Search found 114 matches

by mtimmons
Mon Mar 31, 2014 5:28 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2014 ICT: specific questions
Replies: 72
Views: 14850

Re: 2014 ICT: specific questions

This text, which was first published a year after a similar one by Lorie Tarshis, later made controversial claims about the growth of the Soviet economy. One version of this text introduced a "family tree," which included an approach that an earlier edition dubbed the "neoclassical s...
by mtimmons
Fri Jul 19, 2013 3:25 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: HSQBRank 2013-2014: Witty Subtitle
Replies: 203
Views: 107666

Re: HSQBRank 2013-2014: Witty Subtitle

So this leaves two teams in the last five of the rankings as ones I was way off of: St. Paul Central and Arcadia. I don't know of any excuses to be made here; both Central and Arcadia only played three tournaments that produced usable PPB, but Centennial, Dunbar and LASA A only played four, and unl...
by mtimmons
Tue Apr 16, 2013 3:25 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2013 ICT DII specific question discussion
Replies: 11
Views: 2348

Re: DII specific question discussion

Given that Sanford seems to be best known for "hiking" the Appalachian Trail I don't think it is unreasonable that the question mentions it. I won't claim that the current phrasing is best but it's definitely more descriptive than disgraced former governor. Also if I recall correctly the b...
by mtimmons
Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:42 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2013 NAQT ICT: April 13, Chicago
Replies: 27
Views: 10911

Re: 2013 NAQT ICT: April 13, Chicago

It appears the community college eligibility rules exclude those with undergraduate degrees and those who have competed at ICT for four-year schools.
by mtimmons
Tue Mar 26, 2013 10:56 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Probable question access at MIT Penn-ance
Replies: 18
Views: 8427

Re: Probable question access at MIT Penn-ance

I remember Josh negging triple alpha and then it coming up later as well but it didn't really stick out at me as obvious evidence that he cheated until we learned that he cheated at SCT/ICT last year. If you start with the premise that Josh's SCT/ICT stats were legitimate I don't think it's that sur...
by mtimmons
Tue Mar 26, 2013 5:50 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Probable question access at MIT Penn-ance
Replies: 18
Views: 8427

Re: Probable question access at MIT Penn-ance

Do we know if "John" ever intended to staff or even knew about the tournament or if Josh was being dishonest when saying that John was interested in staffing?
by mtimmons
Sat Mar 23, 2013 10:30 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: General Security Discussion
Replies: 30
Views: 9063

Re: General Security Discussion

I can't speak about the question security at the MIT Penn-ance mirror in particular but at other MIT tournaments that I've staffed each packet has been password protected.
by mtimmons
Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:40 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Tournament Discussion
Replies: 70
Views: 19887

Re: Tournament Discussion

On the Diamond tossup I wonder if there might be better clues for Peter Diamond than MIT economist who won the Nobel in 2010 as that says nothing about why he is known and I'm not sure how helpful the MIT clue is in distinguishing Diamond from Mortenson and Pissarides for non-MIT students. There se...
by mtimmons
Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:12 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Tournament Discussion
Replies: 70
Views: 19887

Re: Tournament Discussion

There seemed to a general lack of economics questions in this tournament as well. Amartya Sen, national debt, trusts, demand, Paul Samuelson, Malthus, GDP, and firms are all things I can find on the answer document. Of the 36 social science questions, 8 of them are economics, meaning it made up abo...
by mtimmons
Sun Mar 10, 2013 5:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Tournament Discussion
Replies: 70
Views: 19887

Re: Tournament Discussion

I also negged the falsifiability tossup with induction after the raven paradox clue. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy seems to associate the raven paradox with induction as well http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/#ParRav although there may be some subtlety in the question tha...
by mtimmons
Sun Feb 24, 2013 6:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals at Brown University (2/23/13)
Replies: 30
Views: 21617

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

The second (Yale B, Yale C, MIT B, RPI) and third brackets were supposed to play a double RR but decided to only play a single RR.
by mtimmons
Sun Dec 02, 2012 7:53 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: GINVIT at UMN on 12/1
Replies: 4
Views: 1963

Re: GINVIT at UMN on 12/1

How were the playoffs seeded?
by mtimmons
Sun Nov 18, 2012 9:19 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall Northeast @ Harvard (11/03/12)
Replies: 41
Views: 23690

Re: ACF Fall Northeast @ Harvard (11/03/12)

Rounds 11 and 12 are missing. A couple of those games appear to be in round 0 and bizarrely MIT A's round 11 game against Teen Titans is listed as a round 6 game.
by mtimmons
Mon Jun 18, 2012 2:52 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NASAT: June 16-17 at Ohio State
Replies: 112
Views: 43694

Re: 2012 NASAT: June 16-17 at Ohio State

Perhaps my experiences with flying from the Twin Cities to Columbus have been unusual but I have found Columbus to be particularly expensive to fly into which may have contributed to the low number of teams this year.
by mtimmons
Mon Jun 18, 2012 2:19 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NASAT Discussion
Replies: 24
Views: 8720

Re: NASAT Discussion

Even though Minnesota finished near the bottom, I've definitely enjoyed this tournament a lot. The competition was obviously fantastic. The vast majority of tossups were gettable even for teams like Minnesota and the easy bonus parts were so easy that we only missed a handful throughout the tourname...
by mtimmons
Fri Jun 15, 2012 2:25 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NASAT: June 16-17 at Ohio State
Replies: 112
Views: 43694

Re: 2012 NASAT: June 16-17 at Ohio State

Team Minnesota is

Max Timmons (St. Paul Central)
Jeffrey Lyman (Chaska)
James Hartnett (St. Thomas Academy)
by mtimmons
Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:13 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Bonus part conversion data
Replies: 6
Views: 2422

Re: Bonus part conversion data

Perhaps more useful than data on individual bonus parts would be data on conversions of entire bonuses. A number of tournaments seem to collect data on tossup conversion but I haven't seen any tournaments that release data on what percentage of teams got 30 or 20 or 10 or 0 on individual bonuses. Th...
by mtimmons
Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:07 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Questions about answer acceptance regarding last names
Replies: 29
Views: 10334

Re: Questions about answer acceptance regarding last names

Certainly either order should be acceptable for Japanese names or really any names as well. I can't imagine any reason to not accept Obama, Barack for instance. The part that makes Japanese names particularly confusing is that Western sources sometimes uses the typical Japanese ordering and sometime...
by mtimmons
Tue May 29, 2012 9:35 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Minnesota 2011-12
Replies: 44
Views: 12244

Re: Minnesota 2011-12

Due to Duligur becoming a presidential scholar we have an open spot on the Minnesota NASAT team. The other members are myself, Jeffrey Lyman, and James Hartnett. Interested people should contact me ASAP.
by mtimmons
Tue May 29, 2012 12:02 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81180

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

Although there was some waiting for the Friday night scrimmages I thought they went pretty well. We played four rounds in close to two hours which I thought was acceptable. Last year, I think some of the questions used for scrimmages were 10+ years old and were predictably rather bad while this year...
by mtimmons
Mon May 28, 2012 6:18 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81180

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

On the imaginary numbers tossup I thought the representation clue was confusing/misleading though this could stem from my limited knowledge of representation theory. From my understanding, in the standard matrix representation of complex numbers, 2x2 antisymmetric matrices correspond to imaginary n...
by mtimmons
Mon May 28, 2012 5:15 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81180

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

On the imaginary numbers tossup I thought the representation clue was confusing/misleading though this could stem from my limited knowledge of representation theory. From my understanding, in the standard matrix representation of complex numbers, 2x2 antisymmetric matrices correspond to imaginary nu...
by mtimmons
Mon May 28, 2012 5:05 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NAQT HSNCT: Congratulations to Bellarmine!
Replies: 100
Views: 54739

Re: 2012 NAQT HSNCT: Congratulations to Bellarmine!

In addition to being fairly short, the current system for the final four teams also has makes any one of the three one-loss teams win three games to win the championship. The other proposals do not seem to retain this property which I think is a good reason to keep the current system. Additionally, ...
by mtimmons
Mon May 28, 2012 1:19 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81180

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

From what I heard on Saturday, it seemed like a lot more India than China/Japan/Korea. I also enjoyed the noncomp math a lot other than the purely imaginary numbers tossup which I'm guessing drew a lot of negs. The card system worked well for the most part although it seems some teams got somewhat s...
by mtimmons
Mon May 28, 2012 12:08 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NAQT HSNCT: Congratulations to Bellarmine!
Replies: 100
Views: 54739

Re: 2012 NAQT HSNCT: Congratulations to Bellarmine!

Ignore this stuff Regarding whether Nikhil will be listed; a similar thing has happened a couple of times in Minnesota. The player who only plays in the playoffs will not be found on the individual stat page but will stay get a player id for that tournament on the NAQT site and can be found by typin...
by mtimmons
Mon Apr 30, 2012 12:24 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: MUT 2012 Discussion
Replies: 53
Views: 12088

Re: MUT 2012 Discussion

I thought the lead-in on the special relativity question was too easy because it didn't seem to require any in-depth knowledge of special relativity although I could be misremembering. The rest of the physics tossups seemed pretty good though. At this level, knowing that you have to redefine the do...
by mtimmons
Sun Apr 29, 2012 11:50 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: MUT 2012 Discussion
Replies: 53
Views: 12088

Re: MUT 2012 Discussion

Also, I enjoyed the special relativity tossup that lead in with exactly what I had been doing in my research Friday before we left. I'm glad you enjoyed it! That leadin was written off of what I had been studying in class--I'm glad to see it was useful to someone. I thought the lead-in on the speci...
by mtimmons
Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:50 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Minnesota High School Novice Tournament - 3.24
Replies: 20
Views: 9296

Re: Minnesota High School Novice Tournament - 3.24

Did any of the questions I submitted end up in the final set?
by mtimmons
Sun Apr 08, 2012 8:52 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Where Will You Be Going to College Next Year? 2011-12
Replies: 86
Views: 39005

Re: Where Will You Be Going to College Next Year? 2011-12

I'm going to MIT and plan to play quiz bowl there.
by mtimmons
Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:01 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Beyond the canon...
Replies: 96
Views: 17976

Re: Beyond the canon...

Maybe these things aren't as well known as I think they are but stuff like Deng Xiaopeng and Special Economic Zones from Post-Mao China are incredibly important recent history don't come up very often but are extremely important. In general, I think recent (post 1980 or so) history is underrepresent...
by mtimmons
Sun Feb 19, 2012 10:38 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2012 Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament (MUT)
Replies: 44
Views: 46956

Re: 2012 Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament (MUT)

Maybe this is somewhere earlier in this thread but what is the date of the Minnesota site?
by mtimmons
Fri Feb 10, 2012 2:04 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Minnesota 2011-12
Replies: 44
Views: 12244

Re: Minnesota 2011-12

Is anybody planning on organizing NASAT tryouts? Duligur Ibeling and myself are planning on organizing a team ourselves but will defer if tryouts are going to happen.
by mtimmons
Tue Jan 31, 2012 12:39 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: SnowCAT at Carleton College (1/28/12)
Replies: 6
Views: 2622

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: SnowCAT at Carleton College (1/28/11)

In regards to the ties, I would have liked nothing more than to have playoffs, especially for a spot in the finals. But keep in mind that we were under time constraints. I had two schools leave before the playoffs and completed and was feeling pressure from coaches to get the finals match started a...
by mtimmons
Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:31 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: SnowCAT at Carleton College (1/28/12)
Replies: 6
Views: 2622

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: SnowCAT at Carleton College (1/28/11)

This was definitely a well run tournament logistically. Some questionable format decisions compounded with a large number of upsets were pretty frustrating though. Two formatting choices stood out in particular as objectionable. One, tiebreakers were done first by head-to-head and for ties of three ...
by mtimmons
Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:55 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: SnowCAT at Carleton College (1/28/12)
Replies: 6
Views: 2622

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: SnowCAT at Carleton College (1/28/11)

Any updates on the field or format?
by mtimmons
Thu Dec 15, 2011 3:59 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Minnesota 2011-12
Replies: 44
Views: 12244

Re: Minnesota 2011-12

All that aside though, I think that the real reason that they decided to do an underclassmen tournament coinciding with that middle school one, was because NAQT wanted more than just the 12 middle school teams to play the packet, and it seemed illogical to open the tournament up to upperclassmen. A...
by mtimmons
Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:41 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3
Replies: 21
Views: 4655

Re: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3

I think Chaska B should be ahead of St. Thomas A as Chaska B was third in the Auric bracket and St. Thomas A was fourth in the Durey bracket. This is how NAQT has it too. We never actually played those matches to decide though, and even though they were higher in their bracket, they had a much lowe...
by mtimmons
Wed Dec 14, 2011 1:08 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3
Replies: 21
Views: 4655

Re: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3

Sorry it took so long to get the final rankings - I had to go through the stats and fix some spelling errors. There was no match to decide between 5th and 6th place, so Armstrong A and Chaska B are ranked based on PPG during playoffs. 1. Central 2. Wayzata A 3. Chaska A 4. Minnetonka A 5. Armstrong...
by mtimmons
Wed Dec 14, 2011 12:51 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Minnesota 2011-12
Replies: 44
Views: 12244

Re: Minnesota 2011-12

if the spring tournament were to be played on an A level packet the ppb would be a lot lower than normal, because a lot of the tossups would fall dead, meaning fewer bonuses would be heard, Wait how does fewer bonuses heard affect ppb? Last time I checked a dead tossup doesn't affect ppb in any way...
by mtimmons
Tue Dec 13, 2011 5:20 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Saint Joe's Mirror of DAFT III, December 17th, 2011
Replies: 79
Views: 19869

Re: Saint Joe's Mirror of DAFT III, December 17th, 2011

Using PACE's qualification rules as the reason to make what I think is the right decision not to pre-split the field; and urging PACE to "reconsider its qualification procedures to take into account instances like this" are not good. What exactly counts as an instance like this? The fact ...
by mtimmons
Tue Dec 13, 2011 12:31 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Minnesota 2011-12
Replies: 44
Views: 12244

Re: Minnesota 2011-12

Apparently, the 9th and 10th grade TOSSUP tournament on middle school questions happened last weekend. I wasn't there but looking at bonus conversions it seems the set was far too easy for the field as 10 out of 13 teams broke 20ppb. Even more alarmingly other than the top 2 teams and the bottom 2 t...
by mtimmons
Fri Dec 09, 2011 3:12 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Greater differentiation at tournaments / problem of brackets
Replies: 22
Views: 7547

Re: Greater differentiation at tournaments / problem of brackets

The one method that I have not personally seen, and that I think might warrant a fair shake is to use power matching for morning prelims, followed by round-robin pool play. Power matching would allow teams to play teams of like ability more quickly than they would while waiting for a 6 or 8 team pr...
by mtimmons
Sun Dec 04, 2011 1:51 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3
Replies: 21
Views: 4655

Re: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3

What teams finished 5th and 6th? The stat file includes prelim games so I assume the actual standings are somewhat different.

EDIT: Grammar.
by mtimmons
Sat Dec 03, 2011 7:22 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3
Replies: 21
Views: 4655

Re: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3

This tournament was really well run as usual for University of Minnesota tournaments. I also enjoyed the question set a lot more than typical NAQT sets and thought it was pretty good but it seems the bonuses were too hard for the field as 15/36 teams got less than 10ppb. While a lot is attributable ...
by mtimmons
Wed Nov 30, 2011 9:06 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Minnesota 2011-12
Replies: 44
Views: 12244

Re: Minnesota 2011-12

This is just a little thing, but it's impacted me twice this season already and will probably affect others as the year progresses. When scheduling meets, if at all possible could TD's try and work around SAT/ACT test dates? I just found out that I cannot play GINVIT, a meet I like and was looking ...
by mtimmons
Tue Nov 29, 2011 10:21 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Minnesota 2011-12
Replies: 44
Views: 12244

Re: Minnesota 2011-12

This is just a little thing, but it's impacted me twice this season already and will probably affect others as the year progresses. When scheduling meets, if at all possible could TD's try and work around SAT/ACT test dates? I just found out that I cannot play GINVIT, a meet I like and was looking ...
by mtimmons
Tue Nov 29, 2011 10:57 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3
Replies: 21
Views: 4655

Re: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3

Here's what I think we did decide, though: We figured it'd be unfair to hold these tryouts on such short notice after GINVIT, given that a lot of teams need to get back to their schools by a certain time because of their bus reservations or whatever. So we will talk to the teams about what NASAT is...
by mtimmons
Tue Nov 29, 2011 1:34 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3
Replies: 21
Views: 4655

Re: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3

So, are the NASAT tryouts happening or not?
by mtimmons
Tue Nov 22, 2011 10:36 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3
Replies: 21
Views: 4655

Re: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3

Unless you guys have come up with some brilliant way to do tryouts, I don't really see the point. I think anyone who follows Minnesota quiz bowl or looks at some stats can tell who the best players are pretty easily. Look, dude, first you complain about there being a lack of hard questions for you ...
by mtimmons
Tue Nov 22, 2011 5:35 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3
Replies: 21
Views: 4655

Re: 2011 GINVIT (Gopher Invitational) 12/3

Unless you guys have come up with some brilliant way to do tryouts, I don't really see the point. I think anyone who follows Minnesota quiz bowl or looks at some stats can tell who the best players are pretty easily. Look, dude, first you complain about there being a lack of hard questions for you ...