Today's top stories in the Bombay Times - the city supplement of The Times of India - has an article mourning the death of Jude Milhon - 'Patron Saint' of hacking.  Old news for some, still interesting to note that this should occupy space on the front page of a daily that typically covers style, trends, lifestyle, 'page three' set, beautiful people.  And is read by all audiences - housewives and students included. 

Hackers lose 'patron saint' - Times News Network

If thereís a heaven, the angels are in for a hell of a time when Jude Milhon, the considered the internetís real and very earthy ëpatron saintí of hacking, shows up.

Better known on the internet by her nom de plume, St Jude, Milhon has died of cancer. Her age was an issue Milhon decided not to address. Even her closest friends could only guess at it, and they admitted they could be off by as much as a decade.

She worked as a freelance cyberjournalist and as a programmer with several Silicon Valley startupss. Her previous work includes a seminal stint as senior editor for Mondo 2000, the cutting-edge magazine of digital culture. In her work she explored boundaries and shaping of identity in networked societies. ëSt Judeí coined the term ëcypherpunkí to describe cryptography activists, and has widely published on the digital culture.

Her books include: The Cyberpunk Fake Book, How to Mutate and Take Over the World (with R U Sirius).

10:51:57 AM    comment []  trackback []

Paul Stacey: "Its been quite a while since a technology 'blew me away' but last Friday I had one of those Eureka moments while riding the bus from downtown Vancouver to White Rock where I live -- all because of RSS feeds & blogs." [Scripting News]

Here's a nice piece on Blogs and RSS for the uninitiated.  I've experienced the 'wonder' and I have a few friends who are starting out with blogs.  This may be very useful for them.  Lots of links and a neat read.  Picking up a few paragraphs here :

"Picking up the thread on RSS, publishing content, such as news headlines or weblogs, involves creating an RSS XML file describing the content being published and identifying specifically where that content is on the web server. This RSS file is essentially made up of meta data and sits on the web server along with the content. RSS aggregators are then able to read the RSS files, aggregate the content, and distribute it as a syndicated feed to users.

Instead of me having to seek out a website I subscribe to feeds which appear automatically at set intervals of time - say every hour.

To receive a syndicated feed you need a web browser and it helps to have one of the free special aggregator programs that read RSS-distributed content and periodically downloads the latest news, blogs, or whatever you are interested in."

"In the absence of a book or a newspaper I turned on my laptop and opened up the Amphetadesk aggregator. Wow! For the next hour I lost myself in a smorgasbord of ideas, notes, and discoveries as I checked out the rich musings of the educational technology weblogs I had downloaded.

Of course on the bus I'm off-line and can't explore embedded follow-on links for more information. But still I was blown away. Collectively the blogs filter news and developments in my domain. More importantly they provide thoughtful commentary, alternative views, interpretation, and additional facts. I enjoyed the camaraderie of the weblog community, the astute observations, the readiness to share.

I delighted in the character and personality of each weblog and began to select ones I wanted to track on an ongoing basis. I wanted to know more about each of the writers."

8:58:13 AM    comment []  trackback []