Some of it is using an RSS reader to change the cadence and depth of my consumption—pulling away from the quick-hit likes of social media in favor of a space where I can run my thoughts to their logical conclusion (and then sit on them long enough to consider whether or not they’re true). ​ Some of it is just letting myself wander, link to link, through people’s personal websites and passion projects, seeing what comes up. ​ A theme of the past year has been trying to disengage from my attachment to what I think other people want or need from me, and to rekindle my working relationship with myself.

Posted on Wednesday 12 Aug 2020. 552 words, 5 links. By Matt Webb.

When I come across writing I like I add it to my rss reader. This is great, because later posts the author writes I will see automatically. But sometimes people have been writing for a long time and have lots of archives. I don't want it all at once; I want to get them as occasional updates. Reading their writing going backwords, getting a new post in my reader every so often, seems about right. I

But the things that make me me won’t change. I’m a Seattle guy who blogs and writes an open source RSS reader.

I think my limit for open-loop writing is about 14k words. For the book on temporality I’m working on now, I’ll probably serialize it online in some form before trying to put it together as a book. ​​ All in all, it was a wonderful outpouring of deep reserves of creativity and knowledge, the likes of which I haven’t seen online in a long time. ​ Twitter is where all the history-making, universe-denting social media action really is. It is as close to a pure ideas-commons/digital public as we’ll ever get. ​ Email today is now less a communications medium than a communications compile target.

And so here we are: leaning on an open, beautifully staid, inert protocol. SMTP as our savior. ​ Mr. Chimero almost never writes but when he does makes the day a good day. ​ These newsletters are the most backed up pieces of writing in history, copies in millions of inboxes, on millions of hard drives and servers, far more than any blog post.

Tell other people about cool blogs and feeds you’ve found. ​ Or: skip helping us, and, instead, help people who need help more than we do. Those people should not be hard to find.

more or less I don’t think corporations have feelings, which is why I’m a big fan of indie software, because indie software is made by individuals, and individuals care about things and have feelings.

One of the key would be to keep it simple. It’s just one component in an ecosystem of tools. Do search, and do it well, and that’s it.

“I contend that at 11.59 pm each night, having read all day, I am the best informed person on the surface the planet,” he says. “Then sleep cleanses my brain, and I awake next morning in a state of perfect ignorance, twitching to get to the RSS feeds once again.”

The articles are often very well done and beautifully illustrated — and it would be to the benefit of Apple, and app developers, if these articles were findable and readable by people sitting in front of a computer.

But here’s the thing: tons of people use RSS readers. There’s no shame in it; you’re not the last person; there’s not going to be a last person. ​ Deliberately — or through inaction — reserving technology for a sophisticated group is Not a Good Thing.

We should likely stop talking about RSS. We need to simply start calling RSS “Subscribing”.

“Exciting developments on the RSS front” is not a phrase you can use every day; but, today is an apt day to use it. Rob Fahrni announced that he’s working on a new app that aims to deliver RSS updates as a constant stream, like a Twitter app. I like the simplicity of this and, […]