Search found 202 matches

by dschafer
Sat Apr 03, 2010 5:52 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Eyes That Do Not See
Replies: 29
Views: 5778

Re: Eyes That Do Not See

Excellent, thanks!
by dschafer
Sat Apr 03, 2010 4:43 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Eyes That Do Not See
Replies: 29
Views: 5778

Re: Eyes That Do Not See

Any chance a PDF version could be released? I'm delaying the install of an Office suite for as long as possible after wiping my hard drive.
by dschafer
Thu Jan 28, 2010 2:07 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Comment on the draft 2010 S-value here
Replies: 31
Views: 6123

Re: Comment on the draft 2010 S-value here

Tossup points per tossup heard. This is found for a team by computing each game's tossup points per tossup heard and averaging those values. Is there a particular reason why this is not "Total tossup points / Total tossups heard"? In timed rounds, this can be different: Game 1: 300 points...
by dschafer
Mon Dec 14, 2009 11:38 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: HFT IV Discussion
Replies: 37
Views: 8214

Re: HFT IV Discussion

Reading through these now, a couple of comments (one general, one specific): Systems with n phases possess n choose three of these... ANSWER: triple point This feels like it might be fraudable from that first clue; I'd think in my head from that "One of these is probably defined by three phases...
by dschafer
Mon Nov 16, 2009 11:25 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: contribute your opinions on pseudonyms here!
Replies: 46
Views: 11160

Re: contribute your opinions on pseudonyms here!

TheKingInYellow wrote:Maybe State College enjoys using pseudonyms, for whatever reason, and doesn't care about your inability to speculate about our future
This basically summarizes my view on pseudonym usage at tournaments.
by dschafer
Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:46 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Mellon Bowl at Carnegie Mellon 11/7/09
Replies: 6
Views: 2317

Re: Mellon Bowl at Carnegie Mellon 11/7/09

After Shady Side went 8-0 and Keystone Oaks A went 7-1 in a full round-robin prelim, Shady Side won the first game of an advantaged final to win CMU's Fall High School tournament. Thank you to all teams for coming; if you have any feedback on the tournament, please e-mail me at dschafer@andrew.cmu.e...
by dschafer
Wed Nov 04, 2009 1:04 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Mellon Bowl at Carnegie Mellon 11/7/09
Replies: 6
Views: 2317

Re: Mellon Bowl at Carnegie Mellon 11/7/09

Field Update:

Brashear 2
General McLane 2
Mercersburg 2
Keystone Oaks 2
Bishop Canevin 1
John Marshall 1
Shady Side 1

We're still accepting registrations, so let me know if you're interested in attending.
by dschafer
Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:49 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: interest in buzzer system?
Replies: 14
Views: 4206

Re: interest in buzzer system?

Not-actual-suggestion: plug in a USB key containing "1.mp3", "2.mp3", etc. in the root directory, and have it play those buzz noises for the appropriate player. That way, each player can have their own personalized buzzer noise! Further-degeneration-of-this-not-actual-suggestion:...
by dschafer
Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:56 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: EFT Discussion
Replies: 186
Views: 27894

Re: EFT Discussion

2009 EFT Packet 14 wrote:[10] The leader of the British troops at Fashoda was this general, who had just finished wiping the floor with the Mahdists at Omdurman. He would later be killed by a German mime.
Answer: Horatio Kitchener
That last clue got a few chuckles when we read it in practice today.
by dschafer
Wed Oct 14, 2009 10:15 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Mellon Bowl at Carnegie Mellon 11/7/09
Replies: 6
Views: 2317

Re: Mellon Bowl at Carnegie Mellon 11/7/09

Was just about to make this thread, but you beat me to it, Fred.

Reserving this post for field updates.
by dschafer
Fri Sep 25, 2009 6:49 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: EFT Mirror at UVA(10/3/09)
Replies: 26
Views: 7430

Re: EFT Mirror at UVA(10/3/09)

CMU will be bringing two teams.
by dschafer
Sat Sep 19, 2009 9:57 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT Scheduling Committee
Replies: 16
Views: 6907

Re: NAQT Scheduling Committee

My name is Brian Sisco and I am the tournament director for the University of Pittsburgh's Quiz Bowl team. I am pleased to announce that we will be hosting a NAQT tournament using an A-Level set to be held at the University of Pittsburgh on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009. EDIT: Removed irrelevant part...
by dschafer
Fri Jul 03, 2009 12:51 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: BASQUE at UC Berkeley 7/25/09
Replies: 58
Views: 17719

Re: BASQUE at UC Berkeley 7/25/09

Looking over my calendar, it doesn't look like I'll be able to make it.
by dschafer
Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:45 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: BASQUE at UC Berkeley 7/25/09
Replies: 58
Views: 17719

Re: BASQUE at UC Berkeley 7/25/09

I might be able to attend this tournament, though I leave the Bay Area the weekend of 8 Aug.
by dschafer
Fri Jun 05, 2009 1:09 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information
Replies: 287
Views: 133831

Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

The tournament format for the PACE NSC in 2010 will be a 64-team tournament divided into eight brackets of eight teams each, seeded based on the team's performance-to-date with the goal of making each bracket both competitively equal to the other brackets and geographically diverse within the brack...
by dschafer
Sun May 31, 2009 2:45 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2009 NAQT HSNCT
Replies: 349
Views: 102408

Re: 2009 NAQT HSNCT

Actually, some teams get eliminated from the NSC with only one loss, or at least I can think of an example of this happening in the past, which is completely unfair. Also, you bringing up the distribution has to do with the issues with questions and their distribution, which I noted as being poorer...
by dschafer
Thu May 21, 2009 3:31 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: PACE NSC 2009: Tournament Format
Replies: 29
Views: 10393

Re: PACE NSC 2009: Tournament Format

Dan, The reason single-elimination is bad (as it pertains to your point) is that it offers no way to rank teams beyond the champion; if the top 2 teams in the tournament meet in the first round of a 16-team single elim, the second-place team finishes tied for ninth instead of in its rightful place....
by dschafer
Thu May 21, 2009 1:16 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: PACE NSC 2009: Tournament Format
Replies: 29
Views: 10393

Re: PACE NSC 2009: Tournament Format

The single-game final is between teams who have not met before and can be compared with a clean slate . This condition does not apply to the winner of the semifinal brackets. (Emphasis mine) It is possible for the two teams in the finals to have met in the prelims; wasn't that situation the motivat...
by dschafer
Wed May 20, 2009 11:40 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: PACE NSC 2009: Tournament Format
Replies: 29
Views: 10393

Re: PACE NSC 2009: Tournament Format

What is the advantage of playing an advantaged-style final to get out of your 8-team playoff bracket if a single-game final is going to be used to determine the overall winner? My impression of advantaged-style finals following round-robins is that they effectively force the best and second-best te...
by dschafer
Thu May 07, 2009 1:05 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: HSAPQ: Fall Tournaments Sets Available
Replies: 150
Views: 29809

Re: HSAPQ: Fall Tournaments Sets Available

NSC-1 is now available For bubble sort, it is n-squared, as for straight insertion. For 10 points each: [10] Name this term for the estimate of the number of operations needed to perform a certain algorithm. ANSWER: order (or big O; or running time] [10] The quicksort method often makes use of thes...
by dschafer
Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:09 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals discussion
Replies: 151
Views: 30953

Re: ACF Nationals discussion

The p-adics are useful examples of these in number theory, and a theorem of Weierstrass and Hilbert shows that any attempt to generalize this concept to triplets of numbers is equivalent to the complex numbers. These are called Pythagorean if they contain the square root of one plus the square of a...
by dschafer
Sun Apr 05, 2009 10:44 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2009 ICT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 28925

Re: 2009 ICT discussion

C. Using an elevator to move to a different floor was the only way to quiet guards around the walking nuclear tank after one of them had sounded a double-exclamation-mark alert. answer: _Metal Gear_ (do not accept "Metal Gear Solid") The easy part of the "elevator" video game cl...
by dschafer
Fri Apr 03, 2009 2:22 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2009 NAQT ICT to be held in Dallas
Replies: 45
Views: 9565

Re: 2009 NAQT ICT to be held in Dallas

Penn is stuck in the airport with our flight canceled, nothing leaving for quite a few hours, and even the standby options are slim. At this point, it is likely that we will not be at ICT at all; our best-case scenario involves missing all the prelims. Dammit. I just heard from CMU's DII team; they...
by dschafer
Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:34 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2009 NAQT ICT to be held in Dallas
Replies: 45
Views: 9565

Re: 2009 NAQT ICT to be held in Dallas

Penn is stuck in the airport with our flight canceled, nothing leaving for quite a few hours, and even the standby options are slim. At this point, it is likely that we will not be at ICT at all; our best-case scenario involves missing all the prelims. Dammit. I just heard from CMU's DII team; they...
by dschafer
Sun Mar 08, 2009 1:04 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ICT and Friday night games
Replies: 23
Views: 4425

Re: ICT and Friday night games

Upon looking at the schedule, it seems like it would be perfectly feasible to run the tournament over one (long) day. If people need Sunday to catch up, they can fly back late Saturday( or fly out Sunday morning and bring schoolwork with them). My original post advocating a Saturday/Sunday breakup ...
by dschafer
Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ICT and Friday night games
Replies: 23
Views: 4425

Re: ICT and Friday night games

I have no difficulty skipping Friday classes, and being able to fly back Saturday night after everything ends is nice, since I means I'll be back at school all of Sunday to catch up on work. If the games ran Saturday / Sunday, then Friday and Sunday would both end up being travel days, and the tourn...
by dschafer
Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:52 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: More technological wankery from E. Silberman
Replies: 6
Views: 2324

Re: More technological wankery from E. Silberman

everyday847 wrote:But if you click on them again, they don't disappear. Please, son, do something nontrivial for a change.
Replace .show() with .toggle() in the jQuery.
by dschafer
Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:59 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: SCT Private Discussion Forum
Replies: 129
Views: 22681

Re: SCT Private Discussion Forum

Registered as "dschafer".
by dschafer
Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:43 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Winter discussion
Replies: 106
Views: 18811

Re: ACF Winter discussion

Legendre (despite being afraid to buzz until the best giveaway ever) FTP, identify this early 19th century French mathematician who should not be confused with Laplace or Laguerre. It didn't get this far in our room, but I'm not a fan of this giveaway. It applies just as much to Lagrange as Legendr...
by dschafer
Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:07 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl Trash 2009 (1/25/09)
Replies: 23
Views: 5210

Re: Penn Bowl Trash 2009 (1/25/09)

CMU will tentatively have one team there.
by dschafer
Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:52 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Announcing BEeS: A Better Electronic Stats program
Replies: 50
Views: 27043

Re: Announcing BEeS: A Better Electronic Stats program

Stats suggestions: Head-to-Head: play every team against every other team in every round, Goldfish-style, compute W-L accordingly. The graphs I computed here for tossups The "buzz percentage" for every word in a question, computed as follows: [number of teams buzzed on that word] / [number...
by dschafer
Sat Jan 03, 2009 4:26 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Announcing BEeS: A Better Electronic Stats program
Replies: 50
Views: 27043

Re: Announcing BEeS: A Better Electronic Stats program

I just want to add my support for: * Stats exportable to SQBS, HTML, and .xls, full rounds able to be exported to XML would be awesome too. Unless (and I am guessing you aren't for this) you just open source the whole deal so we can play The former would be nice; the latter would be amazingly awesome.
by dschafer
Fri Nov 21, 2008 8:55 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament
Replies: 70
Views: 21655

Re: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament

I don't think your post, Dan, quite gets everything right. I know we write 1/1 math for pretty much every ACF packet ("Other Science" being under our control) and it's not especially uncommon to see that level in the edited product. Also, the MOP topics given seem to cover only Euclidian ...
by dschafer
Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:32 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament
Replies: 70
Views: 21655

Re: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament

Send me a copy as well. As a player familiar with computational math, I would be interested to see how well students these days do computation math, and whether it is really math theory or simple number-crunching (which is not real math). On a side note, why aren't there more math theory questions?...
by dschafer
Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:46 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament
Replies: 70
Views: 21655

Re: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament

But, to answer your question, I do not believe that the "pyramidal buzz distribution" can accurately reflect a pyramidal question, because people who have knowledge will often sit on questions and this will shift the BD to the right. I also think that for a pyramidal question, the cumulat...
by dschafer
Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:00 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament
Replies: 70
Views: 21655

Re: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament

I'm not sure you get the point. If I hear Clue A, try to solve it using Clue A, and buzz during or after Clue B, there is no way for someone other than myself to know what clue I buzzed on unless you ask me directly. Ah, I think I follow. Let me craft a potential new definition of pyramidality, and...
by dschafer
Wed Nov 19, 2008 3:16 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament
Replies: 70
Views: 21655

Re: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament

Also, I don't really think you can equate time with words like that. Ignoring math, I think that there's a legitimate difference between clue-filler-clue and clue-clue-clue, even if you get the same amount of buzzes at the same times. What I'm trying to say is that... if people remember/figure out ...
by dschafer
Wed Nov 19, 2008 3:07 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament
Replies: 70
Views: 21655

Re: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament

Two issues I take with this analysis. I come at it with an agenda, but also a relatively open mind. First, is a "pyramidal buzz distribution" equivalent to a pyramidal tossup? I'd say hardly. A pyramidal tossup can produce a PBD, but the reverse implication isn't necessarily there--you're...
by dschafer
Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:29 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament
Replies: 70
Views: 21655

Pyramidality, Math calculation, and the Goldfish Tournament

One of the major issues arising from the usual math calculation discussions is whether it is even possible for math calculation tossups to be pyramidal. The claim that math calculation tossups are by definition non-pyramidal nearly always is made in math calculation discussions. For example: This ar...
by dschafer
Mon Nov 10, 2008 5:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall discussion
Replies: 133
Views: 22664

Re: ACF Fall discussion (don't read, players at U Wash. site)

Also, since they were mentioned earlier, I should say I wrote the bonuses containing UV-Vis and Cauchy sequences. For the Cauchy sequence, this was probably a poor choice for a Fall-level answer, but as originally written it was asking for "Cauchy sequence" and didn't include the Schwarz ...
by dschafer
Mon Nov 10, 2008 2:29 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall discussion
Replies: 133
Views: 22664

Re: ACF Fall discussion (don't read, players at U Wash. site)

Prelude This tournament was amazing; we played a lot of the packets in practice before we staffed the tournament, and having heard most of the set twice now, I thought it was among the best sets at this level I've ever heard. Any and all suggestions I offer in the following post are in the spirit o...
by dschafer
Tue Oct 21, 2008 1:23 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Announcement: Minnesota Open, October 18 2008
Replies: 111
Views: 35634

Re: Announcement: Minnesota Open, October 18 2008

Matt Weiner wrote:Results of the meta packet have been compiled at http://www.hsquizbowl.org/meta/meta_standings.html .
Has the meta packet been posted online somewhere?
by dschafer
Sat Oct 18, 2008 6:50 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Compound last names and the "usually referred to" clause
Replies: 4
Views: 1844

Compound last names and the "usually referred to" clause

From the ACF Rules (emphasis mine): 4.1 Compound last names must be given in their entirety, and a partial last name will not be prompted. E.g., " García Márquez" and "van Buren" are the required parts of the answer for Gabriel García Márquez and Martin van Buren, and answers suc...
by dschafer
Mon Oct 13, 2008 2:06 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2008 TJIAT (10/18/08) at TJHSST
Replies: 154
Views: 38727

Re: 2008 TJIAT (10/18/08) at TJHSST

Johannes Climacus wrote:Important question: Last year, before the tournament, people were playing N64 Smash Bros. There was a Gamecube, but no Melee. Should I bring a disc this year?
The fact that N64 Smash Bros. apparently remains a TJ tradition fills me with joy.
by dschafer
Mon Oct 13, 2008 2:03 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: PACE NSC 2009: Tournament Format
Replies: 29
Views: 10393

Re: PACE NSC 2009: Tournament Format

What is the advantage of playing an advantaged-style final to get out of your 8-team playoff bracket if a single-game final is going to be used to determine the overall winner? My impression of advantaged-style finals following round-robins is that they effectively force the best and second-best tea...
by dschafer
Mon Oct 13, 2008 10:45 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: EFT Mirror at Wake Forest
Replies: 56
Views: 39504

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: EFT Mirror at Wake Forest

If possible, could the Round Report page could be enabled? I'd be interested to see the PPG and PPB comparisons between rounds.

Also, thanks for an extremely well-run tournament; everything ran incredibly smoothly.
by dschafer
Sun Oct 12, 2008 8:20 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: EFT Discussion
Replies: 107
Views: 26275

Re: EFT Discussion

Thanks to the writers / editors / anyone else involved with the creation of this set. This was easily one of the most enjoyable sets I've ever played on.
by dschafer
Sun Oct 05, 2008 3:09 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: FEUERBACH at Carnegie Mellon (Oct 4 2008)
Replies: 30
Views: 7832

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: FEUERBACH at Carnegie Mellon (Oct 4 2008)

11 packets. We ran a round robin with 9 rounds, with two packets reserved for ACF-style finals; Maryland cleared the field by 2, and hence finals were not needed. The final two packets were played in post-tournament scrimmages.
by dschafer
Sat Oct 04, 2008 7:27 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: FEUERBACH at Carnegie Mellon (Oct 4 2008)
Replies: 30
Views: 7832

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: FEUERBACH at Carnegie Mellon (Oct 4 2008)

Congratulations to Maryland A, who went undefeated in a nine-team round robin, clearing second place Michigan B and third place CMU by two games to win CMU's mirror of FEUERBACH. Top individual scorers included Kurtis from Michigan B, Chris from UMD A and Ike from the combined Dan/Ike team. Full sta...