edunagin - Slashdot User

Ad Block Plus Filter Maintainer "rick752" Dies At 56 385

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 06, 2009 @10:18AM from the guy-who-made-the-intertubez-liveable-again dept.

A user on Reddit pointed out that Richard "rick752" Petnel, maintainer of one of the most popular filter lists for Ad Block Plus, has passed away at age 56. In an article last year Petnel described a bit of what he was up against in the ad world. "'I'm playing against some pretty big players,' he said, explaining his reluctance to step forward. 'I don't want to be harassed. . . . I don't want to be bribed. I started it because I was frustrated with getting my computer infected from ads -- malware and spyware and all that stuff,' he said. 'I kind of went overboard with it. But you have to admit, it's pretty amazing, right?'" Update 15:05 GMT by SM: updated to reflect Rick's status as maintainer of the most popular Ad Block Plus filter as opposed to Ad Block Plus itself.

Florida Lab Gets Pregnant 149

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday February 27, 2009 @06:00PM from the also-no-one-has-heard-from-them-in-days dept.

Synthetic Biology, a relatively new field, is seeking to find out what happened to a bunch of chemicals to make them capable of supporting a metabolism, replicating, and evolution. A Florida lab is showing some of the most promising advancements in this direction with their AEGIS (Artificially Expanded Genetic Information System) experiment. "AEGIS is not self-sustaining, at least not yet, and with 12 DNA building blocks -- as opposed to the usual four -- there's little chance it will be confused with natural life. Still, Benner is encouraged by the results. 'It's evolving. It's doing what we designed it to do,' said Benner, a biochemist with the Gainesville, Fla.-based Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution. In addition to providing an example of how alien life might be cobbled together, synthetic biology has a broad array of uses on the home front."

Comment Learning to operate a machine without instructions (Score 1) 434

by edunagin on Sunday September 09, 2007 @08:54PM (#20533141) Attached to: Bringing Science and Math Into Writing?

Learning to operate a machine without instructions is an endeavour where the scientific method will become very handy. Sure, the machine itself might be technology; but your hopefully systematic attempts to learn about it are science, or at least they better be if you want to have success. WOW, most of the machine instructions come from translations of Japaneses or some other asian country. I am 75 years old now, and the memory of Grade School and High School is fading fast. My teachers after Grade School were very quick to pass over my questions.So..... I left school and joined the Army. All I wanted at that age was to be a "Grown up" and lead my own life. Later in life I attended Graduate School at Ohio State University and have a 60's plus thirst for learning. OH, that I could have had it as a child. Edward M Dunagin edunagin@gmail.com mobile ---406-570-0992 Bozeman, MT

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