Search found 275 matches

by Tower Monarch
Sun May 05, 2013 12:14 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Terrapin Mirror - Skype - 5/4/13
Replies: 32
Views: 11398

Re: Terrapin Mirror - Skype - 5/4/13

I just want to thank Mike and the readers for a well-run tournament. We only had one game affected by Skype issues and that is way better than we (or at least I) expected.
by Tower Monarch
Sun Feb 24, 2013 1:51 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals at Brown University (2/23/13)
Replies: 30
Views: 21578

Re: ACF Regionals at Brown University (2/23/13)

Somehow my name is the only one on Dartmouth A spelled correctly, to the point that Nick JENsen was announced as a top scorer under the wrong name. Other notable last names include Pellowski and Alston. Thanks for hosting, Brown; this went very smoothly.
by Tower Monarch
Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:57 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: GSAC XX at Maggie Walker (VA) 12/8/12 - Seeking Mirrors
Replies: 18
Views: 9614

Re: GSAC XX at Maggie Walker (VA) 12/8/12 - Seeking Mirrors

If you guys still want some staff, I am in town then and know where the place is.
by Tower Monarch
Sun Nov 11, 2012 4:07 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
Replies: 42
Views: 14636

Re: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths

. . . Dummit. . . Completely unrelated, but this guy's son (who's a math grad student at Madison) totally played on my ACF Fall team. That is so cool. It's the standard book for our Algebra sequence, so when I randomly met some UVM faculty visiting Hanover I asked about them and they immediately kn...
by Tower Monarch
Sat Nov 10, 2012 10:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
Replies: 42
Views: 14636

Re: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths

Don't use wikipedia or planetmath or wolfram to write questions. They mix in mundane, trivial statements with cutting edge research that no one can be expected to know. Just open a book on number theory; there are literally dozens of quality ones with the titles "Elementary Number Theory" ...
by Tower Monarch
Sat Nov 10, 2012 9:09 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
Replies: 42
Views: 14636

Re: Minnesota/Penn Open IV Discussion

So I started making a list of the Math canon a while back for study purposes, and here is the list of answerlines I made: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArKk7aG7fG91dDdoMjhyaWlhSnhHc1oxdEI1eDR2Ync#gid=0 . The first column are things that I could imagine multiple, well-written tossups o...
by Tower Monarch
Sat Nov 10, 2012 8:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
Replies: 42
Views: 14636

Re: Minnesota/Penn Open IV Discussion

Note that despite the fact that I am presenting on algorithms related to that conjecture this Tuesday, I would strongly recommend against tossing it up. I'm not sure where people get the idea that I'm in favor of tossing up hard math answerlines. I am very much against this. I am in favor of people...
by Tower Monarch
Sat Nov 10, 2012 8:28 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
Replies: 42
Views: 14636

Re: Minnesota/Penn Open IV Discussion

I would argue, however, that the tossup on residues that you answered in the final at Nationals could also fit into the regular difficulty canon quite nicely as I learned about things like that when in my undergraduate complex analysis course. I never hear questions about those kind of things in re...
by Tower Monarch
Sat Nov 10, 2012 8:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: math math math a hundred maths one thousand maths
Replies: 42
Views: 14636

Re: Minnesota/Penn Open IV Discussion

My jimmies are not rustled enough to join this discussion more than part-way, but I think I agree with the last bit of MattBo's post re: "I want more hard math questions...". In terms of the question that sparked this whole thing, I think that as a tossup answerline that was just short of ...
by Tower Monarch
Sun Jun 24, 2012 5:47 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Play Chicago Open for Free! - Need 17th Team
Replies: 6
Views: 3066

Re: Play Chicago Open for Free! - Need 17th Team

Dartmouth has been wanting to attend for a while; we've just been dealing with writing the packet. It's half done and we can pay the full entrance fee no problem.
by Tower Monarch
Fri Mar 30, 2012 4:47 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: MUT at MIT (4/28/12)
Replies: 22
Views: 11424

Re: MUT at MIT (4/28/12)

We'll definitely have 1 team there and we have funding for two, so we'll do an interest check in a couple weeks to lock that in place.
by Tower Monarch
Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:33 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals Northeast at Brown (2/18/2012)
Replies: 19
Views: 10977

Re: ACF Regionals Northeast at Brown (2/18/2012)

Just wanted to confirm 2 teams for Dartmouth.
by Tower Monarch
Sun Feb 05, 2012 12:36 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT-ACUI Region 1 SCT at Harvard
Replies: 23
Views: 7430

Re: NAQT-ACUI Region 1 SCT at Harvard

.... In DII Dartmouth left to get food or something so the tie wasn't fully resolved, though I think MIT and Yale did play their part of the tiebreaker. ... Nick from ?: 3/2/3 = 50 ... Nick is from Dartmouth. 3 members of the team went to get food well after the tenth round when it seemed clear tha...
by Tower Monarch
Fri Jan 27, 2012 4:41 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: Penn Bowl (Jan 28th, 2012)
Replies: 48
Views: 26222

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Penn Bowl (Jan 28th, 2012)

Diocletian wrote:When is this starting/where at Penn is it happening?
Ditto. Also, parking info would be appreciated.
by Tower Monarch
Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT-ACUI Region 1 SCT at Harvard
Replies: 23
Views: 7430

Re: NAQT-ACUI Region 1 SCT at Harvard

Dartmouth is also hoping to pull together a second (likely still Div II) team. Hopefully Thursday's practice will settle this.
by Tower Monarch
Fri Jan 20, 2012 4:42 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: Penn Bowl (Jan 28th, 2012)
Replies: 48
Views: 26222

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Penn Bowl (Jan 28th, 2012)

The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:Hey look a field update. Keep signing up! This means you, Princeton, Rutgers, Columbia, Doug Yetman, etc!
Etc (ie Dartmouth) is bringing a team with a mostly functional buzzer set (we don't need the discount, so we'll just have it as backup).
by Tower Monarch
Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:06 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: BARGE Mirror at Yale (01/14/12)
Replies: 21
Views: 7084

Re: BARGE Mirror at Yale (01/14/12)

Therizinosaurus wrote:Dartmouth is coming for sure; you should be getting the official notification tomorrow.
Consider this official notification, though I can send an email as well if you wish.
by Tower Monarch
Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: Penn Bowl (Jan 28th, 2012)
Replies: 48
Views: 26222

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Penn Bowl (Jan 28th, 2012)

Dartmouth is tentatively bringing 1 team pending some transportation/lodging details to be arranged. I'll let you know as soon as I do.
by Tower Monarch
Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:45 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals Northeast at Brown (2/18/2012)
Replies: 19
Views: 10977

Re: ACF Regionals Northeast at Brown (2/18/2012)

Dartmouth will have 1 team that will have a packet submitted and may manage a second team of new players.
by Tower Monarch
Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:43 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: BARGE Mirror at Yale (01/14/12)
Replies: 21
Views: 7084

Re: BARGE Mirror at Yale (01/14/12)

Is it too late for a tentative Dartmouth team to sign up? Either we'll be there legitimately with college funding or we'll be paying out of pocket but bringing a moderator. We'd have buzzers either way.
by Tower Monarch
Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:51 am
Forum: New High School Teams
Topic: Newly formed NJ team seeks advice
Replies: 12
Views: 5775

Re: Newly formed NJ team seeks advice

Wow, lots of great advice so far. Our first meeting is today and we are going to go over the plan for the year and the practice schedule. I hope to attend as many of the aforementioned tournaments as possible and would love to scrimmage, in the meantime, with other local schools. As far as a practi...
by Tower Monarch
Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:18 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Early Autumn Collegiate Novice at Yale (09/17/11)
Replies: 21
Views: 6810

Re: Early Autumn Collegiate Novice at Yale (09/17/11)

They could have played two half-packets or something, too. Also known as "one packet"... Well, as long as each half is roughly distributed correctly (probably not, but maybe sufficiently close), they could have used a half-packet for finals and the second half for a potential tiebreaker. ...
by Tower Monarch
Sun Sep 18, 2011 3:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF history distribution?
Replies: 6
Views: 1897

Re: ACF history distribution?

I think this thread, or rather the pseudo-digressions in-thread, demonstrated there's no one good answer here.
by Tower Monarch
Thu Sep 15, 2011 7:38 pm
Forum: New High School Teams
Topic: Newly formed NJ team seeks advice
Replies: 12
Views: 5775

Re: Newly formed NJ team seeks advice

I am up to my ears in practice questions, so do I need the NAQT packets they have for sale on their website? I would recommend holding off on paying for any questions for now. If you plan to attend an NAQT event, then it might be nice to prepare for their question style and distribution by taking a...
by Tower Monarch
Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:27 pm
Forum: New High School Teams
Topic: Newly formed NJ team seeks advice
Replies: 12
Views: 5775

Re: Newly formed NJ team seeks advice

Well, I don't know your area very well, but I wanted to make sure you've seen this thread . It looks like you're an hour away from Princeton's PHSAT on October 8 (Yom Kippur, in case that matters for your team). I'm not familiar with this MSG Academic Challenge thing, but it sounds like it might con...
by Tower Monarch
Tue Sep 13, 2011 2:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2011-2012 Collegiate Preseason Podcast
Replies: 22
Views: 5442

Re: 2011-2012 Collegiate Preseason Podcast

I will say I come from the school of thought that you should try to say things that are interesting, even if controversial, in these kinds of predictions, rather than the typical chorus of "good teams are good." They typical chorus is "I hear he's good at quizbowl." Yeah, that w...
by Tower Monarch
Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:01 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Playoff Formatting Help
Replies: 77
Views: 12126

Re: Playoff Formatting Help

What is the typical "protocol" regarding matches where teams finish early and are waiting for other matches? Do you just ask them to quietly remain outside their next match room or otherwise? That's about it. But make sure your readers leave the door open when they don't have two teams an...
by Tower Monarch
Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:10 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Playoff Formatting Help
Replies: 77
Views: 12126

Re: Playoff Formatting Help

Just out of curiosity, what is the disadvantage of using timed matches in this case? My only reasoning to was to make sure there was enough time in the day to get all matches in, considering many teams are traveling up to 2 hours plus to get to our tournament. 30 minutes seems like enough time, esp...
by Tower Monarch
Sat Sep 10, 2011 8:43 am
Forum: New High School Teams
Topic: National Tournaments Preparation
Replies: 3
Views: 3276

Re: National Tournaments Preparation

I've been playing quiz bowl for a bit more than a year and feel that I have a pretty good knowledge of the high school canons from tournaments like NAQT IS-sets and HSAPQ mACF formats. But when I read PACE sets or hear past HSNCT questions, they are drastically difficult. I have not yet attended a ...
by Tower Monarch
Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:21 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Side-by-side stats for 2010-11 sets
Replies: 24
Views: 7584

Re: Side-by-side stats for 2010-11 sets

I get what you are saying Andrew, but it's really hard to make the 0-5 group get smaller without truly giving away points. I checked from the past MSU tournaments, and the teams that actually pulled this off were all getting less than 15 tossups in the whole day. That's truly miserable, but often t...
by Tower Monarch
Sun Sep 04, 2011 7:55 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: FAcT VII (10/22/11) at Yale (New Haven, CT)
Replies: 19
Views: 6484

Re: FAcT VII (10/22/11) at Yale (New Haven, CT)

Teams that finish in the top 15% of the field will automatically qualify for NAQT's HSNCT 2011 ... P.S. Yale plans to host BHSAT XXI in late March or early April 2011. I will serve as head editor for the tournament, which will be of the same quality standards as last year's BHSAT. More details will...
by Tower Monarch
Sun Sep 04, 2011 9:25 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: National Academic Competition Association
Replies: 19
Views: 6295

Re: National Academic Competition Association

Okay, so United States as a lead in sounds good. Would people then prefer: 1) United States Academic Quiz Association 2) United States Academic Competition Association Or something else? We'll also use this as parallel structure for the official name of the awards too. Just wait until a Canadian wi...
by Tower Monarch
Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:15 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: New England Discussion and Date Claims 2011-12
Replies: 19
Views: 6156

Re: New England Discussion and Date Claims 2011-12

It also looks like Hanover High will be hosting Fall Novice on either Nov 12 or 19.
by Tower Monarch
Wed Aug 24, 2011 3:01 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution
Replies: 20
Views: 7917

Re: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution

Other lists of neglected books that I found interesting are critic James Wood's list of the best books since 1945 (http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2009/02/james-woods-best-books-since-1945-circa-1994.html) and the New York Review of Books' Classics (http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classic...
by Tower Monarch
Tue Aug 23, 2011 8:25 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution
Replies: 20
Views: 7917

Re: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution

although I'm a terrible person to go on since I couldn't tell you what's hard and what's not. This is somewhat unrelated, but Arun and I were discussing how one would go about tackling a tossup on an author (or in the case we were discussing, artist) that wasn't tossed-up very often. How does one d...
by Tower Monarch
Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:47 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution
Replies: 20
Views: 7917

Re: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution

I've read John Edgar Wideman and I think I used a clue from Philadelphia Fire for a tossup on The Tempest once. I don't know if he's come up otherwise (and I may, in fact, be dreaming up using him as a clue). This character is reimagined with heavy dreadlocks in John Edgar Wideman's Philadelphia Fi...
by Tower Monarch
Thu Aug 18, 2011 9:47 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NAQT distribution change for 2011-12
Replies: 52
Views: 10224

Re: NAQT distribution change for 2011-12

A quick glance shows me that ACF's first tournament was in 1999, while NAQT's was at least as early as 1996. Not that this really matters, but there are two "ACF" organizations that are related but different, and the earlier one has been running since about 1991. See this for more informa...
by Tower Monarch
Tue Aug 16, 2011 5:26 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Individual player stat v. 29192
Replies: 33
Views: 16007

Re: Individual player stat v. 29192

Underrated in what sense? These stats are only meant to illuminate what happened, not what will happen in the future, so it may be true that on some other team, a Mehdi-like player playing with an Eric-like player might score more points, but that's not really the purpose of this measure. I meant u...
by Tower Monarch
Tue Aug 16, 2011 5:06 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Individual player stat v. 29192
Replies: 33
Views: 16007

Re: Individual player stat v. 29192

Would this be any more insightful by being applied to regular season lineups? I feel like at opens most people are aware that the presence of superteams is going to cause people to play out of position, but I don't know if it's perhaps more interesting to note that "Hey, the third scorer at Di...
by Tower Monarch
Tue Aug 16, 2011 4:56 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Individual player stat v. 29192
Replies: 33
Views: 16007

Re: Individual player stat v. 29192

It also lets you see who's playing "out of position." For example, someone like Gautam, who contributes roughly an average number of points for a #1 player according to these stats, is particularly advantageous to have as a #4 player, whereas someone like Rom, who would stack up favorably...
by Tower Monarch
Tue Aug 16, 2011 4:16 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Individual player stat v. 29192
Replies: 33
Views: 16007

Re: Individual player stat v. 29192

theMoMA wrote: I believe adding up the stdevs across a team would be a great measure of team strength, however.
This is true, but it ends up being almost equivalent to a stat that could be found much faster using team bonus conversion and team 15s/10s/5s instead of individuals.
by Tower Monarch
Tue Aug 16, 2011 4:02 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Individual player stat v. 29192
Replies: 33
Views: 16007

Re: Individual player stat v. 29192

These stats make sense.To what extent is this stat logical in evaluating teams with extremely balanced scorers? I've played on teams where all 4 people basically scored 20 PPG--how useful is it to compare each player to the average #1, #2, #3, and #4 scorers, in that sense (in this example, it seem...
by Tower Monarch
Tue Aug 16, 2011 1:33 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Individual player stat v. 29192
Replies: 33
Views: 16007

Re: Individual player stat v. 29192

I remain convinced that no amount of algebraic wizardry can compensate for the fact that the underlying data of quizbowl statistics are rather sparse, and will remain so until some sort of integrated reading/scorekeeping system that captures buzzpoints and subjects is developed. This is definitely ...
by Tower Monarch
Tue Aug 16, 2011 1:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Individual player stat v. 29192
Replies: 33
Views: 16007

Re: Individual player stat v. 29192

I admittedly haven't taken the time (probably 10 minutes) to write this out and see fully why it's true, but it seems like this stat is really just a convenient way to capture power to neg ratio (actually 10s-and-15s-to-negs ratio) alongside player PPG/team PPG in one stat. For example, Selene shows...
by Tower Monarch
Thu Aug 11, 2011 9:09 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: VCU Open 2011 Thanks & Discussion
Replies: 151
Views: 33637

Re: VCU Open 2011 Thanks & Discussion

OK, no prompt is good. It might even be worth putting a do not accept. The explicit "type of processor" twice takes care of the issue. For some reason, I was picturing this as a tossup, where confusion could occur.
by Tower Monarch
Wed Aug 10, 2011 8:39 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: VCU Open 2011 Thanks & Discussion
Replies: 151
Views: 33637

Re: VCU Open 2011 Thanks & Discussion

Round 7: Should "parallel" be promptable or acceptable for "multi-core" processors? I looked into this and it doesn't look like this is a thing. Are you confusing this with parallel processing perhaps? This is far from my specialty, but I think the issue is what do you do if som...
by Tower Monarch
Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Human Bio
Replies: 25
Views: 7250

Re: Human Bio

I'll second what Dwight just said and add this: please read a few science textbooks so that you can understand how the subjects really work before you start telling actual scientists what's important. You have made it abundantly clear to me that you really don't understand CS or Math just from the a...
by Tower Monarch
Tue Aug 09, 2011 10:19 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Human Bio
Replies: 25
Views: 7250

Re: Human Bio

Those who argue that physiology has no place in quizbowl should also argue that computer science, zoology, earth science, astronomy, math and other science areas that aren't centrally important to biology/chemistry/physics have no place, either. I don't mind the minor areas, but there are those pur...
by Tower Monarch
Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:57 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Split topic on CO science
Replies: 104
Views: 23563

Re: Split topic on CO science

\You completely missed Ryan's point. It's fairly trivial for me or anyone else with literally no connection to "what literature people study in the academic world" to go out and read either a presumably-notable book or a summary of said book, and then write a question using plot clues tha...
by Tower Monarch
Thu Aug 04, 2011 4:16 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Split topic on CO science
Replies: 104
Views: 23563

Re: Split topic on CO science

I don't have any problem with a fellow like Jerry moaning and groaning on some questions like flare stars - I totally get that, it's frustrating on a gut level while you're playing. But, I think the practical extension of Jerry's position is that: the only way we would be happy with science questio...