A few weeks ago Amazon announced they were opening up the Kindle for development, and as of today they are accepting requests for the Kindle Development Kit in limited beta. Head over to Amazon to sign up to be a beta developer and to request the KDK. The site also has updated Kindle Developement Kit FAQs and API information. [Amazon]
Like the Virgin Mary before it, an impression of a Nintendo DSi appeared on this piece of toast. Now it just needs a salami screen protector and a vegetable stylus and this mouthwatering gadget will be complete. [Tiny Cartridge]
On Science-Based Medicine, several of us have at various times criticized state medical boards for their tolerance of unscientific medical practices and even outright quackery. After all, Dr. Rashid Buttar still practices in North Carolina and the medical board there seems powerless to do anything about it. However, state medical boards have other functions, one of which is to respond to complaints of unethical and dubious behavior about doctors. Key to this function is protection; i.e., if someone reports a doctor, that person needs to be sure that the state will protect her from retaliation from that doctor of the hospital. About five months ago, I reported a true miscarriage of justice, the sort of thing that should never, ever happen. In brief, it was the story of two nurses who, disturbed at how a local doctor was peddling his dubious “herbal” concoctions in the emergency room of the local hospital when he came in to see patients, reported him to the authorities. Moreover, they had gone up the chain of command, first complaining to hospital authorities. After nothing happened for months, they decided to report the physician, Dr. Rolando Arafiles, to the Texas Medical Board because they honestly believed that this physician was abusing his trust with patients and behaving unethically by improperly hawking herbal supplements that he was selling in the rural health clinic and the emergency room of Winkler County Memorial Hospital.
Even though under whistleblower laws the identities of these nurses should have been kept secret, after he learned that a complaint had been filed against him Dr. Arafiles went to his buddy the Winkler County Sheriff Robert L. Roberts, who left no stone unturned in trying to find out who had ratted out Dr. Arafiles:
To find out who made the anonymous complaint, the sheriff left no stone unturned. He interviewed all of the patients whose medical record case numbers were listed in the report and asked the hospital to identify who would have had access to the patient records in question.
At some point, the sheriff obtained a copy of the anonymous complaint and used the description of a “female over 50? to narrow the potential complainants to the two nurses. He then got a search warrant to seize their work computers and found a copy of the letter to the medical board on one of them.
The result was this:
In a stunning display of good ol’ boy idiocy and abuse of prosecutorial discretion, two West Texas nurses have been fired from their jobs and indicted with a third-degree felony carrying potential penalties of two-to-ten years’ imprisonment and a maximum fine of $10,000. Why? Because they exercised a basic tenet of the nurse’s Code of Ethics — the duty to advocate for the health and safety of their patients.
On Saturday, the New York Times reported on the story, as there have been significant developments since August. Specifically, although the charges against one of the nurses has been dismissed, Anne Mitchell, RN, is going to stand trial beginning today:
But in what may be an unprecedented prosecution, Mrs. Mitchell is scheduled to stand trial in state court on Monday for “misuse of official information,” a third-degree felony in Texas.
The prosecutor said he would show that Mrs. Mitchell had a history of making “inflammatory” statements about Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles Jr. and intended to damage his reputation when she reported him last April to the Texas Medical Board, which licenses and disciplines doctors.
Mrs. Mitchell counters that as an administrative nurse, she had a professional obligation to protect patients from what she saw as a pattern of improper prescribing and surgical procedures — including a failed skin graft that Dr. Arafiles performed in the emergency room, without surgical privileges. He also sutured a rubber tip to a patient’s crushed finger for protection, an unconventional remedy that was later flagged as inappropriate by the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Charges against a second nurse, Vickilyn Galle, who helped Mrs. Mitchell write the letter, were dismissed at the prosecutor’s discretion last week.
So let me get this straight (yet again). A dedicated nurse does what her professional code of ethics demands that she do, even knowing at the time that she did it that it might cost her her job, and the end result is that the good ol’ boy network in Texas tries to throw her in jail for three years on trumped up charges that even the Texas Medical Board states are bogus. Even Ms. Galle won’t be unscathed. As the Texas Nurses Association points out, she will have a felony indictment on her record, which will haunt her the rest of her professional career. In fact, in all my years in medicine, I cannot recall a more blatant example of punishing a whistleblower or of the good ol’ boys network getting together to punish an uppity nurse who dared to call a doctor out on his unethical behavior, which was described in a bit more detail in the NYT story:
It was not long after the public hospital hired Dr. Arafiles in 2008 that the nurses said they began to worry. They sounded internal alarms but felt they were not being heeded by administrators.
Frustrated and fearing for patients, they directed the medical board to six cases “of concern” that were identified by file numbers but not by patient names. The letter also mentioned that Dr. Arafiles was sending e-mail messages to patients about an herbal supplement he sold on the side.
Mrs. Mitchell typed the letter and mailed it with a separate complaint signed by a third nurse, who wrote that she had resigned because of similar concerns about Dr. Arafiles. That nurse was not charged.
To convict Mrs. Mitchell, the prosecution must prove that she used her position to disseminate confidential information for a “nongovernmental purpose” with intent to harm Dr. Arafiles.
One thing that I hadn’t known before is that Sheriff Robert L. Roberts had been a patient of Dr. Arafiles and credited him with saving his life, and he went on a vendetta, abusing his power in an outrageous manner to track them down. One wonders if he spends as much effort trying to hunt down real criminals, such as thieves and murderer, as he did in trying to hunt down two nurses doing their duty. Moreover, from the NYT story, the justifications of Stan Wiley, hospital administrator for Winkler County Hospital, made it clear (to me, at least) that the reason the hospital is standing by Dr. Arafiles is not because he’s a good doctor, but rather because they have a hard time recruiting doctors to west Texas, having recruited Dr. Arafiles even though he had a restriction on his license and had been in trouble with the state medical board before. Particularly galling and disingenuous was his claim:
Mr. Wiley said he believed that the nurses had acted in bad faith because they went to the state despite his internal efforts to discipline Dr. Arafiles. But, he said, “I don’t believe they did it on a personal vendetta.”
Unfortunately for Mr. Wiley, that does not appear to be the definition of “bad faith” under Texas law. It does not require that the whistleblower wait for the hospital to act on reports against a doctor, contrary to what Wiley said. He may think that’s bad faith, but it’s not. Mitchell and Galle could have gone straight to the Texas Medical Board without even trying to go through the hospital administration if they had wanted and it would not have been bad faith. As the story explains, under Texas law, good faith requires only a reasonable belief that the conduct being reported is illegal, and the Texas State Medical Board has stated that it believes the nurses reported Dr. Arafiles’ activities in good faith. Wiley is just plain wrong about this; it isn’t even close. The most likely explanation for his supporting this outrageous abuse of prosecutorial power is that hospital administration was roundly embarrassed (as it should be) when this story came out. It didn’t act; so Mitchell and Galle did. That these two nurses felt obligated to risk their careers (and, even though they couldn’t have known it at the time, their freedom) by reporting Dr. Arafiles derived not from bad faith, but from the ineffectiveness of the hospital’s response.
Indeed, the very fact that Sheriff Roberts and County Attorney Scott D. Tidwell continue to pursue this case to trial strongly suggests that it is not Ms. Mitchell who’s engaging in a vendetta. Rather, it’s Dr. Arafiles through his buddy Sheriff Roberts and the clueless County Attorney Scott Tidwell who are all teaming up to engage in a bit of payback against two brave but hapless nurses. It’s so blatantly obvious from even a cursory examination of the case, and a deeper examination only reinforces this point. It is utterly outrageous and unforgivable, and there’s definitely something rotten in west Texas, specifically Winkler County. Regardless of whether Dr. Arafiles is guilty of abusing his medical license and practicing medicine that endangers patients, what’s rotten in west Texas goes under the names of Dr. Rolando Arafiles, Jr., Sheriff Robert L. Roberts, Jr., and County Attorney Scott M. Tidwell.
Not to mention Winkler County Hospital.
ADDENDUM: You and I can help fight this abuse of power by contributing to Mitchell and Galle’s legal defense fund through the a link on the Texas Nurses Association website’s front page. Mitchell and Galle’s careers have been ruined through this malicious prosecution; they can’t find work and may never be able to find work as nurses again, at least not in west Texas, and they’ve racked up huge legal bills trying to defend themselves.
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NASA: "Just before midnight the six STS-130 crew members will be climbing into their flight suits, helmets and gloves at Kennedy's Operations and Checkout Building. The flight suits contain an oxygen supply, communications equipment and a temperature control system that offer protection in the event of an emergency and pressure changes during liftoff. The crew also will be attending a briefing with flight controllers to discuss details on weather conditions at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility and the transoceanic abort landing, or TAL, sites."
Keith's note: Stay up to date with STS-130 on spaceflightnow.com for the best web coverage with Miles O'Brien, David Waters, and Leroy Chiao. Alas, they never link back to us ...
So, reader reactions?
Did you blink during the Super Bowl commercial breaks? Too bad if you did, because it means you may have missed the anemic number of gadget or tech-related commercials worth talking about tomorrow at the water cooler. But! Megan Fox!
Megan Fox is an obvious choice, for obvious reasons (if she's your thing): She had a Motoblur, and we're a gadget blog! See? Obvious. Anyway, tweeting from a tub on her new phone, she pondered what would happen if she sent a picture of her bathing out to the world. Hijinks ensued, people were hurt, and even a gay couple somehow got distracted by the fox that is Megan Fox:
And such is the power of Fox that there were scenes that didn't make the final cut.
Then there was Beyonce, fresh off her Grammy performance, performing again for Vizio. Surrounded by Internet memes and celebrities, Twitter and what appeared to be an army of automobile assembly line robots (hopefully not ones from Toyota), she sang and sold that company's Via/Internet Apps technology. Think Internet on your HDTV, not because I say so or because that's exactly what it is, but because that's the message Vizio assaulted viewers with during the 60-second clip:
Tough love was the story for Intel's Jeffrey the Robot. The commercial was supposedly for Intel's Core processor line, but I know the truth: Robot uprising. It 20 years' time we can all look back at this commercial, when poor Jeffrey was snubbed For The Last Time by his human overlords:
Lastly, there's one we actually covered yesterday. Google. Its poignant ad about a search-happy boy in love with a French girl aired yesterday, on the Internet, which is probably fitting. We'll revisit it again here if you missed it tonight:
Sigh.
Personally, for me the ads were a bit stale this year. Even the Bud Light beer ads, which have made me laugh out loud on occasion in years past, felt a little tired. Betty White was a standout though, and there were back-to-back ads depicting grown men in their underwear. Possibly a first there. Also a first: Seeing a two-timing baby talk about eTrade while his "milk-a-holic" girl on the side blew up his shit over a webcam.
The one Bud Light ad I will give props to, however, was their Autotune bit. It's a stretch including here on Gizmodo, but we have a history with that app (iPhone, anyone?), and we'll take an opportunity here to thank Budweiser for hopefully killing the tech off for good with this Super Bowl ad:
OK, I admit it, I smiled a bit watching that a second time. Guilty.
The entire crop is over at YouTube in one convenient package (Fox's is notably absent at the moment, although they appear to be updating throughout the night).
I gotta say, I got a kick out of that Budlight commercial with the astronomers – and I don’t drink beer. 
You can find it HERE.
and….The Who were EXCELLENT!
Apparently, when people sing Sinatra's My Way in a Philippines karaoke bar, and they sing it poorly, they die.
The epidemic's gotten so bad, in fact, that local law enforcement started calling it the "My Way Killings."
No one really know why dozens have died over the past decade while warbling to one of Sinatra's greatest hits, just that they have, and after this specific song. Is it bad singing? Traditionally violent streets being traditionally violent streets? Die hard Sinatra fans exacting their revenge on newbs who butcher the greats? Possibly. Karaoke is huge in the region, with machines popping up everywhere, from bars to alleyways (as you can see from the image). Combine that with high crime and a fanatical love of Frank Sinatra and you could have just the right mix for a kill (the audience with your talent) or be killed (by the audience for sucking) atmosphere.
One thing's for sure: This guy should stay the hell away form the Philippines. [NYT]
what is the specification of radial gates ?
Can a virus affect installed software such as word processing or CAD programs?
Which organs/glands produce the DNA repairing molecules? This is not homework, I'm just researching the holy grail.
Does the stem cells DNA also replicate the host cells DNA? When human nose cells are put on the back of a mouse and then stem cells are added the nose grows back to a fully formed nose. Does this also work cross spiecies? for instance if a hole was cut into the back of the mouse and human stem cells
It appears to be graphene day. First, IBM was using the material to shame silicon into submission, and now Swedish scientists say graphene could one day make lamps and other traditional lighting elements unnecessary.
If the Swedes are right, then future homes and buildings could be adorned with graphene panels, called light emitting electromechanical cells (LECs, for short).
The LEC panels can be fashioned so they cover an entire ceiling, wall, or whatever, and they're completely adjustable. Dim your walls and ceiling for a romantic evening with the female characters of Mass Effect 2, for example.
The article notes that OLED panels have seen similar implementations, but the graphene scientists say their material is both cheaper to produce and better for the environment (OLED panels contain indium tin oxide, which is difficult to recycle). [Science Daily via Treehugger via DVICE]
Normally we ignore "steampunk" news because it has nothing to do with real, actual steampunk and more to do with some bloke attaching nonfunctional brass tubing to his PC, but in this case these guns actually shoot something.
The blunderbuss, above, shoots rubber balls. Cool, I suppose...But! It also shoots them at such a velocity that they can penetrate cardboard at a respectable distance:
The other rifle, Black Betty shoots ping pong balls and confetti paper, the latter of which can be lit up to make a flame thrower of sorts:
And that's probably the last steampunk anything you'll see here for a while. Well, unless it shoots something. Or, you know, actually uses steam power. [YouTube via Boing Boing]
A survey of some of spiritual resources on happiness, including the 12 best books on happiness, the 12 best films on happiness, and a collection of 30 quotes that can be seen as a minicourse on happiness.
i have a 3 phase 7.5hp air compressor and i want to use a VFD to run it, i have a 25hp VFD. i know the VFD takes the place of the magnetic starter . where or how do i hook up the pessure switch to the VFD. larry
The HTC Incredible, a leaked cellphone code name that first made the rounds back in December, is the real deal, as seen in these sneak peak pics from Pocket Now. Can you say brown? You'll see: Updated.
Very original Zune coloring, no? Lots of contours and wacky shapes going on in the rear too (and probably a prototype placeholder, we hope).
There are some specs to go along with the leak, those being an Android 2.1 OS with HTC Sense, running on a Snapdragon CPU. A rumored 256MB of RAM accompanies a roughly 3.5-3.7" WVGA screen (possibly AMOLED? That's unconfirmed).
Dual LED flashes adorn the brownish backplate, and an optical mouse pointer resides down near the bottom. Thoughts?
Update: Now with video:
Now it looks red... [Pocket Now]
A Power Point marketing slide, purportedly showing a number of T-Mobile phones with March release dates, has leaked to the web. Notables include the HTC HD2 (3/24), Moto Cliq XT (3/10). and the Nokia Nuron (3/17).
While the slide deals in unconfirmed data, the release dates and phones mentioned are completely within reason. Case in point, sites like TMO News, from whence this slide came, have been getting rumors and tips abound in recent months that hinted the Nuron and XT, at least, were due out in March.
Well, there's that, and the fact that I very much doubt there's some troll out there who's purposefully leaking false release dates about Motorola and Nokia phones on the T-Mobile network. I could be wrong. [PPC Geeks via TMO News]
Hi, we are just about purchasing a CAT generator firing on Natural Gas (rated capacity 1205 kVA). The fuel consumption at 75% load is stated as 10.8MJ/kW-hr.
Now since the local GAS companies name the price of GAS in Standard Cubic Metres (SCM), I sought CAT's clarification on how many SCM per
1:20 pm - We have arrived. About 10 of us Texas Bloggers are positioned on Blog Row one level up from the floor, up front, close to the stage.
The Perry Campaign folks have been very accomodating and quite professional.
Lots of bands, flag holders, inside the Berry Arena (northwest Houston) warming up for the event. Looks like the Arena could seat 8 to 10,000.
Line out front is already around the Arena. Festive atmosphere. One very tall gentleman decked out in full Uncle Sam costume.
2:03 pm
The hall is starting to fill up. Lots of homemade "Perry for Texas," and "Houston luvs Perry," signs. The media area down below is full. 8 to 10 television news cameras. Word is Fox News (national) is here.
2:11 pm
Starting to get a Tea Party feel. Same type crowd. More signs: "Stop the Bailouts," "Washington is Broken," and "Hands off my Pistol."
2:23 pm
Things getting underway. Band playing Texas music.
2:34 pm
Dan Patrick, State Senator from Northside Houston is emceeing. Talking Twitter - RickPerry.com.
Crowd could be 3,000 to 5,000?
2:47 pm
Patrick: "We've got the strongest economy in the United States!" Crowd roars.
3:01 pm
Patrick: "He believes in the capitalist system... he believes in the 10th Amendment..."
3:02 pm
Ted has arrived on stage!
3:03 pm
Ted: "I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could... Texas is the Number One State in the Nation..."
Star Spangled Banner...
"God Bless Texas, God Bless Governor Perry and God Bless Sarah Palin"
3:10 pm
Sarah and Rick arrive. George Straight blaring...
Folks, it doesn't get any better than this. I am literally in tears.
Oh my, her outfit is wild! Piper w/Sarah. Both standing right next to Ted. Rick speaking. "There's a game going on today, but the real action is here..."
BREAKING NEWS!!!
Michael Williams, Texas Railroad Commissioner is here! He is heavily rumored replacement for US Senate seat of Kay B. Hutchison, if she resigns. A good friend of the Governor.
The Gov. just recognized Williams on the stage.
3:21 pm
Gov: 2/3rds supermajority of the legislature for any tax increase.
Balanced Budget Amendment for the entire country.
"Washington would be a lot better off if they did things the Texas way...
They'd be a lot better off if Sarah Palin was running things too."
Sarah speaking...
Takes a little jab at Texas: Piper, "we're going to visit Alaska's little sister state..."
In Alaska, "we proudly cling to our guns and religion."
Salute to our Veterans.
Makes a little joke about seccession.
Mentions Glenn Beck.
TWEAK OF THE DAY FROM SARAH PALIN
"That government is best, which governs least"
"Rick and I believe in what Ronald Reagan believed, and it's all about American success."
Another Sign: "Keep Washington out of Texas"
Rick gives Sarah proclamation as honorary Texan.
Thunderous Applause
Rick Perry signs off, "Let's keep moving Texas forward, and may God continue to bless the great State of Texas..."
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