Search found 324 matches

by touchpack
Sat Jan 18, 2020 2:18 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: JORDU: A Jazz Side Event (Summer 2021)
Replies: 33
Views: 11981

Re: JORDU: A Jazz Side Event (Summer 2020)

A Very Long Math Tossup wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 11:55 pm
Fucitol wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 10:19 pm I am very ready to get thoroughly embarrassed on what is supposed to be one of my better categories.
by touchpack
Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:48 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open General Discussion
Replies: 20
Views: 2635

Re: 2019 Fall Open General Discussion

As a non-science player, I noticed a lot of answer lines that seemed to be a specific, relatively easy property in an applied domain. For instance, the tossup on viscosity in lava flows. I thought these were pretty interesting, although I'd be curious to hear from actual science players on this top...
by touchpack
Mon Nov 18, 2019 2:51 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 66
Views: 14368

Re: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion

First, I'm surprised I'm the first to comment on the dephosphorylation tossup, given that it was negged in 62.5% of rooms across all sites. The lead-in has a number of problems: CheY can autophosphorylate; most of phospho-CheY's dephosphorylation is catalyzed by CheZ; linguistically, CheY isn't eve...
by touchpack
Mon Nov 18, 2019 1:18 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 66
Views: 14368

Re: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion

First, I'm surprised I'm the first to comment on the dephosphorylation tossup, given that it was negged in 62.5% of rooms across all sites. The lead-in has a number of problems: CheY can autophosphorylate; most of phospho-CheY's dephosphorylation is catalyzed by CheZ; linguistically, CheY isn't eve...
by touchpack
Mon Sep 02, 2019 11:52 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Difficulty Metrics
Replies: 4
Views: 6797

Re: Difficulty Metrics

My go-to when writing jazz questions for assessing the difficulty of albums is looking at the number of reviews on Allmusic. The logic is similar to your Goodreads example--it gets you an approximate comparative measurement of how many people are actually listening to X/Y/Z album.
by touchpack
Wed Aug 07, 2019 11:38 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO 2019 Discussion
Replies: 48
Views: 31857

Re: CO 2019 Discussion

This drug addict supposedly told his wife Louisa, “My poor darling, you have killed [me]” after realizing that she had mixed up his magnesia and chloral bottles. This scientist liked to wow audiences by catching a falling glass cylinder during Christmas lectures. This man, whose reputation suffered...
by touchpack
Wed Aug 07, 2019 8:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO 2019 Discussion
Replies: 48
Views: 31857

Re: CO 2019 Discussion

My $0.02 on the science history: I largely agree with James' post, and would also cite the tossup on Sophie Germain as a successful way of incorporating science history into the science distribution. However, I don't think science history should solely be put into science. Science history, as its n...
by touchpack
Tue Jul 30, 2019 12:56 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Unanswered Question - Specific Questions/Errata
Replies: 23
Views: 1723

Re: Specific Questions/Errata

The tossup on Max Roach could use the phrase "in homage to a similarly-named album" in the clue about Max Roach + 4 . If you, as I did, know about the existence of Sonny Rollins + 4 but not the Roach album, you get negged for having knowledge, which is not ideal. This is an especially plau...
by touchpack
Fri Jul 05, 2019 10:22 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Illinois Side Event Weekend - 7/20/19
Replies: 91
Views: 36971

Re: Illinois Side Event Weekend - 7/20/19

I like this schedule, although I’d rather not play on the clock. Relatedly, will someone be excising the excessively British tossups like last year? That would help cut it down a bit instead of having a clock. Yeah, the clock can be cool for Serious National Championships but I don't think it'd be ...
by touchpack
Fri Jul 05, 2019 9:52 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Illinois Side Event Weekend - 7/20/19
Replies: 91
Views: 36971

Re: Illinois Side Event Weekend - 7/20/19

Last year, we did 8 rounds of Cambridge Open plus finals, and I thought that was just right length-wise. If the crowd really wants to reduce it to make room for more events, I would advise running CamO as a tossup-only event. I'd rather play 10-12 rounds of tossups than 5-6 rounds of tossup/bonus (s...
by touchpack
Sat Jun 01, 2019 2:24 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2019 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 144
Views: 56953

Re: 2019 HSNCT discussion

Looking back on this question, I think _orthonormal_ should be acceptable before the word "normalized"--while the wording of the clues more directly hints towards _orthogonal_, the first two sentences are both certainly true for an answer of "orthonormal" as well (in particular, ...
by touchpack
Wed May 29, 2019 10:46 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2019 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 144
Views: 56953

Re: 2019 HSNCT discussion

On another note on that question, I'm a huge fan of NAQT adopting verbose prompts! Within reason. When an answer line reaches three lines of text, it doesn't matter if we've been given a note to "look over this answer line in advance", it's going to be difficult to parse in real-time. Tho...
by touchpack
Wed May 29, 2019 10:27 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2019 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 144
Views: 56953

Re: 2019 HSNCT discussion

Bar in Nighthawks should probably have been accepted upon protest, right? I don't think I lodged a protest, but they were looking for restaurant of diner. I don't think the protest would have mattered anyway. FWIW, I said "the bar in Nighthawks" and it was accepted, although I heard that ...
by touchpack
Tue May 28, 2019 5:22 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CANONEXPANSION @ HSNCT
Replies: 18
Views: 8118

Re: CANONEXPANSION @ HSNCT

Echoing Noah and Jonathen here: this set did have some issues (weird difficulty swings and difficulty cliffs, some of the creative ideas just didn't work out that well, etc.) However, it also had a bunch of really excellent questions, and the whimsy factor was really, really enjoyable. Thanks to the...
by touchpack
Mon May 06, 2019 12:47 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NAQT, Outreach, and Social Media
Replies: 26
Views: 16447

Re: NAQT, Outreach, and Social Media

Since NCTs run on timing, I don't think there's any actual risk of one game finishing entirely ahead of another game played on the same questions. Actually, this happens somewhat frequently, and it makes liveblogging question content for the prelims infeasible. The card system requires that game-de...
by touchpack
Thu May 02, 2019 8:15 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Why don't we have 1/1 math?
Replies: 59
Views: 30557

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

As someone who is not a huge fan of most subfields of earth science, it's way more than just "geology and physical geography." Off the top of my head, there's also geophysics, atmospheric science and meteorology, hydrology (encompassing ocean science, freshwater science, and stuff about gr...
by touchpack
Sat Apr 20, 2019 8:42 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Player Poll 2019
Replies: 92
Views: 64041

Re: Player Poll 2019

Science Man here giving my thoughts on Science People: Geoff is #1, and it's not close. Look at his PIANO and ICT stats if you don't believe me--dude is a monster with high potential to become the GOAT in undergrad. #2 through #4 are, in some order, Kai Smith, Adam Silverman, and Stephen Eltinge. Ka...
by touchpack
Sat Apr 20, 2019 1:35 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Why don't we have 1/1 math?
Replies: 10
Views: 9640

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

NAQT already has 1/1 math at the HSNCT and SSNCT, though some of the bonuses are computational.
by touchpack
Sat Apr 20, 2019 12:47 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Lederberg 3: General Discussion
Replies: 19
Views: 1900

Re: Lederberg 3: General Discussion

The folder appears to only have the scoresheets--I know Ophir has set up some system where you feed the scoresheets and packets into something and it generates a spreadsheet of advanced stats (in this case just stats by category, since the buzzpoints are lost with the hotel basement's lack of wifi),...
by touchpack
Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:25 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Why don't we have 1/1 math?
Replies: 59
Views: 30557

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

Because there's no clear reason that math should beat out any number of equally deserving things for a 1/1 slot among 20/20; if, hypothetically, the standard quizbowl tournament were to be 24/24, then I think math would have a case. Definitely agreed with this, but even then, I'm not sure math woul...
by touchpack
Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: Lederberg Trinity (Summer 2019)
Replies: 61
Views: 34079

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Lederberg Trinity (Summer 2019)

Are stats going to be posted for this, or are they a casualty of the paper scoresheets / bad hotel internet?
by touchpack
Mon Apr 15, 2019 11:21 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2019 - 4/13-14/2019 - University of Pennsylvania
Replies: 105
Views: 82832

Re: ACF Nationals 2019 - 4/13-14/2019 - University of Pennsylvania

There is : here or on the Academic Competition Federation facebook page . Hey, for the future, please don't ever stream quizbowl on facebook. It's a notoriously garbage streaming service which, on top of other issues, has literally zero mobile support! I was unable to listen to the finals because o...
by touchpack
Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:36 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 ICT DI specific question discussion
Replies: 31
Views: 2483

Re: 2019 ICT DI specific question discussion

I think the discussion of the "C++ standard library" question above illustrates an interesting and little-discussed feature of giveaway theory (which itself is a neglected topic in the larger world of quizbowl theory). There is a fine distinction between acceptable and frustrating giveawa...
by touchpack
Tue Apr 09, 2019 5:14 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 50
Views: 9802

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Thanks and General Discussion

Alright, here's some more details on things I think this tournament's science did exceptionally well. 1. Topic selection Topic selection (for both answerlines and clues) is, in my opinion, the single most important piece to get right to produce a successful set, in any category. Borrowing some langu...
by touchpack
Mon Apr 08, 2019 8:07 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ICT format and seeding discussion
Replies: 74
Views: 45332

Re: The ICT format is awful and unfair (or: why I now play for the "Ann Arbor Campus, University of Michigan")

Personally I'd love to see a 40-team ICT with 15 rounds - 7 prelims and 8 playoffs. Presumably teams are willing to pay more for the guaranteed extra rounds. Given that each round takes about 30 minutes, particularly considering the generally excellent logistics of the ICT, you could maybe start pr...
by touchpack
Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:02 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: Lederberg Trinity (Summer 2019)
Replies: 61
Views: 34079

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Lederberg Trinity (Summer 2019)

NAQT staff check-in (and some set-up tasks) for the ICT *starts* at 7:30, so a 6:30 start time for this tournament is completely infeasible (unless you can get Joel to exempt Lederberg participants)
by touchpack
Mon Apr 01, 2019 12:18 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Errata
Replies: 35
Views: 3822

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Errata

The breathing question really confused me, because IIRC, all the clues were talking about things that happen in utero.... and the fetus does not breathe in utero! I'd have to see the exact wording to be sure, but I'm not sure the clues actually point to the correct answer. The intent was to be spec...
by touchpack
Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Errata
Replies: 35
Views: 3822

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Errata

FWIW I don't think Geoff's answer is that ridiculous--equilibrioception is a common vocab word seen in MCAT prep material (and it's of course a well-known term in medicine). The breathing question really confused me, because IIRC, all the clues were talking about things that happen in utero.... and ...
by touchpack
Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:18 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 50
Views: 9802

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Thanks and General Discussion

The science in this tournament was really excellent--best I've played since Crime for sure, thanks to Adam and everyone else involved for putting this on. When I'm less tired I'll make another post elaborating about some of the things I think the tournament did exceptionally well.
by touchpack
Thu Feb 14, 2019 2:02 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 SCT general discussion
Replies: 5
Views: 945

Re: 2019 SCT general discussion

I'm certainly sympathetic to the notion that many of these "computational" type questions can be difficult to parse at gamespeed--in particular, I think it seems that quarter wavelength was significantly too hard-to-parse to ask for outside of a bonus. (That tossup probably should have jus...
by touchpack
Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: Lederberg Trinity (Summer 2019)
Replies: 61
Views: 34079

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Lederberg Trinity (Summer 2019)

I would very much like to play this, but I am staffing GOLBEZ where/when it is run (currently Saturday night at ICT), regardless of the date/time chosen for this tournament.
by touchpack
Thu Jan 10, 2019 8:02 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals playtesting
Replies: 26
Views: 12558

Re: ACF Regionals playtesting

I'm going to playtest physics and other science this weekend or early next week. I'll probably hold the sessions one after the other, but I'm open to having them at separate times depending on interest. I've made two doodle polls to select times: physics , other science . In addition to the times I...
by touchpack
Tue Jan 08, 2019 5:48 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: EFT 2018 - Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 35
Views: 12175

Re: EFT 2018 - Thanks and General Discussion

I'm looking at advanced stats for earlier mirrors of EFT and I'm seriously questioning why it was necessary to take them at all. The stats confirm unequivocally things that should have been obvious to the editors: T.S. Eliot was far too easy, the 1400s were far too fraudable, and Winterreise was fa...
by touchpack
Tue Dec 11, 2018 2:18 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: 2019 PIANO/Minnesota Open
Replies: 89
Views: 49450

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: 2019 PIANO/Minnesota Open

Can you guys decide on a date soon? I work ~26 weekends a year and need to request time off well in advance.
by touchpack
Fri Dec 07, 2018 2:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
Replies: 50
Views: 19915

Re: Science (2018 Sun God)

Round 6 The tossup on “data centers” was, for lack of a better word, super jank. I get what it was going for but I know that everyone in my room was rather incredulous, and several of us were sitting on it as a result. This might just be a consequence of how out there the answerline was, but empiri...
by touchpack
Fri Nov 16, 2018 8:25 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
Replies: 50
Views: 19915

Re: Science (2018 Sun God)

Writing application-based science bonus parts strikes me as somewhat like the science equivalent of writing score clues in music tossups--it's incredibly difficult to do well for someone not versed in the field, but a tournament with none of them is, IMO, a bit lacking. It's important to walk the li...
by touchpack
Mon Nov 12, 2018 8:45 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: 2019 PIANO/Minnesota Open
Replies: 89
Views: 49450

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: 2019 PIANO/Minnesota Open

One other point I'd like to make: part of the allure of playing a hard-difficulty open tournament is the opportunity for a highly competitive field to form from groups of highly talented quizbowlers of various ages and various locations travelling to one place. Like, Chicago Open has exactly one sit...
by touchpack
Mon Nov 12, 2018 7:08 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: 2019 PIANO/Minnesota Open
Replies: 89
Views: 49450

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: 2019 PIANO/Minnesota Open

I went to Michigan State as an undergraduate and road-tripped with Joe, Connor, and Ryan Dillon to Minneapolis for Minnesota Open -- that was just the sort of thing you had to do to play! There was an entire era when the main site of Minnesota Open was an event that people would travel long distanc...
by touchpack
Mon Nov 12, 2018 3:07 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: 2019 PIANO/Minnesota Open
Replies: 89
Views: 49450

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: 2019 PIANO/Minnesota Open

Do not hold two Midwest mirrors, period, full stop.

Nobody wants to play in the fractured fields that would result, and I implore the editors to cancel one of them immediately.
by touchpack
Mon Nov 05, 2018 1:40 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall 2018 - Specific Questions and Errata
Replies: 53
Views: 26635

Re: ACF Fall 2018 - Specific Questions and Errata

This was a mostly quite good set of novice science questions, I can think of very little to nitpick! -The first clue of the tossup on "pressure" actually refers to energy density, but it doesn't accept that."It can be easily shown that the radiation pressure exerted by a light wave is...
by touchpack
Tue Oct 30, 2018 1:28 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: EFT 2018 - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 51
Views: 14557

Re: EFT 2018 - Specific Question Discussion

A receptor partially named for this compound is activated by a peptide found in Gila monster venom. A peptide that is “like” this compound is an example of an incretin, whose production is blocked by DPP-4 inhibitors like Januvia . This compound upregulates a pathway that uses enzymes like HMG-CoA ...
by touchpack
Sat Oct 20, 2018 12:36 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Fantasy Quizbowl Week 2: Penn Bowl
Replies: 10
Views: 823

Re: Fantasy Quizbowl Week 2: Penn Bowl

Robert Chu
Jaskaran Singh
Kevin Wang

Chicago A

alternate: Rahul Keyal
by touchpack
Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:21 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Announcement: Fantasy Quizbowl 2018-19
Replies: 51
Views: 4902

Re: Announcement: Fantasy Quizbowl 2018-19

Based on this schedule, I assume there will be some sort of playoffs on ICT and ACF nationals?
by touchpack
Wed Aug 01, 2018 5:46 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Fuck it, let's rank the sets
Replies: 28
Views: 26054

Re: Fuck it, let's rank the sets

I know this is tooting my own horn a bit, but for easier tournaments, I was really proud of the work my co-editors and I did on MUT 2014, and I remember that set being very well-received as well.
by touchpack
Mon Jul 30, 2018 6:10 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: When do questions "belong" to a set?
Replies: 25
Views: 13773

Re: When do questions "belong" to a set?

I think if this thread was really meant to answer the question being posed, there was no reason to go through the specifics. On the other hand, if the events of the tournament production deserve a broader analysis, then maybe they should have been. But in that case, I think the OP should have been ...
by touchpack
Sun Jul 22, 2018 9:17 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Chicago Open 2019 - Weekend of August 3rd
Replies: 98
Views: 77041

Re: Chicago Open 2018 - July 21st weekend

Monday Begins on Saturday, and Sunday Comes Afterwards (Matt Bollinger, Shan Kothari, Adam Silverman, and Matt Weiner) defeated A Dead Meme Isn't Art (Ike Jose, John Lawrence, Jakob Myers, and Andrew Wang) in the first game of an advantaged final. I don't have the scoresheet for the final yet, so I...
by touchpack
Fri Jun 08, 2018 12:11 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2018 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 91
Views: 48308

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Could I see the tossup on bacteriophages from Round 8? I remember protesting because they were referred to as organisms, which I believe was a dispute in other rooms as well. It's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that viruses are not considered organisms, but the ruling from the control r...
by touchpack
Wed Apr 18, 2018 10:18 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 Division II ICT: specific question discussion
Replies: 14
Views: 1721

Re: 2018 Division II ICT: specific question discussion

I said "slaves in Egypt" for _pyramid builders_ and got negged; I understand not all of the builders may have been slaves per se, but what were the acceptable and promptable responses? The answer line was pyramid builder s (accept answers that mention people who worked on pyramid s at Giz...