Search found 324 matches
- Sat Jan 18, 2020 2:18 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: JORDU: A Jazz Side Event (Summer 2021)
- Replies: 33
- Views: 11981
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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.
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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 ...
- 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...
- 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, ...
- 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...
- 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 ...
- 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...
- Sun May 26, 2019 1:22 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: GOLBEZ -- A Video Games Tournament (Saturday Night @ ICT and HSNCT 2019)
- Replies: 73
- Views: 37876
- Sat May 25, 2019 8:40 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: GOLBEZ -- A Video Games Tournament (Saturday Night @ ICT and HSNCT 2019)
- Replies: 73
- Views: 37876
Re: GOLBEZ -- A Video Games Tournament (Saturday Night @ ICT and HSNCT 2019)
This tournament is now in the M100 area.
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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.
- 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),...
- 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...
- 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?
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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)
- 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...
- 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 ...
- 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.
- 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...
- 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.
- 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...
- 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...
- 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.
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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.
Nobody wants to play in the fractured fields that would result, and I implore the editors to cancel one of them immediately.
- 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...
- 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 ...
- 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
Jaskaran Singh
Kevin Wang
Chicago A
alternate: Rahul Keyal
- 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?
- 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.
- 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 ...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...