Josh’s Blog

RSS stands for Reallly Simple Syndication. It’s basically just a standard file format. What it allows is for websites to publish a standardized feed that RSS aggregators can consume and present to the user in a standardized format. Everything has a unique timestamp and global id (guid). These let the clients keep track of exactly what a user has or has not read and what’s new etc.
I read a lot of RSS feeds. It’s where I get most (if not all) of my news, in fact. In my opinion RSS was the best thing to happen to the web. I no longer have to keep a list of bookmarks, go check them all and try and figure out what’s new on my own. Instead I use a RSS aggregator that looks at each feed and keeps track for me of what I’ve read or not. I use Akregator, which IMO is the best client ever, but it’s Linux only. Windows people I know have had good luck with RSS Bandit. Mac people have Safari and a whole slew of other options. There’s even a RSS screensaver for the mac ;).
I thought it would be interesting to share with everyone what I subscribe to. If you want to import all my feeds at once into your agregator, here’s my feeds.opml

• Slashdot (feed): It’s Slashdot. If you’ve never heard of it, get out from under your rock! ;) It’s the oldest tech news aggregation site out there. While I feel that it’s perhaps getting a bit old and slow, when a story I’m interested in does make the site, I know the reporting will be thorough and the discussion meaningful.
• Digg (feed): Digg is sometimes labeled the Slashdot killer. I don’t think it’ll do away with Slashdot, but I love the fact that it’s a democratic reporting model. I see more interesting news faster on digg than I do anywhere else. The one drawback is there’s more noise sometimes than signal (damn mac fanboys). It’s always worth my time though to at least skim the headlines.
• Nectarine News (feed): This is the newsfeed for one of my all time favorite internet radio stations, Nectarine. They play demoscene music ’round the clock. If you don’t know what that is, there’s a reasonable explanation on Wikipedia. The news here keeps me vaguely apprised of what’s going on in the scene in relation to music.
• Virt - music releases (feed): Virt is a simply astounding composer. I’m constantly amazed by his work. This feed lets me know when he has new stuff out.
• Daniel Beck.net (feed): A friend’s blog. He has some nice photography and art, as well as interesting essays sometimes :).
• Inkberry (feed): Inkberry is an organization around here that’s dedicated to forwarding reading and writing. They often have interesting or entertaining free readings and lectures, so I subscribe to this feed to keep apprised of them.
• Post Secret (feed): Every week people anonymously send in artistically rendered postcards containing secrets they’ve had. I think postsecret helps people more than anything else I’ve seen online. There’s great power in opening up what you’ve kept locked inside.
• The Official Google Blog (feed): Google lets us know what’s going on with this blog. As a techie (read: dork), I like to stay on top of what the world leader in tech is doing. There’s often cool tools they let us know about on there too! :)
• Cute Overload (feed): OMG!!! PONIES!!!!!! everyone needs some cute :)
• Yahoo! User Interface Blog (feed): I was going to use some of their API to do some ajax stuff, but it turns out that it kinda sucked. I’m almost ready to remove this feed, but they do occasionally have some interesting info about ajax usability.
• IPac (feed): IPac is a PAC (political action committee) committed to ‘preserving individual freedom through balanced information policy.’ I tend to agree with their goals, so I like to know what’s going on with them.
• Comics:
  • Goats (feed): Goats is one of the longest running webcomics, and it’s somehow managed to stay funny that whole time. The stories can get drawn out, but I get drawn into them so I don’t mind :)
  • Diesel Sweeties (feed): Combine pixel art, robots, satire, and a good dose of just plain strange and you might begin to approximate Diesel Sweeties. They have awesome t-shirts too ;)
  • User Friendly (feed): I think everyone in this strip works for an ISP.. it’s been so long I don’t remember anymore. What I do know is they’re mostly a bunch of geeks and that it’s usually pretty funny :). Did I mention it’s also been around forever?
  • The Joy of Tech (feed): This one gets a bit mac heavy, but there’s entertainment there too ;)
  • Sinfest (feed): I’m not sure how to generalize Sinfest, except to say that it’s da Bomb. The art is cool too.
  • Dilbert (feed): What can I say? It’s Dilbert :)
  • Penny-Arcade (feed): Gaming news, graphic style. Sorta. If you don’t already read Penny Arcade, I don’t think you’ll get it.
  • Ctrl Alt Del (feed): Yet another Gaming comic. I didn’t used to subscribe to this but I was linked to it too often to keep ignoring it. It’s about 60% my book :)
• CmdrTaco’s Journal (feed): CmdrTaco started Slashdot. This gives him special geek powers, so reading his journal is often useful.
• Overheard in New York (feed): It’s what it sounds like. Another 60%.