RSS is so awesome it made the front page of Hacker News
There’s probably not too many people on HN who don’t use RSS, but more generally, uptake is not particularly high. On that basis, any publicity is helpful. Let’s keep encouraging the adoption of RSS.
Hell yeah! This is a link post of a link post of a link from Hacker News, but I love to see people talking about RSS. I can’t imagine getting news any other way.
Rogue is a worker-owned cooperative business that features several former Polygon writers…You can always be assured that the writing that appears on our website is for you. If we want to write about Grand Theft Auto 6, it’ll be because we want to, not because someone else noticed how well it’s trending. If we want to cover a rad indie game instead of a AAA release, nobody can stop us.
Real indie vibes here. Polygon sold out to a content farm recently, and Rascal.news helped set up some of their former writers with their own blog: Rogue.site. Feels like 404media for games.
Trusted news sites may benefit in an internet full of AI-generated fakes, a new study finds
…what matters to the consumer’s choice is the source’s value relative to the alternatives, which are degrading more rapidly.
As long as trusted sources don’t start replacing their writers with AI, I think it’ll be good. Authentic personal blogs will benefit from all the AI slop taking over for the same reasons; having that real human touch is becoming a commodity.
Substack just killed the creator economy
Last week, they announced that all writers would be required to offer Apple’s in-app purchase (IAP) payment option. That means that Apple will be collecting a 30% fee for all subscriptions purchased on Substack via IAP.
This is one of many reasons it sucks writing on someone else’s website. I know not everyone can self host, and not everyone wants to. But if I was on Substack, something like Ghost would be looking pretty appealing to me right now.
PBS, NPR stations struggle with US government funding cuts
Pleas for donations exceed expectations in many parts of country
I’ve never donated to PBS in my life until this past month. I set up a monthly donation to our local station, WOSU Public Media. It’s not much, but I’m hoping there are a lot more people like me; people who might not have felt a need to donate in the past, but realize a really great thing is in jeopardy and give PBS/NPR or their local channels what they can afford.
Jenna Ortega Cracks me up in Wednesday
“I have FOBI: Fear Of Being Included.”
Just listened to the latest episode of Cory Doctorow’s podcast where he reads an hour of his upcoming book Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It
I hope that listening to this long sample will convince you to pre-order your copy!
That’s exactly what it did! 🤪 Just pre-ordered the hardcover copy and audiobook from Kickstarter.
It’s so fucking good! I wanna keep going but it’s not out yet. I don’t know if it’s the most important book of the year, but it’s definitely the most relevant.
Mass shooters are not disproportionately transgender, contrary to claims
There were 195 mass shootings committed by 200 people between 1966 and 2024 that met the VPP’s definition. Of those 200 mass shooters, VPP only listed one perpetrator as transgender: the 2023 Nashville shooter. That’s 0.50% of all the shooters.
So there have been a total of two trans people involved in mass shootings since 1966. In reality, almost every mass shooter has been a white male. And that’s based on actual data, not a cocaine fueled tweet storm from Don Jr.
1999: Blogs Burst Onto the Scene, but RSS Is Slow To Settle
“a phenomenon known as the weblog is one of the fastest-growing and most fertile creative areas on the Web today.”
Excellent history lesson from Cybercultural on blogging. The blogosphere is still alive and well, 26 years in <3
Republicans investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
Wikipedia has long faced accusations of its entries having a political bias, with the right-leaning Manhattan Institute releasing a report in 2024 that found Wikipedia entries are more likely to attach a negative sentiment to right-leaning terms.
The problem isn’t bias, it’s that the right is increasingly cruel and authoritarian. I’m biased against anyone whose goal is to make life harder for anyone they don’t like.