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Submission + - SDF Public Access UNIX System Celebrates 20 Years (lonestar.org)

Submitted by
Stephen Jones
Stephen Jones writes: "The SDF Public Access UNIX System Celebrates 20 Years!
http://sdf.lonestar.org/

It was on June 16th, 1987 that the SDF-1 received its first caller at
300bps. This little Apple ][e BBS of the late 80s turned into a Public
Access UNIX System with the demise of "killer.dallas.tx.us" during the
"Operation Sundevil" raids. Since then it has grown to become the oldest
and largest continually operating PUBNIX on the planet."
Unix

Submission + - The SDF Public Access UNIX System turns "20 (sdf1.org)

Submitted by
arpawolf
arpawolf writes: ""This is a great story of people helping people an doing it in high fashion in the UNIX world." Below is the story written by its users: The SDF Public Access UNIX System turns "20"! http://sdf.lonestar.org/ It was on June 16th, 1987 that the SDF-1 received its first caller at 300bps. This little Apple ][e BBS of the late 80s turned into a Public Access UNIX System with the demise of "killer.dallas.tx.us" during the "Operation Sundevil" raids. Since then it has grown to become the oldest and largest continually operating PUBNIX on the planet. Over the years SDF has been a home to 2+ million people from all over the world and has been supported by donations and membership dues. SDFers pride themselves on the fact that theirs is one of the last bastions of "the real INTERNET", out of the reach and scope of the commercialism and advertising of the DOT COM entities. It is a proponent of SMTP greylisting as opposed to content filtering and offers that as an option to its members. While access to basic services are free to everyone, lifetime membership can be obtained for a mere onetime donation of $36. And it is the members who decide which programs and features are available. The members communicate via a web free, google inaccessible, text bulletin board ('bboard') as well as an interactive chat ('com') where users battle each other in the integrated netris matches. The interface of these programs harks back to the days when TOPS-20 CMD J-SYS ruled the ARPANET. SDF has also become home to well known hackers such as Bill Gosper, Tom Ellard (Severed Heads), Geoff Goodfellow, Carolyn Meinel and Ezra Buchla, son of the father of the Synthesizer. From this pool of talent you might expect more than just computing, and you'd be correct. An annual music compilation is published featuring original music ranging from electronic noise to improvised piano sonatinas. Gosper's puzzles which he has cut at his favorite laser shop are frequently given away as membership perks or through fundraising raffles. There are always classes being taught on SDF as well, where instructors and students enjoy free access to the latest teaching and programming tools. Instructors manage their own classes in such a way as not to be encumbered by their own school's outdated utilities or computer security restrictions, which can hamper the learning process. And where else would you expect to be able to locally dialup at 1200bps from just about anywhere in the USA and Canada with a Commodore 64 and get a login prompt? SDF! As well as direct login, SDF offers PPP and PPPoE via analogue dialup (1200bps — 56kbps), ISDN and DSL. Members also have access to the SDF VPN (Virtual Private Network) and Dynamic Domain Name Service. One of the many interesting and esoteric aspects of life on the SDF-1 is GOPHER. All users have access to their own GOPHER space and a number of them continue to find it a useful way to share text and data. And if you don't want to relive that past, SDF's 'motd.org' project offers a collaboration amongst members to share source and security tweaks for the latest wikis, web forums, photo galleries and blogs. SDF runs NetBSD on a cluster of 12 DEC alphas with 3 BGP'ed T1s linking it to the INTERNET. It is an annual supporter of the NetBSD foundation and the Computer History Museum (CA). One of its original incarnations, an AT&T 3B2/500, is displayed annually at the Vintage Computer Festival."
Biotech

Submission + - Using the semantic web in medicine and biology (biomedcentral.com)

Submitted by
soren.harward
soren.harward writes: "A couple of weeks ago, the Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group of the W3C published a paper entitled "Advancing translational research with the Semantic Web". "Translational medicine" is the process of turning basic scientific research, like biochemistry and cell biology, into usable medical practices, like drugs or surgical procedures; Susan Hockfield, the president of MIT, gave a very good explanation of translational research at a drug discovery conference last year. One of the challenges to translational research is moving data between research groups in different fields, such as giving a biomedical engineer information about what kinds of plastics are best for use in an artificial joint. This paper is a significant explanation of how principles of the Semantic Web can be used to organize the mountains of data constantly generated by medical and biological researchers, and more importantly, how scientists in one discipline can find and use data created by other research groups. It's also a good demonstration that underneath buzzwords like "semantic web" and "translational medicine" are some powerful ideas that are changing biomedical research."

Comment An explanation in computer terms (Score 5, Informative) 39

by soren.harward (#17784134) Attached to: Scientists Map the Human Metabolome

Okay, let me explain for you non-biochemist computer guys what this means. Take a computer, break it down into the smallest possible parts you can. I'm not talking about the hard drive/motherboard/case level. I'm talking about the level of transistors, resistors, ICs, connectors, motors, and the little blue LED that blinks whenever your hard drive spins. Now catalog everything. Keep a record of what you found where, and how many you found (eg, you found a laser in the DVD drive but not in the motherboard). So now you have a parts list, and a good idea of what parts to expect where. If you start finding unexpected things in unexpected places (like a SCSI connector on your video card, or an audio out port on one of your DIMMs), that tells you something is wrong.

Take a look at the database entry for something common like glucose. It's got

  1. a brief, high-level description of the chemical
  2. details about the chemistry
  3. where it's found in the body
  4. details about how much of it was found in what parts of the body based on various studies that have already been done
  5. disorders it's linked to (eg, diabetes)
  6. where to go for more information

Now what's missing is a lot of information about the connections, so technically this isn't really a map (because it's missing relational data), but a catalog. We need to know how each chemical turns into another, and what does the conversion. It's kinda like having a complete parts list for the computer, but not knowing how most of the parts fit together, nor how many volts and amps to run through the wires. Some of these connections we already know. I have a very large poster on my wall illustrating the more common chemical pathways in various organisms. It's not nearly as complete as this catalog in terms of chemicals, but it's got a lot of connections.

The connections are what's really useful. To continue the computer analogy, if you know that the blue LED connects to the hard drive, then if you don't see the blue light blink, then there's probably something wrong with the hard drive. A significant number of drugs aren't active in the form that you take them. They become active when the body (usually in the liver) converts them from the delivery form to the active form. But some people, because of their genetic makeup, convert the drugs differently. They turn them into different metabolites. These metabolites might be totally inactive, or even toxic in some cases. So if you know the connecting system, you can put a drug in, look for what metabolites result, and determine whether or not that person should continue taking the drug.
Education

Saving U.S. Science 667

Posted by samzenpus from the quick-someone-call-bill-nye dept.
beebo famulus writes "Twenty years from now, experts doubt that America will remain a dominant force in science as it was during the last century. The hand wringing has generated a couple of new ideas to deal with the dilemma. Specifically, one expert says that the federal government should create contests and prize awards for successful science ideas, while another advises that the National Science Foundation fund more graduate students and increase the amount of the fellowships."

Patches For Pine Going Away 177

Posted by kdawson from the pining-for-the-fjords dept.
md8mart writes to let us know about the imminent shutdown of the site that distributes Pine patches. From the RSS feed of Patches for Pine we read the following bad news for all Pine users: "The Department of Mathematics of the University of Washington will close the account that hosts my Patches for Pine site. I would like to thank the Department of Mathematics for having hosted this site for so many years. I do not have current plans to move this site, but this site will disappear on December 15, 2006. Thank you to everyone who supported me by positive feedback and encouragement to do this work through the years. I will update this information as it becomes available."
Sci-Fi

Journal Journal: Star Trek

Journal by skigemit
Most of the people here dont care or hate Star Trek and rank it with the lowly shows like fearfactor and other reality shows. The idiots dont see that startrek has potential to inspire and does not encourage kids to do bad things like WWE does.

Comment Re:Fandom makes for lazy writers (Score 1) 394

by skigemit (#11859614) Attached to: Can Sci-Fi Fans Face the Future?
Star Trek isnt crap. If you want to see crap, tehn watch something like fearfactor or any other reality TV show where people eat out of toilets, have to get covered in worms etc. It is a good show and inspires people to do things like get jobs at NASA. I am a fan of it myself and this is my opinion of Star Trek. IT should continue to at least season 7

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