Not quite sure how you think I am being shallow with my response and I certainly wasnt trying to brag with my anecdote. The purpose of that was to show how pretty much anybody can go into astro even without taking (or probably in a lot of people's case can't even take) high level physics, math, and programming courses in high school. Me mentioning that I took the advanced courses at a top university was to add even more credibility to my above statement, because I am of the opinion that people wouldn't believe me near as much if I went to some no name community college taking algebra and general science my first semester out of highschool.

I'm not part of EVL but I imagine it is because 4s is very beginner friendly while 6s is not. There is so much to learn before even getting started in 6s and since this event is geared towards new players to competitive I don't think they wanted to overwhelm the players. 4s also allows for pretty much any class to be played which players new to comp who are only good at a non 6s class will still be able to have fun.

I suppose the real question is why not HL and I imagine the answer is three-fold. HL teams can be really hard to get together and actually play each other leading to a drawn out tournament with many teams not having all nine players. HL teams require a lot of players and EVL wants this to be a decently large tournament, something you can't do unless 5,000 people sign up. Finally there are also plenty of HL events for new people, not so much for 4s.

I'll go through galaxy formation later today when I have more time.

I'll also go through research later as well, this response took all of my extra lunch break time.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to comment on the theory side of astro, I've never been in a theory group because I like experimental so much.

I guess I'll start from the beginning with what you can do to prepare yourself in HS, first with an anecdote about my experience. My high school was in the bottom 2/3rds of the state and offered nothing past AP Calc AB and AP Physics B (for anybody who doesn't know ap courses this corresponds to Calc I and Physics without Calc, also known as physics for non-majors). About the only thing decent about the school was that there were programming courses available each year (that I also ended up taking).

I was able to get into a top university and took the advanced lower division physics track which contained about as much math that could possibly be done with the topic at hand. Pretty much every student in that class had taken through Calc III (multivar calc) and both Physics C (the calc version of Physics B covering Mechanics and E+M) so I was at a severe knowledge gap below these students. However, as you will find with most physics text books the math is all covered and all the physics are built from the ground up, so outside of having to put in a lot of work to learn the math (that was to be formally taught to me a year down the road) I was still able to achieve decent marks in the class.

Moral of the story is, take as many physics and calc courses that your school offers, but don't feel like you won't be able to succeed when you find out you are the only person who came from a school that doesn't teach physics.

As for things that you can do before college that directly relate to astro, the biggest one would be to learn programming (with the reasoning coming with how research is done in astro). I recommend as formal a programming course that you can take, but if your school doesn't offer anything at least learn it through some online courses (codeacademy, university online courses, etc.) The biggest experimental language by far is python (using numpy and scipy libraries) although there are still some old people who refuse to move away from IDL (a pretty crappy programming language that has some really cool astro features). Most computational astro people use C, with some using FORTRAN, although if you want to learn FORTRAN you might want to seek a medical professional.

Outside of programming you might want to get involved in a local astronomy club, many of which are hosted by either local colleges or just amateurs who really like space. It is nice to take a step back every once in a while to just look at things in the sky. I personally do it so rarely that things you would expect astronomers to know like ecplises, meteor showers, and comets I learn about for the first time the day after when either my parents, friends, or now my stream chat mention if I saw them. The only event that I sometimes pay attention to are new moons since those are the best telescope nights.

Additionally you might want to learn LaTeX, since all your papers will be written in it, not to mention if you submit an essay/resume (e.g. for your university application) using it you will get some extra attention since it will look so much better than anybody else's. You also will probably want to familiarize yourself with linux since pretty much every computer in astro is running a distro of linux.

The must not miss are the races of DKC2, Kaizo Mario World, Mega Man, Mega Man 5, Portal, Zelda LttP, and Super Metroid. However, basically every race is going to be really, really good so I would recommend trying to watch every one you can. For individual games, Gimmick and Punch-Out are going to be really good.

I also need to mention the Japanese runners that the community raised to bring over to the event. They are Ohon (running MM5 and Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania III), 0xwas (ruunning Kirby Super Star), and Hanage (running Super Castlevania IV). Each one of these runners are really amazing to watch.

Astrophysics discussion you say? What would you like to know? Astrophysics is a massive topic but the things that you mentioned either don't relate to astrophysics (string theory) or don't have any rigorous theory behind them yet (multiverse). I can greatly expand upon any cosmological topic that you want (even going into research that I have worked on / know people that are working on) as well as go into a good enough depth for the other primary fields (stellar, structure (large and small), ISM, etc.)

I can also talk about how research gets done and what you want to do in highschool and college to prepare to learn about the topic.

I'm not sure what I did that makes you hate me so much. TF.tv has been doing a decent amount of IM casts recently and casters and cameramen don't just pop up out of thin air. Considering that we had just scheduled the match and it was going to be in only a few hours (thanks ESEA admins for updating the playoff information) I was giving the people that matter a heads up so they don't have to sit on the match page pressing F5 every two seconds to see when the match was going to be played.

Instead of replying after to me to say, "Oh our match is going to be played as well I think you should do that one instead" or "Hey the upper round finals looks to be great watch that instead" you continue this petty vendetta you have against me.

Figure I'll let you know that we are going to be playing Blockback tonight at 10:30edt.

If this match finishes and God v Japan are still playing will you cast that as well?

What are you going to school for, if it is physical science, engineering, or any math heavy major then I would stay with the PC over the laptop. You aren't going to be taking notes with a laptop for these classes and the reduced power for gaming (using a laptop) will be more annoying.

If you are going for pretty much anything else then a laptop will be more valuable since the majority of your classes' notes can be taken with a laptop. The real problem with a gaming laptop is the ridiculous weight and size along with the short battery life that will be a burden when going to class.

As far as free time, I think on average most classes require 3-5x the amount of hours in class out of class (3hrs in class 9-15hrs out). Up to you to make your own schedule.

The only division that is getting the bo3 (that isn't invite) is CS:GO Prem, TF2 IM is still one map rounds.

Go to a shoe store for runners. There will be people there that will analyze your style of running (how your feet hit the ground and how you leave the ground) as well as your foot type and give you recommendations based on that. Don't just buy a shoe because it has good ratings or somebody suggested it to you. Everybody has different needs (more support for ankles, you over-pronate, etc.) that you really need to try on the shoe before purchasing. As a small tip, if you are trying to save money find a shoe that you like then look for older models of it (most companies update their shoe every year) which generally are on a discount. Also, running shoes tend to last about 1-2 seasons (3-6months) depending on how much you run.

I was on a cross country team throughout middle and high school and was friends with a few of the people on my college's team. I was captain of my high school team and collaborated with our coach on workouts and runs for the team. At the peak of my senior year I was putting in 100mi weeks and broke 16:20 for 5k.

The biggest advice I can give is to keep a log of your running (excel works great for this since you can total your mileage and get other useful numbers).

I can answer pretty much any question you have, such as what you should be running each week or how you should approach meet days. Just try and be specific with your questions because much like TF2 questions, if you ask something stupid, like how to do get better dm, (how to run fast) you will get stupid answers, like play more (run more).

What do you mean change them in scoreboard.res? The stock scoreboard uses the same structure for MapName as does my hud (which is broken).

The price range you are looking for has a pretty big variety of headphones to choose from so it would be nice to know more than just nothing too bright. What music do you listen to? What do you like to listen to in the music? Vocals, guitar, bass, etc..

All I can really recommend are the top headphones in the category, you will have to do some research on them. HE-400, Sennheiser HD600, Beyerdynamic DT880, MrSpeaker's Mad Dogs and AKG K702 (with a bunch of varieties based on the number).

Since you don't have an amp and every headphone in this category (and above) benefits from one pretty significantly, I highly recommend you budget in an amp into your purchase. The two best cheap ones are the Objective2 amplifier and the Schiit Magni. Don't worry about getting a DAC unless you hear constant static or pops when listening to audio.

You didn't replace the stock tf_english.txt with ell's version.