Search found 3061 matches

by Mechanical Beasts
Fri Feb 08, 2013 2:39 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Let's Talk About Science History
Replies: 44
Views: 11335

Re: Let's Talk About Science History

This is not a particularly strong argument. Physics is also "so fundamental" (it would be hard to argue that it is less fundamental), so perhaps there is 1.3/1.3 physics in the 1/1 physics model. This is not necessarily a reason to reduce the physics distribution; it is a factual statemen...
by Mechanical Beasts
Thu Feb 07, 2013 11:05 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Let's Talk About Science History
Replies: 44
Views: 11335

Re: Let's Talk About Science History

3) Chemistry knowledge is often tested in the biology, physics, astronomy, and history of science categories. Because chemistry is so fundamental, it spills over to other categories. So basically, in the 1/1 chem model, there's probably going to be something like 1.2/1.2 chem because there are chem...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue Jul 10, 2012 7:59 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Where to Cry "Fraud!"
Replies: 4
Views: 3759

Re: Where to Cry "Fraud!"

It is always acceptable to use academic clues in academic questions. True, but that doesn't entirely answer the question, because it relies on a presupposed idea of academic clues that you don't elucidate and that the poster is confused about. So I've been reading through my team's drafted question...
by Mechanical Beasts
Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:46 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

You know something is up when powermarks extend to the 2nd to last clue. I apologize for that- there were just some tossups that I felt deserved a late power, since the original post said "moderate high school difficulty", even though this set overshot it in general. However, powermarking...
by Mechanical Beasts
Mon Jul 09, 2012 1:57 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ
Replies: 168
Views: 82176

Re: 3 Day Ridgewood Summer Invitational: July 6-8, Ridgewood, NJ

Congratulations to DCC (Expert Divisions) and to Hanover (Standard Division) for their victories on Day 2 of the Ridgewood Summer Invitational. Runners up were Hunter A in the Expert (the DCC / Hunter match went to a tiebreak - Collin Parks powered a history question for the win) I didn't understan...
by Mechanical Beasts
Sun Jul 08, 2012 5:04 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?
Replies: 26
Views: 18482

Re: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?

Well in most places which you'd consult for clues about humanities questions, the knowledge obviously isn't arranged as a bulleted list of clues. It's arranged in essay-writing or prose that talks not only about the events but about the context surrounding them. By using those sources to write ques...
by Mechanical Beasts
Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:51 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?
Replies: 26
Views: 18482

Re: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?

But the point that I'm trying to make is that you'll not just know that "that scene with the Eschaton" happened if you do what I said, but you will learn about the significance of the scene. If you put in the appropriate level of work and research into the question, that is. What proporti...
by Mechanical Beasts
Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:37 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?
Replies: 26
Views: 18482

Re: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?

You'll learn stuff for quizbowl and you'll follow your own deep intellectual pursuits. You'll soon realize that each isn't all that helpful for the other. Also: people who have deep knowledge of things can tell when they're speaking to people who have shallow knowledge of things. Don't sweat it. Ye...
by Mechanical Beasts
Fri Jul 06, 2012 10:33 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Social science in high school quizbowl
Replies: 10
Views: 6798

Re: Social science in high school quizbowl

The Motley Eye wrote:remote sensing
Any move in the quizbowl metagame allowing me to write questions from my high school science olympiad binders are probably not welcome changes.
by Mechanical Beasts
Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:32 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Bonus Bounce-back/Negs Question
Replies: 19
Views: 5255

Re: Bonus Bounce-back/Negs Question

Sarah - any particular reason (if there is any) that the FNT set isn't being produced for this year? That's a big disappointment, as the 2 tournaments I ran with it I've had nothing but great comments about the overall distribution and difficulty level of the set. Not too hard, not too easy, just a...
by Mechanical Beasts
Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:41 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2013 NAQT HSNCT: Congratulations LASA!
Replies: 109
Views: 69143

Re: 2013 NAQT HSNCT: May 25-26, Atlanta

Is there a chance of this tournament expanding to 256 teams as I heard some talking about last month? Is 256 really a magic number for the card system? I don't know enough about the math behind it all, but doesn't the fact that you have to have a large percentage of the field on bye every game mean...
by Mechanical Beasts
Sat Jun 23, 2012 10:18 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: IS set difficulty and HSNCT field expansion
Replies: 11
Views: 3975

Re: 2011-12 NAQT IS sets: question-specific discussion

there are significantly more teams getting higher than those amounts in 2012 than 2010. Note that some amount of this effect has nothing to do with the difficulty of the IS sets and is rather a result of the expanding HSNCT field (ie, there are some teams being added to the field at high bonus conv...
by Mechanical Beasts
Fri Jun 22, 2012 12:09 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011-12 NAQT IS sets: question-specific discussion
Replies: 32
Views: 14161

Re: 2011-12 NAQT IS sets: question-specific discussion

For about the past four years, IS-sets have been regarded both as much-improved products and as too hard for lots of teams. I'm wondering, between NAQT's conversion records and some other sources like the statlines Fred gathers, whether this is still true and whether NAQT thinks it made progress in...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue Jun 19, 2012 10:07 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Fine arts/music
Replies: 117
Views: 44748

Re: Fine arts/music

I would protest the question as "ad hominem," but it's understandable—maybe 10 HS tournaments (plus HSNCT and NASAT), and then quite bit of packet reading. So, uh, get over yourself. I have approximately a billion times more experience with quizbowl than you, having played hundreds of gam...
by Mechanical Beasts
Thu Jun 14, 2012 4:40 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: What's the matter with Kansas?
Replies: 65
Views: 48472

Re: What's the matter with Kansas?

Just curious - is there a similar thread like this one, but for Missouri? Charlie said he had faced a lot of the same things that Kansas is going through now, and has presumably made great progress since then. Would be interesting to see what kind of steps were taken to install "good quizbowl&...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:42 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: PACE NSC 2012 "going to hell" protest resolution
Replies: 29
Views: 18041

Re: PACE NSC 2012 "going to hell" protest resolution

As Matt Weiner said near the beginning of this discussion, their decision could be defended using respected texts. As some others are pointing out, it can also be refuted using respected texts. Since none of us have actually been to Avici or met Munkar and Nakir, that may be as far as this goes. Bu...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:32 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: PACE NSC 2012 "going to hell" protest resolution
Replies: 29
Views: 18041

Re: PACE NSC 2012 "going to hell" protest resolution

Do the people in Avici actually get burned? The walls are enormous and the fire seems to cover only the walls, while the people are tortured in the interior of the space deep within them. Similarly, the fire-breathing monsters patrol the walls and would probably be pretty far away from the interior...
by Mechanical Beasts
Mon Jun 04, 2012 12:12 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NAC
Replies: 189
Views: 70718

Re: 2012 NAC

Overall comments on the tournament: on the whole, the tournament was run pretty smoothly, as is expected with so few rooms, the only hitch being a fire drill which still did not push things back too much. As for the question quality, pyramidality has certainly increased from past years, with most q...
by Mechanical Beasts
Sat Jun 02, 2012 7:02 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

Wasn't there also a bonus on Sonic the Hedgehog in Packet 1, or did that go under misc.? The notion of "misc" in NAQT does not mean that it can contain anything. The MI: parent code contains questions that bridge multiple subject areas (the tossup on "Brown") and MI:PC: those th...
by Mechanical Beasts
Sat Jun 02, 2012 3:10 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NSC: June 9-10 at Washington University in St. Louis
Replies: 106
Views: 176197

Re: 2012 NSC: June 9-10 at Washington University in St. Louis

We are not planning on having distinct difficulties between the prelims and playoffs this year. So 2011 NSC actually had distinct difficulties between the two? Superplayoffs packets seemed considerably harder than the rest of the tournament, but it'd be good to have official word about this. The in...
by Mechanical Beasts
Thu May 31, 2012 4:21 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

I was surprised about the interrupts - I thought more negs would cause fewer questions to be read each match, but that line slopes upward more steeply than any of the others. This is because once a team has negged the other team, if they're not trying to power vulch, will wait until the full questi...
by Mechanical Beasts
Thu May 31, 2012 1:07 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

(I didn't read at HSNCT this year) Yeah, I would say 20 is probably a good bare minimum, but Jeff alludes to something that should be kept in mind: sometimes a low number of questions read is not entirely on the moderator being bad--teams that wait until the very end of every tossup, use the maximu...
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed May 30, 2012 10:00 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

Well, it should have been accepted on the answer line in the first place. I would go so far as to say the Little Albert is THE name of the experiment in all common usage. I've never once seen Baby Albert used to refer to it, and googling baby Albert basically yields the same result (there are a cou...
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed May 30, 2012 9:21 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 ACE IQC - Monday, May 28 Atlanta
Replies: 14
Views: 9517

Re: 2012 ACE IQC - Monday, May 28 Atlanta

Here are my concerns: It seems like right now, the demands on top high school quizbowl writers are quite high: on top of writing HSNCT and NSC if possible, top writers are also expected to contribute to NASAT and the History Bee and Bowl Of course, this is a poor approximation: there's limited cross...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue May 29, 2012 8:57 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

Full disclosure - I've been almost completely out the game since late in the Clinton Administration, so I might be completely out of line here. But one of my pet peeves as a player was questions that were wordy for wordiness sake. While I never felt like I was reading excessive words, there were a ...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue May 29, 2012 4:41 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

(1) We found very few moderators on day one capable of finishing a packet, even with IMSA (and sometimes our opponent also) putting up a lot of powers and playing fast. I can only guess that, with slower-playing teams, a lot of rounds did not hear enough tossups. We never had a bad moderator, but a...
by Mechanical Beasts
Mon May 28, 2012 6:38 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

Anyone have any idea what the hell happened here ? Five real people, five How I Met Your Mother, one ASoIaF, and a lot I just don't get. EDIT: Amy-Donna-Jack-Nick-Rory were all Round 14, so four are Doctor Who companions and a minor mystery, Nick. Elaine-Jordan-Klaus are Round 15. Don't get these. ...
by Mechanical Beasts
Mon May 28, 2012 3:16 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

The palladium tossup probably saw more than its share of "platinum" negs--it said something towards the end that I heard as "this element is the most common in fuel cell catalysts," which I think might actually be unambiguously platinum rather than palladium. "Most fuel cel...
by Mechanical Beasts
Mon May 28, 2012 3:09 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

I noticed a few inappropriately hard organic chem questions when watching the stream. Is this really the audience for tossups on reduction reactions, palladium, and ring strain(?!?!?) This is generally a good critique but I'll point out that the tossup was on "strain." Not necessarily eas...
by Mechanical Beasts
Thu May 17, 2012 6:45 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: History Bowl Discussion
Replies: 43
Views: 20718

Re: History Bowl Discussion

And, honestly, having read 13 rounds of this set, i think that just about every single science or literature or art (or anything else that wasn't history) question was clearly still "historically important." There weren't tossups about Junichiro Tanizaki or chromatography here. Not to get...
by Mechanical Beasts
Fri May 11, 2012 1:13 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: DC-area tournament size and split field discussion
Replies: 35
Views: 11171

Re: Metro areas without enough good high school quizbowl

Let's review what I've been told, and I'll try to keep the list in order of most frequent to least frequent: -- Discouraged after too many losses -- Students/coach unwilling to commit entire day Fixable by single elimination (losses capped at one). But that totally conflicts with the second part: i...
by Mechanical Beasts
Thu May 10, 2012 11:47 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: DC-area tournament size and split field discussion
Replies: 35
Views: 11171

Re: DC-area tournament size and split field discussion

I'm certainly not saying that questions should be unplayable! Questions should be written such that all teams can play on them without either 20 to 10 results or "dumbed down" content. If an IS set is too hard for half your field than it means IS sets need to be easier, not that we need t...
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed May 09, 2012 8:48 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Ask a Harvest Bowl survivor and ACF co-founder anything
Replies: 41
Views: 38914

Re: Ask a Harvest Bowl survivor and ACF co-founder anything

augustusmelmotte wrote:
grapesmoker wrote:
augustusmelmotte wrote:We first noted a fourfold root of sufficient reason in the armor in the third round
This is my favorite part of the story.
Apparently some overzealous filtering software didn't like my original wording... Interesting.
the best part of chris frankel's legacy
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed May 02, 2012 3:30 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Writing for SCT/ICT
Replies: 38
Views: 15504

Re: Writing for SCT/ICT

DII players will still be able to write for DI as they normally have (the "combined field on DI questions" is an even rarer beast than "weather-induced emergency combined field on DII"). It seems plausible to make it the rule that combined fields are run on DII. Regions with few...
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed Apr 25, 2012 9:40 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2012 ACF Nationals Discussion Thread
Replies: 106
Views: 25602

Re: 2012 ACF Nationals Discussion Thread

Tu Bishvat It sounds like this maybe used to be more popular among some groups of Jewish people in the middle ages. Oh, who cares, I bet Matt Jackson will get it, pull the trigger! I don't know, maybe I'm being too much my own stereotype, but I knew that holiday since eighth grade just from having ...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue Apr 24, 2012 10:28 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2012 ACF Nationals Discussion Thread
Replies: 106
Views: 25602

Re: 2012 ACF Nationals Discussion Thread

Tu Bishvat It sounds like this maybe used to be more popular among some groups of Jewish people in the middle ages. Oh, who cares, I bet Matt Jackson will get it, pull the trigger! I don't know, maybe I'm being too much my own stereotype, but I knew that holiday since eighth grade just from having ...
by Mechanical Beasts
Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:16 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: neg king/queen/monarch
Replies: 40
Views: 12153

Re: neg king/queen/monarch

I'll note just so it's explicit for everyone: the current split of for to against in this thread has virtually every experienced editor or TD in the thread in either the "against" column or at least the "probably not for high school" column. Feel free to throw me in the against ...
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:35 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Painfully Easy Giveaways
Replies: 30
Views: 9636

Re: Painfully Easy Giveaways

Just don't expect to find "painfully easy" giveaways in HFT. Depends on your pain tolerance, I suppose, but going to the first packet I opened and looking for the closest to what's mentioned in this thread: For 10 points, name this chromosome, two of which are found in each somatic cell o...
by Mechanical Beasts
Fri Apr 06, 2012 3:29 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NSC Field Expansion
Replies: 9
Views: 5225

Re: 2012 NSC Field Expansion

What would be the schedule for a 56-team NSC?

Also, what's the distribution this year? You posted that the final details were being worked out, but that was in August.
by Mechanical Beasts
Fri Apr 06, 2012 11:32 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Writing for SCT/ICT
Replies: 38
Views: 15504

Re: Writing for SCT/ICT

When I know that it will pass through a third party who will quality-control it so that the final product meets NAQTs standards, why should I be the one working on the length caps when there is an editor who has the power and the duty to standardize the questions? This is actually a pretty good arg...
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:58 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: History Bowl Discussion
Replies: 43
Views: 20718

Re: History Bowl Discussion

Whether or not the Constitution as a whole can be referred to as a law (it is the supreme law of the land, although it's not merely a law) may be more debatable. But I've never heard it referred to as simply a law, and would hope nobody would do so in a quizbowl question. Using the terms document o...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue Apr 03, 2012 7:18 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ICT Seeding
Replies: 11
Views: 4349

Re: ICT Seeding

First the tiebreaks: The NAQT distribution is already skewed from being a tournament-wide distribution rather than a by-packet distribution. I don't think this is much more true than it's true that the ACF distribution can "skew" if the chemistry question is on the bio-y side and the phys...
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed Mar 21, 2012 9:14 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ICT Prediction Thread
Replies: 111
Views: 45242

Re: ICT Prediction Thread

Minnesota... the wheels really come off for Minnesota [when Andrew Hart resorts to punching another wall after losing to Illinois again. This time he breaks his hand and proceeds to lose every future buzzer race.] Have you confused your And[rew|y]s, or is our name more wall-punching-prone than I'd ...
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed Mar 14, 2012 2:58 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Quizbowl internship for summer 2012
Replies: 33
Views: 10463

Re: Quizbowl internship for summer 2012

the only person known to threaten people with lawsuits for criticizing his questions That had to do with revealing details of a Questions Galore bid for Missouri questions, as I recall, rather than "I will sue you because you say my questions are bad"--though maybe I'm just looking at the...
by Mechanical Beasts
Fri Mar 09, 2012 3:43 pm
Forum: New High School Teams
Topic: How is my Question?
Replies: 5
Views: 4218

Re: How is my Question?

Your giveaway is okay, but I think the easiest phrase there is "Old One." I might change it to "FTP, name this Old One appearing in "At the Mountains of Madness" and other Lovecraft works."
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed Mar 07, 2012 12:58 am
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: HSNCT Then and Now
Replies: 7
Views: 7265

Re: HSNCT Then and Now

Dwight - I love the work. Did you run any tests on negs? I ask because among the many possible reasons for increased power rate, a decreased neg rate is one of the few that can be meaningfully tested. I did not run any tests on neg rate but I do not understand why a decreased neg rate would positiv...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue Mar 06, 2012 9:16 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Quizbowl internship for summer 2012
Replies: 33
Views: 10463

Re: Quizbowl internship for summer 2012

Listen to this man! Remember, until you're 21, he's an adult and you are not.
by Mechanical Beasts
Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:20 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

If you understand the least thing about that clue--you know that esters end in "oate" and you figure "dioate" means "two oate-s"--then you're going to be able to make it work.. Again, that's the point of the clue! "If you can rapidly interpret an obtuse nomenclatu...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

The addition-elimination clue I don't think was unique, even the way you have it written, because in saponification (another tossupable thing) an OR group gets kicked out after an O-minus resonates its electrons back onto the carbon center. I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, mechanistic clues a...
by Mechanical Beasts
Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:38 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

That's actually the reason I included the clue. The point is not so much to know that exact example, but to give players a sense of what type of molecules are involved and consequently what sort of reaction is occurring. I personally think this is a better way to distinguish people who have taken o...