Daily Archives: August 9, 2009

Sullivan takes a break

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Andrew Sullivan will be taking the rest of August off and writes:

Here’s my dream: Ill read books – books on paper, books I have been wanting to read or re-read for a long time and have been unable to absorb because of constant daily bloggery; and Ill sleep and nap; and spend time with my neglected husband and beagles; and try to get a little more perspective on the last couple of years. The spiritual life also suffers from living so much in the world so constantly. A little emptiness is what I yearn for.

I say good for him. Sometimes I think it’d be good for everyone to take a month off the grid during the year; I think that it’d provide a better perspective on what you actually need the internet for.

Minimalism and my ideal news experience

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As I’ve mentioned before I’ve been using Shaun Inman’s Fever for a while now as my sole RSS reader. The more I use it the more I come to love it and in the last few days I’ve realized why: it does exactly what I want it to and no more.

In my case I want to use my RSS reader for one thing: reading. This is why I felt that it was worth $30 to move away from Google Reader.

As Google has developed Reader over the past years and months I’ve felt that they’ve strayed from the original idea of providing a lightweight and fast way to stay on top of the news that’s important to you. If I want to share an article, save it for later, email it to a friend, or “like” it I have my own ways of doing that and don’t want those features to infringe upon the primary purpose of my RSS reader.

The fact that I was so willing to drop $30 on a product that I couldn’t even use a demo of is a testament to my faith in Shaun Inman as well as my simple frustration with Google. It also got me thinking about news in general and the experiences that most (if not all) major news organizations provide.

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