2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Ike »

CPiGuy wrote:On a completely different note (and one that I had forgotten about until now): I really liked the tossup on the birthday problem. I think it's really cool to see more "recreational"-type math being tossed up -- I feel like oftentimes tournaments that only have 1 math per round stick to the typical analysis/algebra/calculus stuff because there's not enough material to push the envelope, and I appreciate the efforts made at this tournament to do so.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by khannate »

CPiGuy wrote:On a completely different note (and one that I had forgotten about until now): I really liked the tossup on the birthday problem. I think it's really cool to see more "recreational"-type math being tossed up -- I feel like oftentimes tournaments that only have 1 math per round stick to the typical analysis/algebra/calculus stuff because there's not enough material to push the envelope, and I appreciate the efforts made at this tournament to do so.
I'm not sure this is the right direction in which to push the envelope. Chem/physics/bio seem to be structured around asking about the sorts of things that you would see in an academic context (at least as far as I can tell), and I don't see any reason for math to deviate from this.

That being said, I thought the 0.5/0.5 math was well done and mostly enjoyed it.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Charbroil »

Auroni wrote:I delegated protest adjudication to Saul, because I was too overwhelmed to do it properly, and because he volunteered. At the time, I didn't realize that he was the one who moderated the round. I stand by and endorse his ruling.
Given that it seems like* he's changed his ruling, do you also stand by and endorse his revised ruling?

*Edit: That's how I interpreted his first post, though I guess I could be wrong.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Ciorwrong »

khannate wrote:
CPiGuy wrote:On a completely different note (and one that I had forgotten about until now): I really liked the tossup on the birthday problem. I think it's really cool to see more "recreational"-type math being tossed up -- I feel like oftentimes tournaments that only have 1 math per round stick to the typical analysis/algebra/calculus stuff because there's not enough material to push the envelope, and I appreciate the efforts made at this tournament to do so.
I'm not sure this is the right direction in which to push the envelope. Chem/physics/bio seem to be structured around asking about the sorts of things that you would see in an academic context (at least as far as I can tell), and I don't see any reason for math to deviate from this.

That being said, I thought the 0.5/0.5 math was well done and mostly enjoyed it.
Yeah I concur. .5/.5 math is fun but it should reward taking higher level abstract algebra and analysis courses. It is frustrating when my analysis knowledge learned over two courses and pages of proofs is rewarded way less often then recreational number theory, "cool math result" type stuff. Somebody in our game negged with "handshake problem" because those problems are solved fundamentally the same way.

The compactness tossup seemed good though I stupidly negged with closed because I misheard a clue. Can I see the compactness TU? I remember the theory about compact sets and continuity from Ruden (and in fact there are many theories of continuous functions on closed bounded intervals for uniform continuity and point wise convergence. I don't have my copy of Ruden in front of me, so I can't cite these exact theorems) but felt that compactness would be too easy.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Ike »

Just to be clear, there are legitimate uses and applications of the birthday problem, and the question did cover these in its early clues. I will say that I disagree with opening up the math to more non-applied topics. If we're going to have a math question every packet, it's going to be because every scientist, social scientist, and anyone doing quantitative research comes across the applied math.
If the set X is a particular point topological set, then it will possess the “pseudo-“ form of this property, meaning that the set’s image under any continuous function to the reals is bounded. However, set X will lack the “meta-” form of this property, whose definition involves a point finite refinement. Applying an ultrafilter to a topological set with this property will always yield one point. A totally disconnected T2 space with this property will be isomorphic to a Boolean algebra according to (*) Stone’s Representation theorem. For a weak topology, the Eberlein-Schmulian theorem states that three different forms of this property are equivalent in a Banach space. The “weakly countably” form of this property holds for a set X if every subset of X has a limit point; another definition of this property is that every open cover of the set has a finite subcover. For 10 points, name this property of a topological space making it both closed and bounded.
ANSWER: compactness
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by CPiGuy »

Progcon wrote:
khannate wrote:
CPiGuy wrote:On a completely different note (and one that I had forgotten about until now): I really liked the tossup on the birthday problem. I think it's really cool to see more "recreational"-type math being tossed up -- I feel like oftentimes tournaments that only have 1 math per round stick to the typical analysis/algebra/calculus stuff because there's not enough material to push the envelope, and I appreciate the efforts made at this tournament to do so.
I'm not sure this is the right direction in which to push the envelope. Chem/physics/bio seem to be structured around asking about the sorts of things that you would see in an academic context (at least as far as I can tell), and I don't see any reason for math to deviate from this.

That being said, I thought the 0.5/0.5 math was well done and mostly enjoyed it.
Yeah I concur. .5/.5 math is fun but it should reward taking higher level abstract algebra and analysis courses. It is frustrating when my analysis knowledge learned over two courses and pages of proofs is rewarded way less often then recreational number theory, "cool math result" type stuff. Somebody in our game negged with "handshake problem" because those problems are solved fundamentally the same way.

The compactness tossup seemed good though I stupidly negged with closed because I misheard a clue. Can I see the compactness TU? I remember the theory about compact sets and continuity from Ruden (and in fact there are many theories of continuous functions on closed bounded intervals for uniform continuity and point wise convergence. I don't have my copy of Ruden in front of me, so I can't cite these exact theorems) but felt that compactness would be too easy.
Yeah, I definitely understand the relevance of analysis/algebra type stuff, and I also greatly enjoy hearing that stuff (like the compactness tossup, that was well done). I just think that oftentimes you see a tournament that has 5/5 math across the tournament and none of it at all is "recreational" -- I'd like to see just like 1/1 recreational math per tournament. I think Ike did a good job of balancing the "cool recreational math" stuff with the "hard" math stuff.

(also, a lot of recreational math is important -- for example, as Ike pointed out, the birthday problem is used in a lot of real crypto things; likewise, there exist academic journals and stuff devoted to the publishing of new recreational math research, and it's done by important, real mathematicians like John Horton Conway who've done recreational things like Conway's Game of Life that never get asked about at all despite being pretty relevant).

also, Martin Gardner getting mentioned in quizbowl makes me unreasonably happy. More of this, please.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by grapesmoker »

I also think the tossup on the birthday problem was good, but it's odd to call it "recreational." The birthday problem is a legitimate problem in probability and has a number of interesting applications.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by CPiGuy »

Snap Wexley wrote:I also think the tossup on the birthday problem was good, but it's odd to call it "recreational." The birthday problem is a legitimate problem in probability and has a number of interesting applications.
Right; my point is that a lot of math that is encountered "recreationally" is important math, and I think Ike did a really good job of writing a question about the birthday problem that showed that off.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by grapesmoker »

A few other remarks: it's probably best not to start a tossup on "parrots" with Irene Pepperberg, literally the most famous parrot researcher, and Alex, her parrot, also literally the most famous parrot. Likewise, dropping Molly Ivins so soon in the "culture war" speech tossup is also suboptimal.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Snap Wexley wrote:A few other remarks: it's probably best not to start a tossup on "parrots" with Irene Pepperberg, literally the most famous parrot researcher, and Alex, her parrot, also literally the most famous parrot. Likewise, dropping Molly Ivins so soon in the "culture war" speech tossup is also suboptimal.
Yeah, as much as I enjoyed dazzling the room by (apparently) 13-wording the parrots tossup, Jerry is probably right.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Beast Mode »

Charbroil wrote:
Auroni wrote:I delegated protest adjudication to Saul, because I was too overwhelmed to do it properly, and because he volunteered. At the time, I didn't realize that he was the one who moderated the round. I stand by and endorse his ruling.
Given that it seems like* he's changed his ruling, do you also stand by and endorse his revised ruling?

*Edit: That's how I interpreted his first post, though I guess I could be wrong.
No, you interpreted it right. "tand by and endorse" aren't the words I'd use, but Auroni is surely resigned to the fact that I was dumb enough to:

-volunteer information related to resolving the protest

-not realize that I'd been deputized to officially resolve the protest, and thus

-not do any more research on it, only finding the second New York Times article when I was trying to find the first New York Times article while composing my first post.


It's a fact, after all.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by The Stately Rhododendron »

Ike, what was your thought process in that alt-right bonus? To get a 30, you'd have to have red a specific white-supremacist pamphlet by some anime nazi. How many people do you think have actually heard of Might is Right?

Also, yoga is not a "pseudo science!"
Last edited by The Stately Rhododendron on Sun Mar 05, 2017 11:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by vinteuil »

Did anyone else think the 1660s tossup dropped Pepys's parmesan too early? It was jarring to me considering how fucking hard the rest of the history was (see other thread). (Same with the early-ish drop of Milton's bit about rhyme in the Paradise Lost TU.)
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

Might is Right is pretty well known--you're probably joking, but it's a work of Social Darwinism, not a random text by an anime Nazi, and it was a guiding text in the Church of Satan (albeit through plagiarism).
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by vinteuil »

Who is Emmerich Kalman and why was he a hard part?

EDIT: And why not just use "idea" as the pronoun for the Zeno's paradox? I was pretty confused by the question (which said like "situation" or "scenario" I think?)
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by The Stately Rhododendron »

Cheynem wrote:Might is Right is pretty well known--you're probably joking, but it's a work of Social Darwinism, not a random text by an anime Nazi, and it was a guiding text in the Church of Satan (albeit through plagiarism).
An anime Nazi of the 1890s! Maybe "a reactionary fellow who spends all his pennies on Mr. Graham's crackers and the nickelodeon?"
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

Could I see the (tiebreaker) tossup on Harvard in CS? As amused as I was to steal a science question from Stephen using knowledge from the display I pass by on the way to class, "this institution" + phrasing of needing an architecture seemed to make the second half of the question redundant.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by vinteuil »

One more: the Panofsky clue in the Titan's Goblet question—what is this doing? (Aside from being another fucking "Panofsky from Wikipedia" clue! Stop that! And there are other, more up-to-date/less wrong based on what we know now art historians.)

Is it making the question more interesting? This is subjective, but I wasn't particularly wowed by the quoted claim.

Is it making the question more playable? The opposite! The vast majority of Panofsky's work, especially his important work (see below) is on painting before 1600.

Is it tying the question in to what academics actually study by citing a notable scholar? No. If you don't write about the stuff a scholar did that people actually read/study, then you've completely missed the "curricular"/"academic" point of doing this kind of citation. Contrast this question with the Baxandall and Wittkower questions that, though very difficult, were actually "about" them instead of just using them as filler. (EDIT: Just to be clear, I really appreciated the high amount of "art history" content, e.g. the Baxandall, Wittkower, and Alberti bonuses!)
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Ike »

The Stately Rhododendron wrote:Ike, what was your thought process in that alt-right bonus? To get a 30, you'd have to have red a specific white-supremacist pamphlet by some anime nazi. How many people do you think have actually heard of Might is Right?

Also, yoga is not a "pseudo science!"
Might is Right is an influential text in the history of ideas, not just the alt-right. Mike Cheyne has the right idea here.
EDIT: And why not just use "idea" as the pronoun for the Zeno's paradox? I was pretty confused by the question (which said like "situation" or "scenario" I think?)
I thought about what pronouns to use for this tossup. I eventually settled on "issues" and "situations" since "ideas" or "thought experiments" is a bit too transparent. If that caused undue confusion, I apologize.
A set of phrases named for this eponym consist of "The pipe began to rust while new" and "Move the vat over the hot fire," are often used to test Voice over IP systems, and are the namesake "sentences" of this institution. A system named after this eponym employs a "split cache" in a scheme where memory is treated as data. An actual computer named after this institution featured a relay which was home to a (*) moth that became the first "computer bug." Grace Hopper worked on that computer, and this institution gives its name to a scheme that segregates data memory and instructions, allowing it to bypass another scheme's namesake "bottleneck." The Von Neumann computer architecture is often contrasted with, for 10 points, the computer architecture named for what Ivy League university?
ANSWER: Harvard
<IJ, Math/Other Science>
Just to be clear, this tossup is terrible, and was only used at your site since a question was spoiled.
crap about Titan's Goblet
13. An Erwin Panofsky essay argues that this painting's title object was inspired by Norse mythology, in contrast to Theophilus Stringfellow Jr., who argued that it is a "microcosm of man." For 10 points each:
[10] Name this landscape by Thomas Cole that depicts a vast sea, a Greek temple, and architectural ruins within and on the rim of the title object.
ANSWER: The Titan's Goblet
[10] Thomas Cole is a member of the school of painting named for this river in New York. Its other painters included Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Church.
ANSWER: Hudson River School
[10] In an article about The Titan's Goblet, Ellwood Parry argued that the painting was inspired by this artist's Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus; his other classical-inspired paintings include Ovid Banished from Rome.
ANSWER: J. M. W. Turner
<IJ, Painting/Sculpture>
I really don't understand what the gripe is, and in particular directives such as "don't clue Panofsky if the painting was made after X" is terrible advice -- stuff that I don't agree with. Furthermore, it's a bonus leadin! It doesn't affect playability. While I strive for interesting content in every question, sorry, Jacob, but you're really reaching at this point for the gripes!
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by grapesmoker »

There's nothing wrong with that Panofsky clue.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Daedalus »

Can I see the Sumerian myth bonus? Thanks!
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Ike »

14. Answer the following about the nature of the universe in Sumerian tradition, for 10 points.
[10] According to the Enuma Elish, these two contrasting substances are personified by Apsu and Tiamat, a husband-wife pair of primordial gods.
ANSWER: fresh water and salt water [or sweet water instead of “fresh water”; or ocean water instead of “salt water”; prompt on just waters, but do not accept if two answers are given and one of them isn’t related to water]
[10] After the death of his friend Enkidu, this Sumerian king quests for immortality and learns how day and night are caused by the journey of his patron, the sun god Shamash.
ANSWER: Gilgamesh [or Bilgames]
[10] The gods of heaven and earth lend their name to this group of vaguely-defined deities whose role ranges from the seven judges of the underworld to the six hundred servants of Marduk in the Enuma Elish.
ANSWER: Anunnaki [or Anunna; or Anunakene; be lenient with vowels as long as the consonants are in the correct order]
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Daedalus »

Err, the other one? The parts were Sumer/Dumuzi/Cain and Abel. Thanks again.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Eddie »

Daedalus wrote:Err, the other one? The parts were Sumer/Dumuzi/Cain and Abel. Thanks again.
Finals 1, (This) Tournament is a Crime wrote: 10. In a myth of this culture, personifications of summer and winter argue over whether the gods prefer their agriculture or their animal husbandry. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this civilization. One of their “debate” myths of creation describes the fashioning of humans to utilize the products of sheep and grain, which the immortal gods do not know how to use.
ANSWER: Sumer [prompt on Mesopotamia; do not accept “Babylon”]
[10] Under the advice of the Sumerian god Utu, Inanna chooses this shepherd god as consort rather than the farmer god Enkimdu. This god is later whisked away to the underworld when he refuses to mourn for Inanna.
ANSWER: Dumuzi [or Dumuzid; or Tammuz]
[10] In Abrahamic tradition, these two sons of Adam are a farmer and a shepherd, the former of whom murders the latter when his sacrifice is not accepted by God.
ANSWER: Cain and Abel [or Qayin and Hebel; or Qabil and Habil]
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Charbroil »

Beast Mode wrote:
Charbroil wrote:
Auroni wrote:I delegated protest adjudication to Saul, because I was too overwhelmed to do it properly, and because he volunteered. At the time, I didn't realize that he was the one who moderated the round. I stand by and endorse his ruling.
Given that it seems like* he's changed his ruling, do you also stand by and endorse his revised ruling?

*Edit: That's how I interpreted his first post, though I guess I could be wrong.
No, you interpreted it right. "tand by and endorse" aren't the words I'd use, but Auroni is surely resigned to the fact that I was dumb enough to:

-volunteer information related to resolving the protest

-not realize that I'd been deputized to officially resolve the protest, and thus

-not do any more research on it, only finding the second New York Times article when I was trying to find the first New York Times article while composing my first post.


It's a fact, after all.
Since someone was kind enough to reach out to me off the forums about this, I did want to mention that I accept everyone's apologies and I appreciate the detailed responses Saul and Conor made to my initial post.

My initial anger was because, from what I saw, the majority of the secondary sources I found discussed the documentary in this tossup's leadin in the context of the Holocaust and concentration camps. Thus, my assumption was that the only way you could miss all of the sources indicating that I was right (or, at least, should have been prompted) was to not look for them at all.

Now that I've been assured that research was done for this protest, I'm willing to attribute all of this to bad luck and the vagaries of Google's search algorithms in providing results. My belief now is that Holocaust/concentration camp related results didn't come up as prominently on Saul and Conor's searches as they did on mine and that that was why they missed them. Since this was an honest mistake, I don't see any continued reason to be upset about it.

EDIT: Saul has clarified that his search was for a different (but still perfectly reasonable) set of keywords, which explains the varying results. In this context, I wouldn't even call it a "mistake;" just bad luck on my part.

(Obviously, the protest should have been resolved anonymously, but I definitely don't think that's why it was resolved against us.)

Along those lines, I did want to mention that I retract my initial accusation that no research was done to resolve this protest. That was obviously a very contentious thing to say, and I'm glad that it proved to be untrue.

Thanks again for the explanations, everyone!
Last edited by Charbroil on Tue Mar 07, 2017 12:47 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by CPiGuy »

Charles, I'm glad we're on the same page, and I echo your sentiment about the vagaries of Google search algorithms. I definitely learned a lot about proper protest resolution from this (and other incidents over the weekend).

Also, having just read through the detailed stats from the last couple rounds, can I see the bonuses on Wilfred Owen/Hugh Selwyn Mauberley/Bertolt Brecht and Cote d'Ivoire/Laurent Gbagbo/soccer, as well as the tossup on comet appearance?
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by wd4gdz »

Could someone please post the bonus with the "To His Excellency, General Washington" part? Thanks!
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Ike »

[10] This poem, whose speaker tells a “celestial choir” that “Columbia’s scenes of glorious toil I write,” commands: “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, / Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.”
ANSWER: “To His Excellency George Washington” [by Phillis Wheatley]
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by west neg, new york »

Ike wrote:
[10] This poem, whose speaker tells a “celestial choir” that “Columbia’s scenes of glorious toil I write,” commands: “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, / Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.”
ANSWER: “To His Excellency George Washington” [by Phillis Wheatley]
We missed out on this bonus part because we substituted "General" for "George". I know absolutely zero about poetry, but it seems that that's also a common title for the poem (at least online) and should be accepted?
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by CPiGuy »

west neg, new york wrote:
Ike wrote:
[10] This poem, whose speaker tells a “celestial choir” that “Columbia’s scenes of glorious toil I write,” commands: “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, / Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.”
ANSWER: “To His Excellency George Washington” [by Phillis Wheatley]
We missed out on this bonus part because we substituted "General" for "George". I know absolutely zero about poetry, but it seems that that's also a common title for the poem (at least online) and should be accepted?
A quick google suggests that it's actually the only title -- I see no mention of "To His Excellency George Washington". I also know zero about poetry.

Also:
CPiGuy wrote:Also, having just read through the detailed stats from the last couple rounds, can I see the bonuses on Wilfred Owen/Hugh Selwyn Mauberley/Bertolt Brecht and Cote d'Ivoire/Laurent Gbagbo/soccer, as well as the tossup on comet appearance?
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by wd4gdz »

Ike wrote:
[10] This poem, whose speaker tells a “celestial choir” that “Columbia’s scenes of glorious toil I write,” commands: “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, / Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.”
ANSWER: “To His Excellency George Washington” [by Phillis Wheatley]
The reason I bring this up is because "General Washington" is definitely the much more common title. However, "George Washington" does appear in a few Google hits. At our site, the other team said "George Washington," so we protested it, but it was denied. This issue basically decided the tournament. Just wondering what other people think. Should a "wrong" but commonly mistaken title be acceptable?
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Ike »

wd4gdz wrote:
Ike wrote:
[10] This poem, whose speaker tells a “celestial choir” that “Columbia’s scenes of glorious toil I write,” commands: “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, / Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.”
ANSWER: “To His Excellency George Washington” [by Phillis Wheatley]
The reason I bring this up is because "General Washington" is definitely the much more common title. However, "George Washington" does appear in a few Google hits. At our site, the other team said "George Washington," so we protested it, but it was denied. This issue basically decided the tournament. Just wondering what other people think. Should a "wrong" but commonly mistaken title be acceptable?
I didn't resolve this protest (or even hear about it, maybe Auroni did,) but just for clarification: was the answer given "General Washington" or "To His Excellency General Washington"? or were you protesting that an answer of "To His Excellency, George Washington" should not be taken?
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by wd4gdz »

Ike wrote:
wd4gdz wrote:
Ike wrote:
[10] This poem, whose speaker tells a “celestial choir” that “Columbia’s scenes of glorious toil I write,” commands: “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, / Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.”
ANSWER: “To His Excellency George Washington” [by Phillis Wheatley]
The reason I bring this up is because "General Washington" is definitely the much more common title. However, "George Washington" does appear in a few Google hits. At our site, the other team said "George Washington," so we protested it, but it was denied. This issue basically decided the tournament. Just wondering what other people think. Should a "wrong" but commonly mistaken title be acceptable?
I didn't resolve this protest (or even hear about it, maybe Auroni did,) but just for clarification: was the answer given "General Washington" or "To His Excellency General Washington"? or were you protesting that an answer of "To His Excellency, George Washington" should not be taken?
It happened at the Rice mirror, FWIW. We protested that an answer of "To His Excellency, George Washington" should not be taken.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by CPiGuy »

Ike wrote:
wd4gdz wrote:
Ike wrote:
[10] This poem, whose speaker tells a “celestial choir” that “Columbia’s scenes of glorious toil I write,” commands: “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, / Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.”
ANSWER: “To His Excellency George Washington” [by Phillis Wheatley]
The reason I bring this up is because "General Washington" is definitely the much more common title. However, "George Washington" does appear in a few Google hits. At our site, the other team said "George Washington," so we protested it, but it was denied. This issue basically decided the tournament. Just wondering what other people think. Should a "wrong" but commonly mistaken title be acceptable?
I didn't resolve this protest (or even hear about it, maybe Auroni did,) but just for clarification: was the answer given "General Washington" or "To His Excellency General Washington"? or were you protesting that an answer of "To His Excellency, George Washington" should not be taken?
I think it's the last of the three -- I may be mistaken, but I think what people are saying is that the answerline should say "To His Excellency General Washington", and should not accept "To His Excellency George Washington".
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Both should be acceptable--"To His Excellency, General Washington" is the more common title (don't write your answerlines from memory, people!) but the "George" version does show up in a few reasonably reputable places (for example, here), suggesting it should be taken if for no other reason than a reasonable spirit of leniency. Similar sources provide reason to suggest you should be able to drop the "To" as well.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Eddie »

CPiGuy wrote:Also, having just read through the detailed stats from the last couple rounds, can I see the bonuses on Wilfred Owen/Hugh Selwyn Mauberley/Bertolt Brecht and Cote d'Ivoire/Laurent Gbagbo/soccer, as well as the tossup on comet appearance?
Finals 1, (This) Tournament is a Crime wrote: 6. Answer the following about modern responses to Horace’s phrase “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” meaning “It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country,” for 10 points each.
[10] This British poet and World War I casualty called the sentiment “the old Lie” told to “children ardent for some desperate glory,” at the end of his poem “Dulce et decorum est.”
ANSWER: Wilfred Owen [or Wilfred Edward Salter Owen]
[10] The fourth section of this poem is dedicated to those who died in the war, “pro patria, non dulce non et decor.” This long poem is about its author’s alter ego, who “bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn” and “strove to resuscitate the dead art / Of poetry.”
ANSWER: “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” [by Ezra Pound]
[10] This poet was nearly expelled from school for writing an essay calling the phrase “cheap propaganda.” He cautioned future generations to “Remember / When you speak of our failings / The dark time too / Which you have escaped” in his poem “To Those Born Later.”
ANSWER: Bertolt Brecht [or Eugen Friedrich Bertolt Brecht]
Finals 2, (This) Tournament is a Crime wrote: 20. President Henri Konan Bedie formulated a concept holding that a candidate for president of this country and both of their parents must be born in it to run for office. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this country, where that aforementioned concept was used as the basis for policies to disqualify Alassande Outtara from office, thus starting a civil war in it.
ANSWER: Cote d’Ivoire [or the Ivory Coast]
[10] Henry Konan Bedie was himself succeeded by this president of Cote d'Ivoire. In 2002, a long-running civil started in which the Muslim North fought against the Christian South of Cote'Ivoire.
ANSWER: Laurent Gbagbo
[10] In 2006, an event featuring this activity caused a temporary ceasefire between both sides of the Ivorian Civil War. El Salvador and Honduras fought a war immediately after an event of this activity in 1970.
ANSWER: soccer [or football]
Finals 1, (This) Tournament is a Crime wrote: 17. A 9-level scale for determining the societal impact of these events was put forth in a 1984 "chronology" by D. J. Schove. The date of one of these events was moved from 989 to 995 by the transcriber of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to coincide with the death of Sigeric the Serious. Paolo Toscanelli blamed one of these events for causing a drought in Constantinople, and described it as appearing like an "ox's eye" with a "peacock." Pierre-Simon Laplace started the likely untrue claim that Callixtus III (*) issued a bull of excommunication after one of these events. Johannes Hevalius wrote a book describing these events, and the idea that they are terrestrial in origin was challenged by observations given by Tycho Brahe. The 32nd scene of the Bayeux Tapestry shows men observing, for 10 points, what kind of appearances, which involved an object named for Edmund Halley?
ANSWER: comet appearance [accept more specific comets as part of the answers, such as Halley's Comet]
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Auroni »

Yeah, I messed up the answerline for "To His Excellency General Washington" in a total oversight; that will be fixed for future mirrors.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Cheynem wrote:Could you post the Jews being expelled from Spain tossup? I wrote the one for CO 2016, and I'd be interested in comparing.
(Replied here for appropriate thread)

For what it's worth, I thought this question was rather transparent/obvious - it sort of implied that the Ottoman empire was getting a lot of people, and it seems like fairly basic knowledge at the open level that Sephardic Jews (who lived mostly in Ottoman territories) were originally from Spain. Maybe I'm dramatically overestimating knowledge of Sephardic history at this level, though.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by CPiGuy »

This action was almost prevented with a large bribe of 30,000 pieces of silver, but the bribe was thwarted when a prior rushed in with a crucifix and yelled “Judas Iscariot sold his master for thirty pieces of silver. Your Highness would sell him anew for thirty thousand.” Sultan Bayezid II allowed the Ottoman Empire to offer asylum to victims of this action, of which he said “impoverished [their] land and enriched ours.” One of the most rabid proponents of taking this action was (*) Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros, who almost immediately took this action after becoming the queen’s personal confessor. This action led to the diaspora of the hybrid language Ladino across the Mediterranean. People targeted by this action, collectively known as Sephardi, were forced to leave the country, become conversos, or risk execution. For 10 points, name this 1492 action demanded by the Alhambra Decree issued by Ferdinand and Isabella, which eliminated an entire religious group from post-Reconquista Spain.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Yeah, so I think questions like this that use clues to guide players with context are gen.erally a good idea. But in this case, the clues for this question are really easy if you have even the slightest hint of what's going on - you get very quickly that "the Ottoman Empire is getting refugees" and "religious people of some kind are involved" and if you wait any bit after that, you get a Spanish religious figure's name. Frankly, with a couple of tweaks, I wouldn't have a problem with this tossup in EFT!

Approaching questions with clues like "this action dispersed people who speak Ladino" is fantastic because that's a long-term historical consequence of real importance. That said, as executed, it's far too generous for a tossup at the open level - I understand that Bruce didn't have much experience at this level, and I suspect it was just an editorial oversight to not comment here.
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Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

A group that lobbied against this action featured a man who, in a pun on his last name, was known as the "Hater of Light." That attempt at preventing it was stopped by a woman who quoted Proverbs to the group after a crucifix was thrown down and she was compared to Judas Iscariot. A rival monarch noted the man who carried out this action was "impoverishing his country and enriching my kingdom." A 600,000 crown offer from the personal funds of a man named Abravanel was made to prevent this action. After it took place, a navy under the command of Kemal Reis was dispatched to provide assistance on the orders of (*) Bayezid II. This action was probably influenced by the promotion of Francisco Cisneros to the office of royal confessor. Marranos or conversos were not required to flee to the Ottoman Empire or South America because of this action. For 10 points, what Torquemada supported action took place as the result of the 1492 Alhambra Decree?
ANSWER: the expulsion of the Jews from Spain [or obvious equivalents that mention banishing
Here's the CO tossup for comparison's sake. Apparently, the bribe offer really varied depending on your source!
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