I’ve been reading Brain Rules by John Medina, and I can’t recommend it enough. It covers John’s 12 brain rules (from exercise, to sleep to stress, etc.) that you should really consider as part of your daily life.
By way of background, I originally wanted to become a neurologist when I went to college. My undergraduate degree was in Neuroethology mixed with a minor in Psychology. Go ahead, look up neuroethology, I’ll wait 
Actually, don’t look it up – I can sum it up as basically understanding behavior based on the way you are wired. So, John’s book smacks right into the type of stuff I really was interested in.
When I learned that biology wasn’t really my cup of tea, I then went into computer science and got my master’s degree in neural networking / artificial intelligence. It turns out, you can mimic a lot of what I learned in neuroethology for patterns of intelligent computer processing (see my blog post below about the use of genetic algorithms in supply chain planning as an example).
It turns out, that you can apply a lot of this same learning to people. And that’s exactly what brain rules set out to do. I hope you enjoy it…
I’m taking a break today from my normal focus on M&E and instead talk about a bill that I’m supporting today at the Senate in Austin, TX. The bill is SB2336.
Today, the Texas Medical Board (TMB) has broad powers to act against physicians in the state of Texas. While it is admirable that the TMB can revoke the license of physicians that do not met adequate medical professionalism, they are also in a position to abuse that authority. Specifically, here are the major concerns:
- Complaints to the TMB can be anonymous and come from disgruntled office workers, competitors, insurance companies and defense attorneys
- Patient that are included in these complaints are not notified – and their medical records can be used without their consent by a reviewing physician appointed by the TMB
- The reviewing physicians do not need to be specialized in the area they are investigating
- The TMB has the right to revoke a physician’s license without going through a jury process (this is not true of the Texas Bar that requires such a procedure for lawyers)
- A physician’s license can be revoked even in cases of ‘clerical’ errors – not relating to patient care
This touches my home directly. A physician that we have used for past surgeries has had several complaints filed against him to the TMB. One complaint came from a competitor when their shared practice broke up. Another complaint came from a disgruntled employee that had been fired by the practice. And a third complaint came from a defense attorney where the doctor had been a witness for the suing party.
While the TMB review did not find any medical maleficence, they did find several minor clerical errors in his files. For example, the date of birth was not included on every page of a file. Or, while dictating / typing, ‘his’ had been used instead of ‘hers’ in the case of a female patient. The TMB has scheduled a hearing in September of this year where they will decide if they will revoke his license or not – just because of clerical issues.
This particular physician has indicated that if the TMB continues to barrage him with legal requests and threaten to remove his license, that he will have to leave the United States. This is from a physician that performs a surgery that he invented, that has had tremendous results from kids throughout the world and is not performed competently by anyone else. Do we really want to doom future kids that need this life improving surgery to lesser medical care?
Today, the Senate Committe on Health and Human Services is hearing testimony both for and against this bill. I will be testifying in support, and I’m hoping that it gets the full consideration of the Sentate and House when (or if) it comes to a floor vote this month.
You probably missed it, but on January 21st of this year, the United States Supreme Court finally put an end to the COPA (Child Online Protection Act) that was initially enacted in 1998. The law was challenged by the ACLU on grounds that it was too broad and violated free-speech, and ultimately the courts agreed.
Regardless of the particulars of the law or the legal arguments, the intent of the law was really to find a way to keep children (under the age of 13) out of content that wasn’t appropriate for them. Of course, many sites that were ‘COPA compliant’ were easy to circumnavigate – they just asked how old you were, and it was easy for kids to lie. My 8 year old son, for example, knew to just change the year of his birthday to make it onto a site where he plays games – I’m not telling which site, since I don’t want him to get banned 
So where does this leave us? How can we protect kids while keeping the Constitution in tact? I’m no fan of regulation, but we’ve certainly become lax on what is considered inappropriate for Internet and broadcast content. I’ve heard stories that Ricky and Lucy couldn’t sleep in the same bed because of TV censors, but now we can see a ‘rear’ view of entirely naked humans during prime time. And, I’m not even going to get into what you can find on the Internet.
I think people who say that the parents need to take full responsibility is being disingenuous or naive. It’s impossible to monitor the radio, the Internet, TV, movies, video games, magazines, books, etc. etc. My wife and I just don’t have enough time in the day.
Perhaps it will take a constitutional amendment (which I’m not advocating – yet) or it will just require a broader ground swell to try and cut off the mass media from continuing to push the limits, but certainly, we need to find a way to help protect our kids.
In a recent article (Scribe’s “Bounty” blurs movie-Web-game lines), Hollywood reporter Chris Marlowe talks about Underground Bounty Hunter, “…an online project that combines movies with video game interactivity.” Not exactly a top of the search engine article, but it is interesting.
Anyone remember DragonSlayer? Video clips were played where you got to move your joystick up, down, left or right. If you didn’t quite get it at the right time or in the wrong direction, your hero died to the dragon. Not exactly fun — but it was pretty cool to watch.
I was also a big fan of the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books when I was a kid. Basically, the book was layed out where you picked one path or the other after reading a few paragraphs. It took you to another section of the book — ultimately leading to victory or defeat. The tree structure was really quite effective and fun.
Sounds like Ungerground Bounty Hunter is trying to combine a bit of both into a single project — again, likely leading to an interesting experience. But, this will certainly not become main stream. Doesn’t Hollywood get it? Movies are passive entertainment. Video games are interactive entertainment. Trying to mix them is like trying to mix an active sport with an inactive activity — like playing basketball while napping. It just doesn’t work very well.
