RSS - A Follow-up

Get an RSS reader and connect everything to it!

Between switching to Mastodon for my social media allowance, and using - a dedicated RSS reader has really cut down my overall consumption and - wasted PC time.

-
this blogpost is originally posted to my gemini gemlog: gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2022-12-31-rss-a-follow-up.gmi - which is where I do most of my writing, converting some useful to share - things over here. It is also where the original RSS gemlog this is a - follow-up to was posted. For context, I wanted to cutback on a lot of - my web consumption, wasting time and just being mindless online. So I - looked to RSS to help centralize and solve this issue.
-

Recap

So I am using https://tt-rss.org/ as my RSS - aggregator. It’s a self-hosted RSS aggregator that, using profiles, - allows you to subscribe to multiple feeds and have them “synced” - between multiple devices (they’re not synced, you’re connecting to a - central server). I like this because I don’t ever have to worry about - dismissing, reading, or marking anything on my phone to have it still - present on my PC. And I don’t have to worry about feed subscriptions - or my phone pinging a bunch of feeds, or obviously, any third-party - hosting.

How I’ve been using it

So as always, please send me interesting RSS feeds! Or even your own! - I am trying to read more blogs, and if you have something you enjoy drop - me a DM or email! I’ll share what I am following throughout this section - <3

Blogs

Obviously, I am following blogs, one of the last holdouts of RSS. I - have a few that I follow, mostly other transfolk on Mastodon that I found - had their own blogs. Most non-trans folks I follow are using gemini and - still rely on the feed aggregators for that.

If you’re interested the two main ones I am reading right now are:

- Erin In The Morn - (substack) -
- Selfaware Soup -

Which have been pretty insightful. Erin sharing a lot of US - transgender news, which is good since I have dropped off using Reddit - which is where I “got” my “news” from.

Podcasts

The other mainstay in RSS is podcasts. Some even say if a podcast - can’t be consumed via RSS, is it even a podcast? I would agree. - Everything else is just a show. I don’t need the content to be - consumable from my reader, but I’d really appreciate it if were. I am - always on the lookout for more podcasts though. With the only two - consistent listens being:

- The Pen Addict Podcast - (relay.fm) -
- Cortex Podcast (relay.fm) -

And currently off-season:

- Backmarkers Podcast - (relay.fm) -

Which has a YouTube video format. Though, I honestly really don’t care - for Austin Evans, I just enjoy consuming some F1 content and pretending I - have friends I can talk to about motor racing.

While writing this section I added:

- Inside.java Podcast -

I have yet to listen, some of the topics seem interesting and being - infrequent gives me hope its quality over quantity. (And I like having - podcasts for chores to distract my brain)

Tech News

Right now I follow two main news sources in tech:

- debian.org/news -
- LWN.net -

Running servers using stable debian - it’s good to know when security - updates come in, as well as distro updates. And LWN is fantastic, I’ve - been a subscriber for many years and while sometimes (Jake) can focus a - bit heavy on Python news, has been always interesting to read.

This is the section I plan on adding more and more to. I had other - tech blogs that just felt like clutter and were pushing out daily - articles that I couldn’t care less about (opensource.com cough cough). - But that’s just me. Tech news is mainly where I want to focus - since - fluff blogs are rarely my cup of tea.

LWN has some links in their weekly editions for other news feeds I - might consider directly subscribing too, but for now I have these.

Music News

Some folk have an RSS feed for their site updates, which I appreciate. - Some use sites like Squarespace but don’t properly connect up the RSS - feed which I do NOT appreciate.

So right now I have two bandsites that DO update it seems (as their - site aligns with the feed) - but the only one I’ll mention is: raisedbyswans.com I’ve spoken of - this artist in my Music Spotlight MANY times and is one of my - favorites. His site, while entirely simple, is setup with RSS and has - been publishing his updates consistently. I appreciate this. Always a - strong rec from me!

I’ve been toying with Music Review sites that talk about new releases - in the genres they specialize in, but I haven’t settled on anything that - is helping me discover new music.

YouTube

This is probably where the biggest change has actually come in. Having - my YouTube feed fed through RSS has been fantastic. I am able to not only - refresh and not miss any updates (since YouTube sometimes likes to pull - updates in out of order than I don’t see it because it’s buried between - some other videos that I’d already seen.

But this also allows me one further level of filtering on my YouTube - subscriptions. I can stay subscribed to channels I am interested in - watching occasionally but not every video, and keep those off my - RSS feed. And for the “I like to watch most if not all the new videos” I - can subscribe to those via RSS. So it’s like the “bell” but without the - app basically. And since on Mobile I do NOT use the YouTube app (so I can - take advantage of the Ad Blocker in Firefox) that’s great!

What sucks / is tricky is actually subscribing to the RSS feeds - because YouTube buried that feature now. You just need the channel_id or - the username and you can subscribe using the following URL:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id={ID}
-

And you can obtain the channel_id either using the URL (though with - aliases now (@channelname) its rare to see a channel_id in the URL) if - present otherwise a little console JS can print it out:

ytInitialData.metadata.channelMetadataRenderer.externalId
-

A note however - you’ll need to clear the console if you navigate to - the next channel, at least in Firefox, it caches the result otherwise and - you’ll print out the duplicate value. There are some tools where you can - print your subscribers list into these feed URLs and bulk subscribe. I’ve - lost the link (and it’s what I did initially) but I recommend doing the - manual add at least to focus on the channels you WANT in RSS, since you - can always fallback to the main subscriptions page on YouTube.

But what this has given me is the ability to effectively ignore - YouTube almost entirely. Ideally, I’d script something with YouTube-dl - but I don’t REALLY care that much, and I’ve gotten into the habit of - closing the tab after the video so I don’t stick around and get sucked - into the algorithm.

What my morning looks like is sitting down, switching to my tt-rss - tab, seeing what’s fresh, and watching a video with my coffee maybe, then - just moving on and doing something else. I still lurk Mastodon, or get - sucked into my computer in some way or another, but it’s been really - positive! I can count on one hand how many times since dedicating to RSS - I’ve just clicked around YouTube.

Hobby

The last section which really is an extension of Blogs/News is “hobby” - RSS feeds. These feed a bit into the consumerist side of life and why I - keep them separate. Right now it’s almost entirely fountain pen - related (Who'da thought this community would still be writing blogs - :P) but since most of the blog posts are either about products or reviews - in some way, I try and limit how much I expose myself to them. I have - been working on a draft about consumerism for quite a while now and just - haven’t really worked it into a post that isn’t just DAE consumerism BAD? - low-effort Toot level. (But basically, I kinda hate how all my hobbies, - and hobbies in general rely heavily on a consumerism mindset, GAS, and - such). So I’ve been trying to be more appreciative of what I already have - and such.

But these blogs are nice, and often keep in the know about my hobbies - and can react to anything meaningful that’s being released. A good video - sorta on this topic was by Adam Neely(Adam Neely - How In-Ear - Monitors are Making Better Musicians), and how his band spend - $6000 on gear for their tour, but what it did was eliminate stress and - enable them to more easily fine tune and control how they monitor - their live performance. He touches on the fact that gear videos feed - into the consumerist mindset of music making, but gear is often - necessary to facilitate certain things, and setting up a portable - in-ear-monitor rig for their entire band is well… unavoidable. It’s - just a minor aside in a much deeper video about IEMs and touring and - FEEL. And quite the departure from his usual music education content. - But it sums up the main thesis of my consumerism gemlog quite nicely I - feel (or at least I am projecting my thoughts into a brief aside he - makes).

tt-rss - in retrospect

So tt-rss is fine honestly, I think I need to setup a better - theme, something that has a bit more contrast. I don’t REALLY read in it, - I just use it as the aggregator and then open the links directly. I don’t - mind the way it renders the full articles with images, but I do mind how - GREY it is by default (in “night” theme). It looks totally customizable - and I bet I can download a decent theme for it if I look. But I may spend - some time doing that and try and read more in application.

But other than that it’s been quite the improvement over my internet - experience. More RSS!!

Conclusion

I need more feeds, as I do enjoy reading. So I’m always on the look - out. I hate to throw in engagement-y things like “let me know” stuff but - I am genuinely looking for interesting suggestions for stuff you might - subscribe to over RSS. Even if it’s just “this is my webblog” :) I always - like reading people’s things. I should troll the aggregators and look at - folks capsule landings to see what is linked!

Anyway, you should look into getting an RSS aggregator setup. It’s - been really impactful on cutting down on internet scrolling and - mindlessness.