Crash Course
Psychology of Gaming: Crash Course Games
So we've talked a lot about what makes games so great in this series, but we haven't really addressed the big question: why do we play games anyway? And well, the answer is pretty complicated, especially when you consider that some...
TED Talks
TED: How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison - Alice Goffman
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. In the United States, two institutions guide teenagers on the journey to adulthood: college and prison. Sociologist...
Crash Course
Card Games: Crash Course Games
Today, we're going to step away from video games and take a closer look at a game type that has been with us for over a millennium - card games. Since Tang Dynasty China, cards have proven to have quite the staying power spawning a...
Crash Course
What is a Game?: Crash Course Games
Welcome to Crash Course Games! In this series our host Andre Meadows is going to discuss the history and science of games. We're going to talk about video games of course, but also board games, role playing games, card games, even...
TED Talks
Emmett Shear: What streaming means for the future of entertainment
In a talk and demo, Twitch cofounder Emmett Shear shares his vision for the future of interactive entertainment -- and explains how video game streaming is helping people build communities online. "I am excited for a world where our...
Crash Course
PC Gaming: Crash Course Games
Today, we're FINALLY going to talk about PC Gaming. So the personal computer is the precursor to the console, but it's not quite accurate to say that it just led to the console. PCs and the video games created on them have and continue...
Crash Course
Language & Meaning: Crash Course Philosophy
Today we start our unit on language with a discussion of meaning and how we assign and understand meaning. We’ll cover sense and reference, beetles in boxes, and language games. We’re also getting into the meaning-making game ourselves:...
Crash Course
Board Games: Crash Course Games
Today, we're going to talk about board games, but instead of trying to trace their histories, which we've already covered a bit of in ep2 on ancient games, we're going to look really closely at just two board games - Monopoly and The...
Crash Course Kids
Bowled Over
So, variables. There are lots of them when trying to test an idea. The trick is to isolate one variable at a time to get reliable results every time. But, how do we do that? In this episode of Crash Course Kids, Sabrina shows us how to...
SciShow
The Awesome Power of Citizen Science
You don't have to be a professional scientist to make a contribution to our collective knowledge. Today, we look at several projects that have benefitted from the power of citizen science!
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Dennis Shasha: Can you solve the stolen rubies riddle?
Townspeople are demanding that a corrupt merchant's collection of 30 rubies be confiscated to reimburse the victims of his schemes. The king announces that the fine will be determined through a game of wits between the merchant and the...
Crash Course
Role-playing Games: Crash Course Games
Today, we're going to explore the world of role-playing games. Role-playing games are different than most, because they're technically a form of interactive storytelling with one player managing the game as the game master (or dungeon...
TED Talks
TED: Why play is essential for business | Martin Reeves
To thrive in today's competitive economy, you need to constantly reimagine your business. So what's the secret to sustained success? Strategist Martin Reeves makes a pitch for embracing play to spark innovative business ideas -- and...
Crash Course
The Pok_mon Phenomenon: Crash Course Games
Today we're going to do something a little bit different and take everything we've learned so far and apply it to a case study on (arguably) the biggest game franchise in the world: Pok_mon. Now Pok_mon, like a select few other games...
Crash Course
Let's Make an AI that Destroys Video Games
Today we create a game and then build an AI to destroy it. Our game is called TrashBlaster, and it’s like Asteroids but with trash in the ocean, and instead of a spaceship John Green Bot is wielding a laser. We'll use machine learning...
PBS
The Geometry of SET
In the card game SET, what is the maximum number of cards you can deal that might not contain a SET?
Bozeman Science
Thinking in Causation - Level 7 - Scale Mechanisms in Complex Systems
In this video Paul Andersen shows conceptual thinking in a mini-lesson on scale mechanisms within complex systems. TERMS: Cause and effect relationships - one event that gives rise to another event Complex systems - a system composed of...
Crash Course
AI Playing Games
As we mentioned last episode, one of the best test spaces for building new AI systems are games. This is because games provide a great framework for an AI to learn an objective and slowly improve. In recent years, AI has made huge...
Crash Course
Microsoft and Connected Consoles: Crash Course Games
Today, we wrap up our discussion of the console wars by taking a look at Microsoft's Xbox which was announced in 2001. The early 2000s saw a lot of innovation in hardware and games and we'll cover some of that, but one significant change...
PBS
Is Buying Call of Duty a Moral Choice?
If you play video games, you've shot a gun. And those guns are REALISTIC. So real that many are actually LICENSED by IRL arms dealers. Which means that when you buy a video game, you're also putting money in the pockets of those gun...
SciShow
The Biggest Psychology News Stories of 2016
From Pokémon, to fMRI, to the relationship between masculine norms and mental health, 2016 left us with some interesting psych news to ponder.
TED Talks
TED: How games make kids smarter | Gabe Zichermann
Can playing video games make you more productive? Gabe Zichermann shows how games are making kids better problem-solvers, and will make us better at everything from driving to multi-tasking.
SciShow
Why We Hide Our Good Deeds
It doesn’t make much sense when we try to hide our good deeds, even though we know that we would get rewards from doing something good. Scientists are trying to solve this our bizarre behavior by using game theory.
Crash Course
3D Graphics: Crash Course Computer Science
Today we’re going to discuss how 3D graphics are created and then rendered for a 2D screen. From polygon count and meshes, to lighting and texturing, there are a lot of considerations in building the 3D objects we see in our movies and...