As someone who researches the effects of video games on education (primarily on learners of English as another language) I can tell you the empirical research into the topic is not nearly so cut and dried.

There was a lot of hype about the "brain age"-type games when they first came out, some of which this video references, but what we know now is that those types of games only make you "smarter" in the sense that they make you better at solving similar puzzle-types. In other words, the gains you see are really just the effects of practice. The supposed "smartness" does not transfer over to other skill areas. See this link for more info: http://pamkato.com/2013/04/17/do-brain-training-games-work-yes-no-and-maybe/

So basically everything referenced in this video can be explained by "practice" rather than by some special characteristic of the video games themselves (certainly video games make the practice part fun, though). Furthermore, there is pronounced lack of research into whether the benefits such as those reported in this video actually mean anything significant (i.e. whether being able to more concretely differentiate different levels of gray when you are younger actually leads to better vision when you are older compared with non-gamers, whether you retain the ability to read small text as you age better than non-gamers, etc.).

I do believe there are cognitive benefits to ALL kinds of gaming (board games, pen-and-paper RPGs, card games like poker, crossword puzzles, tic-tac-toe, etc.) but based on the empirical evidence so far I'm not convinced there is anything particularly special about video games that leads players to become "smarter" in the sort of general sense that is being suggested here.

Pretension ain't genius and Gaga's output rates mediocre at best.
Again, Trey Parker's voice adjusted to Cartman frequency produces a more pleasing rendition of "Poker Face" than the original artist formerly known as Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, who as far as I can tell is a little full-of-herself, Sicilian/Canadian narcissist whose upper west side Manhattan upbringing has spilled-over into her horrible taste and run-of-the-mill musical offerings.

Her wiki page touts her many self-labeled endeavors, all of which appeal to her sense of self as the center of the universe.

She's a hag.

I liked the wringing hands at 8:15-8:30 or so. I'm not an expert at reading people, but if I was playing poker with him I'd have folded right there.

"No, we aren't collecting anything beyond metadata. Those guys don't know what they are talking about." = "No, I don't have a flush. My hands are going nuts because I'm ... hungry. Yeah, that's it."

As I recall from studying this is a college class, we had only the two atomic bombs available. Getting material for another was possible, but I think I recall that at the time we could only collect enough for one bomb every several months.

So, a HUGE aspect of this is that we had a pretty good hand of cards in the poker game, but felt that we had to bluff to suggest that it was even more overwhelming.

To me, the interesting part of the debate isn't blockade vs conventional bombing vs invasion vs A-bombs. I think it gets most interesting to consider alternatives that involve dropping one or more of the 2 A-bombs some place where their power would be demonstrated, but where casualties would be as low as possible.

Either option you mentioned would have been GREAT, if they worked (and forced surrender). But both had potential pitfalls also. Drop one on an unpopulated area, and they might have believed we were trying to take credit for some sort of natural event (German V2s blowing up in London were often attributed to sewage gas explosions early on). Staging a demonstration for scientists and leaders to witness might have hardened their resolve and/or made them question ours.

If I had been in Truman's shoes, I feel like I would have preferred to use ONE of the two bombs on something like one of your suggestions; either unpopulated drop or demonstration. Then, use the second on a target of military significance if/when they didn't surrender.

However, in hindsight that would have been a risky move -- they didn't surrender after the Hiroshima bomb, only after both. Would a demonstration and one "we mean business" bomb have been enough to elicit the same response? Who knows. At that point, consider how screwed we could have been if it HADN'T, and it would have taken months to build another bomb (plus keep in mind that we weren't 100% confident in the bombs working reliably, even after trinity and the first two drops). I guess that we could have maintained a blockade and said "we'll give you 3 months to come to your senses" while we made another bomb, but I think that would have legitimately resulted in Japan questioning our resolve quite a lot; we'd be showing our cards too early.

I guess that at the end of the day, I don't envy Truman for having to make that kind of decision. Given the givens, I think that he probably played it as safe as possible and went with the option that was the MOST likely to force surrender. Perhaps some other option would have worked as well but avoided some of the casualties, but Truman took the information available to him and made the decision that he felt was the best -- I think that is pretty much the best we can ask of our leaders.

IMO this is *related=http://videosift.com/video/Blacksmith-at-Work-Rams-Head-Poker

Blacksmith at Work - Ram's Head Poker has been added as a related post - related requested by braschlosan.

Your video, Blacksmith at Work - Ram's Head Poker, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This is why I no longer play poker.

Never had a snake bite and have been handling snakes and using cannabis for quite some time. ....Services every Sunday and Thursday night poker, in the rear.

What the...

I know nothing about the intricacies of maneuvering such a ship, so maybe someone can help me out.

She's drifting towards those boats, yet she doesn't go full ahead until ~50 seconds in: why?

And the tug lines to the ship seem slack: why isn't the tug boat going full astern?

Failed chain of communication, pilot/bridge crew playing strip poker?

Same happened to poker in Poland. None of the legislators understood what it is, for them it was just gambling same to the one armed bandits in smoky bars, so they banned it... Similar thing happened to the betting legislation. Pity.

What you seem to be saying is that you generally agree with the choices the U.S. has made, and that you disagree with the choice China has made in this case.

I personally find many forms of gambling offensive, so struggle to argue for it... I only brought it up because it is a case where U.S. law is out of step with other countries. That said though, what is the real difference between a room full of poker machines (legal) and an on-line version which could conceivably even be running the same software (illegal in the U.S., but subject to a WTO complaint)? The difference, in my opinion, is one of control. In the case of gambling, the U.S. government has made a choice to outlaw what they can't control, just like the Chinese government has done for religion and/or spiritual movements.

The acceptability of public nudity varies from place to place, but I find it hard to think of a way it harms anybody. In fact the naturist movement is quite pro public nudity. You are used to it being unlawful, but this is far from universal. Should it be outlawed in places it's currently legal just because you are offended? Even if they are far from your home and you are unlikely to actually go there to be offended?

Speaking of drugs, why have we chosen to allow alcohol and tobacco, both of which cause huge amounts of harm, and yet outlaw marijuana and LSD? Who made that choice?

It comes back to the question of who gets to choose? In your opinion Falun Gong is harmless but that is clearly not the opinion of the Chinese Government. So should it be you who chooses whether an organisation should be outlawed? How about me?

As a thought experiment, suppose we say that the U.S. government should request their diplomats to tell China to lay off the Falun Gong dudes because they're OK really... what do you think they will be told when they say this?

I completely agree that comparing Falun Gong to rape or theft is ridiculous, but comparing it to, say, running an on-line poker operation, some drug offenses, public nudity, or similar activities is a fair comparison. In each case the activity has no violence, no victim, and is against the law... but who chose which activities were legislated against and which were permitted?

You actually ignored the weaker parts of my argument.

If a history of violence against military and civilian targets is your grounds for banning an organisation, does that mean you want the Republican party banned for attacking a civilian news organisation, or military targets? How about the Democratic Party for essentially the same thing?

Who gets to choose when violence is justified?

Should the U.S. get to choose for everybody, including the 95.5% of the world population who are not U.S. citizens?

Claiming that an organisation is non-violent is not sufficient to prove innocence. It is quite possible to get a lengthy stay in prison in the U.S. for non-violent activities, such as online gaming, and in fact although I take the statistic with a grain of salt I have seen it claimed that 60% of U.S. prisoners are in prison for non-violent reasons. The number of U.S. prisoners (730 per 100,000) is in fact far higher than Chinese prisoners (121 per 100,000) by such a large percentage that the total prison population in the U.S. is higher than China despite having only about one third the total population (I hasten to point out that things have improved slightly since 2008, but my point stands).

BTW, don't get the idea that I have anything against the U.S., because I don't. I just don't accept that it is the bastion of freedom and that China is the evil empire.