Current Field (updated 9/5/2023):
T1 K-Means (Kevin Park, Dean Ah Now)
Will Alston (Will Alston)
Search found 313 matches
- Tue Sep 05, 2023 1:39 pm
- Forum: Collegiate Announcements & Results
- Topic: Humberto: A SoCal COOT Mirror (09/16/23)
- Replies: 3
- Views: 1598
- Sat Dec 08, 2018 6:53 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
- Replies: 50
- Views: 19916
Re: Science (2018 Sun God)
Oh yeah I forgot to add--I didn't include the category/author tag in the quote since I don't like tagging authors in discussions (editors can be at fault too), but data centers was an Other Ac/Misc subject (so theoretically a subject I was directly editing), not Other Science: Computer Science. Sorr...
- Fri Dec 07, 2018 2:55 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
- Replies: 50
- Views: 19916
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 Dec 07, 2018 2:43 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
- Replies: 50
- Views: 19916
Re: Science (2018 Sun God)
The tossup on “Volsunga” should really accept “Nibelung” or whatever the Wagner-equivalent term is, since there’s not really any difference in the details. I believe Nibelung refers to a separate race? Unfortunately, I don't think Wagner's operas have any equivalent to Volsunga. Yeah while we’re on...
- Wed Dec 05, 2018 12:57 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
In our ongoing call, Ophir just yelled at me for not looking up the bonus conversion stats for Hasidism/kabbalah etc ("It's the first packet! Open it and scroll down! It's right there!")
Hasidism / Kabbalah / Merkabah
for your mirror- 50% / 75% / 13%
Hasidism / Kabbalah / Merkabah
for your mirror- 50% / 75% / 13%
- Wed Dec 05, 2018 12:46 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
Thanks for the feedback, John! I understand some of these points have already been hashed out privately, so I'll keep things to ones I have expertise in and can immediately talk about. The first clue of the Jade Emperor tossup is not helpful at all. The theme of a deity figure spending aeons in self...
- Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:59 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
Sorry for not clarifying earlier, here are my rationales: I was hoping to see the Kenya tossup because it seemed pretty hard to power - I don't think anyone (at least at the Dec 1 sites) was able to get that. I buzzed on "Sunshine" or "Lodge" (can't remember) and got 10. So I wa...
- Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:49 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
Sure, you can point to that Discord server I rarely frequent, and to the fact that I didn't PM you, but I notice you didn't respond to the stats disputation either. If this is an indictment of my inability to PM you while I was at work and then failure to follow up afterwards (bigger failing there, ...
- Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:19 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
All this stuff about casting you all as a collective of performative assholes* (I did this, yeah) and denouncing claims that it was Chicago's sour grapes (neither I nor anyone on the SGI writing team (including noted Richard Nixon Self-Identifier Will Alston) ever made this claim to my knowledge, a...
- Tue Dec 04, 2018 10:19 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
All this stuff about casting you all as a collective of performative assholes* (I did this, yeah) and denouncing claims that it was Chicago's sour grapes (neither I nor anyone on the SGI writing team (including noted Richard Nixon Self-Identifier Will Alston) ever made this claim to my knowledge, al...
- Mon Dec 03, 2018 11:18 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
Also, while I'm clearly destroying what it means to have an orderly forum, I'd like to apologize to Jacob Reed for exploding at him in this thread after some of his heckling comments--he too was on the whole helpful to us, and gave us specific actionable feedback as opposed to "this set sucks!&...
- Mon Dec 03, 2018 11:15 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
I'm going to cross post this into this general discussion so we don't derail the science discussion, but certainly my own decision for Sun God Invitational to be the first and only time I'll head edit a set was informed by how tiresome, disingenuous, and dishonest some of the criticism leveled at u...
- Mon Dec 03, 2018 10:53 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
- Replies: 17
- Views: 3741
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
Packets from 12/01 mirrors:
- Mon Dec 03, 2018 10:16 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
But wait, there’s more!
- Mon Dec 03, 2018 10:14 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
it seems from the sets you've listed out that you know who I'm talking about, and I don't think the examples I listed out from them can be denied. I'd actually love to see you source the claim that "the majority of the community only liked SGI because they don't know shit," which is an ex...
- Mon Dec 03, 2018 10:01 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
a narrow set of vocal people who don't contribute questions to the community Who exactly is this referring to? (The most vocal critics I can think of are editing and writing for PACE, NASAT, CAST, CO, and other projects.) That comment is born from hyperbole on my part out of long-lasting anger (alt...
- Mon Dec 03, 2018 9:29 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
(in any case, I'm not going to be doing any science for next year's EFT or head editing any "main event" collegiate tournaments after that, so nobody will have to suffer through my apparently bizarre, pretentious, and aggravating approach to tournament construction - unless you choose to ...
- Mon Dec 03, 2018 7:38 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
- Replies: 50
- Views: 19916
Re: Science (2018 Sun God)
Aside from all this debate, I just thought that it was the same type of acceptable tossup as, say, one of those wacky tossups on tangrams in the math category of EFT 2016, except much more buzzable (with a much more fluid distribution of buzzes--every clue in this tossup was buzzed on at one mirror ...
- Mon Dec 03, 2018 4:45 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
- Replies: 17
- Views: 3741
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
OP has been updated with 12/01 sites. At some point, we may publish a changelog, but in general, science bonuses (bio/chem) were edited down in difficulty, and some number (not as many, but not insignificantly small) of other questions were changed or replaced based on feedback/errata over the last ...
- Wed Nov 28, 2018 3:25 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
- Replies: 17
- Views: 3741
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
Done!The Abydos Helicopter wrote: ↑Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:29 am Could a link to the Southampton stats be added to the first post?
- Mon Nov 19, 2018 9:07 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
Will, Ryan's point was in the other thread precisely because it wasn't really a complaint about any of the *particular* bonuses, but rather about the choice to have all of them at once. Responding by pointing out that, taken separately, each one is a fine thing to ask about misses the idea that by ...
- Mon Nov 19, 2018 2:48 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
- Replies: 17
- Views: 3741
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
The first post has been updated with 11/17/2018 site detailed stats. The pdfs .zip file for the same weekend is attached here. Please do not share this zip with anyone--whoever wants them should be directed to this post, should they have access to this discussion forum.
- Thu Nov 15, 2018 2:25 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Announcement (Fall 2018) [Regular]
- Replies: 14
- Views: 18312
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Announcement (Fall 2018) [Regular]
As an update, which is far too late (and was entirely my fault for not announcing earlier), we cut down Philosophy by 4/4 in this tournament (total of 11/11 across the 15 packets of pure philosophy), with the intention of making up somewhat for it in other clue space. To briefly summarize from the p...
- Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:11 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God History Questions
- Replies: 17
- Views: 1549
Re: History Questions
Overall I didn't get much of a sense that this tournament had an unusual "Will Alston" flavor to its history. I felt that more in other categories (which I'm not actually sure you wrote) where there were more references to modern works in the early clues. An example I've already mentioned...
- Wed Nov 14, 2018 12:35 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
After looking more at this tossup, I’ve decided double helices and protein helices are too different to toss up together—I’ll be changing this tossup
- Wed Nov 14, 2018 12:04 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
The proteins mention has been removed, thanks! Beta-barrel membrane proteins are pretty rare besides in prokaryotes and chloroplasts/mitochondria and I made the mistake of thinking the biochem exam dogma of “identify transmembrane sequences by first looking for the helix sections” would be enough to...
- Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:14 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
13. Wenxiang (“wun-sh’yong”) diagrams are used to determine if protein chains will adopt this structure in certain environments. One of these structures with repeating proline residues is commonly used as a molecular ruler. Over 25 percent of protein structures following this motif terminate with S...
- Mon Nov 12, 2018 2:55 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
What type of engagement are you rewarding with these types of tossups? I have notecards on Batuman, Carol Shields... https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/carol-shields https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77554.The_Stone_Diaries https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/elif-batuman https://www.goodreads.com/b...
- Mon Nov 12, 2018 1:09 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
The Phil distribution miscommunication was actually my fault—Will broached the idea but was ambivalent about it, and I told him it was a good idea and that I liked the justification as an editorial decision, and we made the change. All these decisions were made last December, but in my eagerness to ...
- Mon Nov 12, 2018 1:06 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
The power rate for sites last weekend were 19-20%, the neg rates were 23%, and the conversion rates for tossups were about 90%. Until we get more teams into the advanced stats and visualize it, we won’t know for sure, but so far the average buzz point distribution looks fairly even across tossups. W...
- Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:51 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
Sorry, I was responding to Kai and to the general sentiments I’ve been hearing trickle from him and other folks—I apologize for my generally combative tone, Jacob. Your feedback and general help during set production was useful, especially with my general directive to get as much feedback and variet...
- Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:13 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
I don’t generally find combative discussion of sets productive, but while we’re at it: 1) The tossup has two sentences on horses about Black Beauty 2) Black Beauty is barely, if at all, lowbrow or bad—it’s a novel a lot of people read in formative times of their lives which has a role adjacent to Li...
- Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:31 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
6. A Molly Fischer profile of this poet in which she spends most of the time discussing book design was discussed in a Deadspin article titled this poet “Seems Utterly Uninterested In Reading Books.” For 10 points each: [10] Name this Instagram poet of Sikh ancestry behind the collection Milk and H...
- Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:14 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
Yeah, but I fail to see why “poetry a lot of people know about and shapes discourse” makes for a particularly objectionable (single) bonus part, even if it’s bad.
- Sun Nov 11, 2018 3:39 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
- Replies: 17
- Views: 3741
2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
Here are links to the detailed stats of every mirror that chose to use them. They might still have some issues with bonus answer lines or categorization that we will be fixing this week. I will add links here to each additional mirror as they use them. Please do not share with anyone still yet to pl...
- Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:01 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
We’re not currently allowing uncontrolled copies of the set to be sent out, but if you want, you can request specific questions and content in this thread. We’re currently working on our answerline instructions, especially with science where things can get tricky—I don’t have any input on dark matte...
- Sun Nov 11, 2018 4:44 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
Oh yeah also Will wrote three hundred (300) questions for this set so if you take into account that whole blurb about how hard it was to do this set production thing on top of the life thing, that’s pretty neat
- Sun Nov 11, 2018 3:54 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
On top of Will's acknowledgements, I'd like to thank everyone (else) who playtested our set for their willingness to provide tons of feedback and engage in several cumulative man-hours of discussion with us on the Discord server afterwards (Matt Mitchell, Jeremy Tsai, and Erik Christensen even helpe...
- Sat Nov 10, 2018 11:58 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
- Replies: 125
- Views: 22041
2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
Request to see and discuss specific questions here; general comments go in the other thread.
- Fri Nov 09, 2018 11:47 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Announcement (Fall 2018) [Regular]
- Replies: 14
- Views: 18312
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Announcement (Fall 2018) [Regular]
The private discussion forum is up--apply to join under Usergroups in the User Control Panel ("2018 Sun God"). Feel free to join and post your thoughts, comments, and concerns about the set!
- Fri Nov 09, 2018 11:44 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
- Replies: 64
- Views: 8103
2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
Thanks for playing Sun God Invitational, everyone! We first started working on this set over a year ago--the whole thing has very much been a labor of love. I'm proud of the product that came out, and of the members of our team for our hard work and marked efforts to improve both the set and ourselv...
- Sun Sep 02, 2018 4:43 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Announcement (Fall 2018) [Regular]
- Replies: 14
- Views: 18312
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Announcement (Fall 2018) [Regular]
UCSD and Berkeley, which both have representative editors on this set, are in the process of figuring something out for their respective sides of the state--no confirmed dates yet, however (most schools in California inc. UCSD haven't started yet and Berkeley has run into some other scheduling issue...
- Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:08 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Announcement (Fall 2018) [Regular]
- Replies: 14
- Views: 18312
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Announcement (Fall 2018) [Regu
Updated the announcement post with a current list of hosts; reminder to prospective hosts to contact me as soon as possible about potential/concrete bids so we can sort out a slate of mirror sites!
- Wed Aug 15, 2018 11:23 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Sun God Invitational Playtest Mirror (9/29/2018)
- Replies: 22
- Views: 11379
- Sun Aug 05, 2018 1:44 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Preseason poll 2018–19
- Replies: 25
- Views: 17682
Re: Preseason poll 2018–19
I could see also UCSD being good this year. Working on a tournament, and sort of knocking on the door last year. UCSD loses Parikshit Chauhan and myself from our ICT/Nats roster this year, but they do gain in youthful vibrancy and exuberance as a result and also they're getting Alistair from Homest...
- Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:45 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Announcement (Fall 2018) [Regular]
- Replies: 14
- Views: 18312
Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Announcement (Fall 2018) [Regu
A couple of updates: 1) We will be making a detailed stats platform (buzzermetrics/buzzpoint data/detailed conversion stats etc) available to hosts for our questions. As such, we are seeking bids from hosts that can guarantee internet access for moderators to use online scoresheets and train moderat...
- Tue Jul 10, 2018 1:31 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Words and Objects
- Replies: 12
- Views: 8667
Re: Words and Objects
Rahul just read the questions at a UCSD practice—it was a great set, especially once you fully adopt the mental gymnastics mindset of the answer lines! I highly reccomend it! Stats: (5 rounds) Will Alston - 13/23/12 - 365 Jason Cheng- 11/13/7 - 280 (Heard all 6 rounds) Daniel Chung- 4/9/3 - 135 Bran...
- Wed Apr 18, 2018 4:44 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2018 ICT general discussion
- Replies: 20
- Views: 2097
Re: 2018 ICT general discussion
We're barely discussing ICT at this point, but even high school tournaments inc. ones on NAQT IS-sets manage to average more than 25 minutes a round in most cases. Timers limiting kvetching/comments between questions and standardizing round start and end times are pretty useful, especially with mult...
- Thu Mar 29, 2018 4:49 pm
- Forum: Scheduling reform
- Topic: Quizbowl Needs a Scheduling Committee
- Replies: 50
- Views: 38588
Re: Quizbowl Needs a Scheduling Committee
Isn't "not enough tournaments" equally an issue which more organization could solve? From what I can tell, the diminishing amount of regular tournaments come from a mix of announced tournaments disappearing, older writers/editors dialing back their commitments, and a lack of support and c...
- Thu Mar 29, 2018 4:41 pm
- Forum: Scheduling reform
- Topic: Quizbowl Needs a Scheduling Committee
- Replies: 50
- Views: 38588
Re: Quizbowl Needs a Scheduling Committee
Are there really enough tournaments where having to pick out scheduling slots is a necessity? It felt like this year was missing a tournament or two. There are certainly few enough tournaments every year that, say, people thinking about hosting in SoCal can just talk to the other clubs in the region...