Taking control of my information stream

I'd love it if I find an RSS reader that filters out information based on criteria (like keywords). I hacked together something that almost worked for NetNewsWire, but it also picked up all articles that had those "share on Facebook" links at the bottom.

Since that didn't work out, I've gone ahead and dropped the worst offenders -- those RSS feeds that update often, and update often in reactionary fashion about topics that don't interest me. I have however kept those feeds that are low-volume and tend to be thoughtful.

So RWW is out the window; Daring Fireball is quite happily in.


I've also cut out one of my mailing lists, again for flooding of reactionary updates. I'm looking at you, mailing list which erupted into a language war after several months of low activity! Or... or maybe I'm not looking at you, since you're not coming into my inbox anymore. (Blessed blessed silence \o/)



A while back, I read an article which talked about happiness. I can't find it anymore (unfortunately, because it made a couple of good points), but the two things that stuck with me are: you need to let go of things you don't use, and you need to use the things you're saving up.

I'd gradually been getting rid of clutter in my room by throwing out old stuff I would never use again. After reading that article, I also started using the stuff that I've been saving just in case. So the lotion bottles in my room from birthdays/Christmases? Finally being emptied. The assorted ingredients in my refrigerator? Finally being used or in some cases thrown out because they'd gone bad (oops). The "good" yarn? Finally being knit (\o/)

Using stuff is not waste. I need to remember this (more importantly need to convince my mom): using stuff is not waste.


I've been trying to do the same thing with my information stream: I've been unsubscribing from places I only ever skim "just in case there's something interesting" (non-pro-tip: no, there won't be). I've also been actively clearing out my open tabs and emails instead of saving them up.

Maybe at some point I'll start reading fic again? :x I stopped years and years ago because I kept saving up the good stuff, and then I'd lose everything when my browser crashed under the sheer weight of tabs.


Ebooks are a boon *_* I used to be unable to put down books once I'd bought them, because I had to make them worth the price and cost of storage. Now, I consider my time more valuable than the cost of the book meaning, if I don't like it, I make myself put it down and move on to the next book, which I might even enjoy, rather than struggle through this one.

I can do this to paperbacks now (with a lot of regret), but I practiced ruthlessness first on ebooks.

The other thing great about ebooks is that it's just as easy to get the other books in a series once you have one of them. No more having holes in series because the bookstore doesn't have book 2 in stock \o/

This is assuming the publisher has deigned to publish the books in ebook format. But then, I take care to only buy from publishers that actually seem to value ebooks -- BAEN and O'Reilly leap to mind. I'll need to look for more eventually but these two are keeping me happily occupied for now.


I like that I can now afford to value the content of books more than the actual presence of them :-)