Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

rsapkf.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 205 posts

Re: Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

#151

Post by carrotcarrot »

bibanez wrote: post #146
MattyRad wrote: post #144

I've used RSS to follow all media for the past 2 years (FreshRSS+FeedMe, I have a guide here https://soapstone.mradford.com/hn-rss-guide/ ). It's been the single best thing I've done to reclaim my attention. Here's a couple of other random thoughts: - Being able to dismiss articles where the headline is the story is really valuable. For example, I just dismissed "Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun (techcrunch.com)"- i…

I really like your reasoning. The only problem I see is that if everyone did what you propose, we wouldn't have Hacker News at all (upvotes, in the end, must come from somewhere). So from a Kantian ethical point of view, it doesn't really work. There ought to be a better solution. But on a personal level, I wholeheartedly agree

The majority of users don't comment anyways.

Re: Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

#152

Post by jerlam »

carrotcarrot wrote: post #151
bibanez wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like your reasoning. The only problem I see is that if everyone did what you propose, we wouldn't have Hacker News at all (upvotes, in the end, must come from somewhere). So from a Kantian ethical point of view, it doesn't really work. There ought to be a better solution. But on a personal level, I wholeheartedly agree

The majority of users don't comment anyways.

Sometimes it is shocking how few upvotes you need to get to the HN frontpage.

Re: Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

#153

Post by jerlam »

moehm wrote: post #120
noveltyaccount wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good grief I struggle to keep up with eight feeds in my RSS reader!

I see two use cases of an RSS reader. You can use them as a stream of news and just dive in when you want, or trying to read every article. I personally do a bit of both, mixing feeds, but with good tagging and filtering.

I do the same - I separate "firehose" feeds that have dozens or more updates a day, from feeds that may update once a month. The latter is likely more important and cannot be lost in the noise of the former.

It is a very small microcosm of how we say we want social media feeds to work (chronological) but why algorithms are everywhere.

Re: Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

#154

Post by carrotcarrot »

jerlam wrote: post #152
carrotcarrot wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of users don't comment anyways.

Sometimes it is shocking how few upvotes you need to get to the HN frontpage.

It's shocking on many platforms. I can't find a citation but I swear I read a study (or small experiment, more likely) which showed the first two votes determine the fate of most posts on reddit. You can use bots on twitter to similarly guide "the hivemind", I receny learned the intelligence term for this practice is "consensus cracking". There's even guides on the internet: https://edith.reisen/computers/security/forum_shills.html

Re: Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

#155

Post by aftergibson »

I find RSS has the same problem as to do lists for me. It all gets too much and I dump it. Another inbox to manage where it's a roll of the dice if I get any value or find anything interesting. Certainly beats other news sources but I think I'd prefer to opt into the news stream when I'm in the right headspace and not just to feel "on top of" my feeds. Email is loud enough.

Re: Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

#156

Post by every »

There are two things I appreciate finding in my low-tech textual browsing. First, an RSS feed listed amongst the commercial links for a site. Secondly, a link to the actual content at the top of the page bypassing all the menu clutter...

Re: Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

#157

Post by WaitWaitWha »

I use Flym, Thunderbird, and a self hosted miniflux for years with success.

RSS is good to read, it does not solve the problem of how to respond.

This is more of a philosophical grouching so stop if you don't want to hear a rant.

Organizations, (I do mean organization as not only corporations do this) ingest or take over a well functioning solution, a FOSS, or standard with the intention to make it better (i give them the benefit of doubt). Often this manifests in merging with their tangential product, or similar solution into the victim. Ultimately, each and every one of these solutions die an agonizing death - death of complete abandonment, or complete destruction of the original spirit (e.g., ICQ, usenet, feedburner, CU-SeeMe, sageTV, silk labs, drop.io, gowalla).

Re: Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

#158

Post by PlentyOfFish »

t0bia_s wrote: post #56

Agree, RSS is great tool for decentralization. However, I cannot find proper open-source RSS reader for Windows that fits in 2022. Any recommendations? I especially need customization for appearance of text/feed. Feeder for Android is great.

I've enjoyed Fluent Reader

Re: Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

#159

Post by throwaway0x7E6 »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #157

I use Flym, Thunderbird, and a self hosted miniflux for years with success. RSS is good to read, it does not solve the problem of how to respond. This is more of a philosophical grouching so stop if you don't want to hear a rant. Organizations, (I do mean organization as not only corporations do this) ingest or take over a well functioning solution, a FOSS, or standard with the intention to make it better (i give the…

>RSS is good to read, it does not solve the problem of how to respond

    comment on this article
with a backend that inserts the received emails into the comment section for the article specified in the subject of the link

Re: Use RSS for privacy and efficiency (2021)

#160

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

remram wrote: post #133
Semaphor wrote: post #12

I've been self hosting TT-RSS since Newsblut raised prices some years ago (which was what I switched to when Google Reader closed). My list simply grew over time. Whenever I see an interesting article (doesn't matter where, here, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook) I check if the others are interesting, and if so, I subscribe. Almost everything worth reading has a feed.

Switched from TT-RSS to FreshRSS recently, mostly because I don't want to hack on PHP code. It's a good alternative, also light weight.

I did the same several years back. Mainly because hitting mark as read in a group/ category marked even new articles that came in while you were reading, meaning you never saw them.
Post reply on HN