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Quick ICT schedule question
Replies: 9
Views: 1863

Re: Quick ICT schedule question

This was probably obvious, but today's snap poll applies strictly to the 2009 ICT timetable. A post-ICT survey (NOT restricted to ICT players, in light of the selection bias Mike S. pointed out) will present the salient options for 2010 onward.
by matt979
Mon Mar 30, 2009 11:06 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Quick ICT schedule question
Replies: 9
Views: 1863

Re: Quick ICT schedule question

Hi Everyone, The e-mail results are even more one-sided than the poll above (more teams have stated their indifference than have stated a six-round Friday preference). NAQT's ICT planners are hereby going with seven Friday rounds (the full prelim), an expected 10:30-10:45 p.m. Friday finish, a 9:30 ...
by matt979
Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Quick ICT schedule question
Replies: 9
Views: 1863

Re: Quick ICT schedule question

Because of hotel logistics, NAQT must run at least six rounds Friday evening; would you prefer that we: a) play exactly six rounds Friday night? We would finish at about 10-10:15 p.m., and round 7 would begin at 8:30 a.m. Saturday. b) play all seven preliminary rounds Friday night? We would finish ...
by matt979
Sun Mar 08, 2009 7:01 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ICT and Friday night games
Replies: 23
Views: 4430

Re: ICT and Friday night games

In response to Mike's post, would it be feasible to poll this year's SCT attendees (emailing team contacts, or whatever) for a decision about the 2010 ICT? This is an excellent idea, with the side benefit that it will confirm that NAQT has the right e-mail contacts for the teams in question. (SCT h...
by matt979
Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:53 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ICT and Friday night games
Replies: 23
Views: 4430

Re: ICT and Friday night games

Hi Everyone, Before Jeff Hoppes makes a longer response (and before I respond to Charlie's e-mail), I wanted to chime in as an ICT organizer to highlight the distinction between 2010 onward and 2009. The biggest reasons why a change to the 2009 schedule is unfeasible, in no particular order: 1. Sund...
by matt979
Sat Feb 21, 2009 11:01 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: U. of Virginia @ ICT?
Replies: 0
Views: 979

U. of Virginia @ ICT?

Hi Everyone, If any U. of Virginia quiz team member sees this could you contact me (matt -at- naqt, or ict -at- naqt would go to a group of people including myself) regarding NAQT's Intercollegiate Championship Tournament? Thanks in advance; sorry to clutter the message board but so far e-mails have...
by matt979
Sat Feb 21, 2009 10:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: SCT Private Discussion Forum
Replies: 129
Views: 22707

Re: SCT Private Discussion Forum

Registered as matt979 (yeah I know, this is ridiculously late)
by matt979
Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT CC SCTs to use Invitational Series 81
Replies: 0
Views: 881

NAQT CC SCTs to use Invitational Series 81

Hi Everyone, NAQT's Community College Sectional Championship Tournaments (CC SCTs) will use Invitational Series 81, and *not* IS 83 as previously indicated. There will still be no overlap between the CC SCT set and the four-year SCT set, because the Community College Championship will use the Divisi...
by matt979
Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:10 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: An NAQTer revisits the ACF question submission guidelines
Replies: 42
Views: 8717

Re: An NAQTer revisits the ACF question submission guidelines

Does NAQT produce "novice sets"? I was under the impression that they produced "A-sets", which contain largely the same material as the IS sets, are overwhelmingly used at tournaments with no entry restrictions (including large, prestigious regional invitationals), I presume you...
by matt979
Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: An NAQTer revisits the ACF question submission guidelines
Replies: 42
Views: 8717

Re: An NAQTer revisits the ACF question submission guidelines

[I deleted lot here about time management and trade-offs, since Mike's follow-up assertion (about an abundance of college circuit writers and paucity of NAQT recruits) would defeat my argument.] [...] Incidentally, Matt is right to scoff at what I wrote about longer tossups, but mainly because lengt...
by matt979
Tue Dec 30, 2008 5:25 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: An NAQTer revisits the ACF question submission guidelines
Replies: 42
Views: 8717

Re: An NAQTer revisits the ACF question submission guidelines

For what it's worth (which is something substantial, given that I was the person who put the "no binary matching bonuses" rule into the ACF guidelines and enforced it over the four ACF tournaments I have been officially involved in editing), I would not consider the sample question in the...
by matt979
Tue Dec 30, 2008 4:57 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: An NAQTer revisits the ACF question submission guidelines
Replies: 42
Views: 8717

Re: An NAQTer revisits the ACF question submission guidelines

Mind you, this is for the third sentence of a seven-sentence tossup. Good God, I hope you mean "lines" rather than "sentences". No, I did mean seven sentences: the example of a good Henry II tossup, given at http://www.acf-quizbowl.com/documents/packetsub.php , is (sentence numb...
by matt979
Tue Dec 30, 2008 5:38 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: An NAQTer revisits the ACF question submission guidelines
Replies: 42
Views: 8717

An NAQTer revisits the ACF question submission guidelines

Happy New Year Everyone, This post is a companion to http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6993 . Most of what I would have written there has already been expressed better than I would have, but I'd like to use a well-known, well-written set of standards as a benchmark to address ...