Live eSports

To complement my new enjoyment of serial TV shows, I've taken to occasionally getting front-row seats at the live sporting spectacle that is competitive Team Fortress 2. TF2 is a video game I've written about many times, and it is competitively played online in two main leagues, one based in Europe and one in North America. Games are streamed live online with two sportscasters and a chat bar for spectators to voice their thoughts.

Competitive TF2 certainly isn't the largest esport, but there is money on the line. I mainly watch North American league; the current season is exciting because there have been a few important upsets and a newer team has risen to the top of the league standings. Most competitive players are in their late teens or early twenties, but two of the six starting players on this new and successful team are fourteen years old and have reportedly had late-night matches conflict with parentally-enforced bedtimes.

Fun With Climate Change

I'm writing an essay this week that involves climate change and two of my main sources are the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change). From what I've read so far, these groups disagree on almost every point in the climate change discussion, drawing very different conclusions from the available data. They even use different language to talk about the same concepts: the IPCC says 'acidification' and the NIPCC says 'declining pH'.

Another highlight of my reading time was my struggle with vocabulary; I spent about five minutes reading about 'sulfur and nitrogen deposition via precipitation' before realizing that the paper was talking about acid rain.

Waking Up Poem

I wake up first at four o'clock

And go right back to sleep

This is my favorite time of night

No need for counting sheep

I wake up next at eight-o-five

And start to brace my frame

I have another half an hour for sleep

But it's not the same

I wake up last at eight, half-past

Emerge from my bed's fluff

I don't always feel rested

But I am awake enough

Serial Television

One of my favorite TV shows is Vikings, a historical drama set during the Viking invasions of England and France and featuring the family of Ragnar Lodbrok. The fourth season of this show premiered today and I resigned myself to waiting until the season was released on Amazon Prime. Usually seasons of shows will be released a year or more after they first air.

When I checked Amazon Prime, however, I saw that the premier episode was already up and available for viewing, and each subsequent episode will be hosted there as well. For the first time, then, I'll have the experience of watching a show week by week as episodes come out. I'm looking forward to this new and strange aspect of TV and hoping that the cliffhangers won't drive me crazy.

Fun With Bioethics

Under English education, university courses tend to be focused on one subject. I've enjoyed studying a lot of biology, but I do miss some aspects of a liberal arts education. I was happily surprised recently to come across a biology paper that, after going through a couple pages of science, began discussing philosophy and democracy (with the ultimate goal of arguing against the EU's strict regulation of genetically modified crops).

There were no direct truth claims in the philosophy portion of the paper (possibly because philosophical ideas are difficult to experimentally verify); instead, each viewpoint was presented as an observation of the human population. Things did get a bit snarky under this method.

To paraphrase:
"the subset of people who, neglecting generally accepted democratic principles, place primary value on personal subjective beliefs pertaining to the negative impacts of genetically modified organisms, may be inclined to argue for extensive government regulation of transgenic crops."

This paper also includes my favorite expression of philosophical criticism: "Many have criticized Rawls' restrictive notion of public reason for being far too restrictive."

Science Facts: Underground Succulents

In desert environments, water is a resource of primary importance, so plants tend to take up as much water as possible and lose as little water as possible from day to day. Most water in plants is lost through transpiration, a process that cools the plant.

One type of desert plant keeps cool by having not only its roots underground, but most of its leaves as well. This may seem counterproductive to the purpose of leaves, but in this plant the tips of the leaves are heavily coated with wax and emerge just above the ground's surface. These wax tips serve as little windows for sunlight to reach the rest of the photosynthetic tissue in the underground leaves.

Great Deals

I'm always happy to get a good deal when grocery shopping. Late in the day, bread from the bakery is often discounted, and to go with it I can get whichever cheese costs 1.50 instead of 2 pounds at the time. The generic brand is almost always better than the name brand for value per value.

Today, I saw that bags of "4 pears" were selling for 1.25 pounds and I nabbed a bag with five pears in it, still 1.25. What a win.