Geek Consumer Math

060608_news.pngRSS + Sweet Reader = No Life.

If one is a news junkie and one uses a snazzy newsreader to get headlines from various mainstream news organizations as well as link sites and blogs, there is no hope for a break from the computer. At least until one figures out that setting the refresh rate to every hour or more means less OCD-like tendencies to clear the unread items to zero and maintain it at zero.

I’m trying here, people.

  • http://eyesaverted.blogspot.com/ Wicked H

    The first step to recovery is admitting the problem. Baby steps Jon.

  • tk

    Jeez, no wonder you can’t sleep…

  • http://redefining.org di

    Whew! And I thought it was just me that did that. I can hardly describe the rush I get in the morning when I first sit down at the computer to check the feeds. It’s better than an orgasm.

    Okay, almost.

  • http://www.simb.net Simeon

    I hear you man. There are 2 noises my mac makes that my office mates know. One is mail, which we all dread because it means more work. The other is NewsFire and it means happiness.

    However I have a new problem. Because of the obsurd effeciency of rss feeds, when I sit down in the evening and have some time to myself, I dont have anything to read.

    I solved that problem tonight. I use flock as a browser (firefox with cool tools for us flickr addicted blogging whores). Tonight I found that I can open the technorati drawer and surf the web. When I find something fun I can have it show me all the sites that link to the blog/article. Now I have hours of fun as I wade through all the posts that link to your site from other bloggers :)

    Extra time? Not a problem any more.

  • Bandalay

    You can actually make it even worse by using the RSS features of Safari – now every visit to the browser to check page rendering or lookup a client page results in a quick check of my 100 or so subscribed sites…

    Oop – gotta go – Metafilter just dropped a dozen new links…

  • http://underwearninja.com Thissucks

    I had to stop using an RSS reader entirely for that reason =/

  • http://www.tannock.net Stv.

    I’ve had to stop using RSS to get info. I was able to consume far too much at once to ever actually get anything done. Even with refreshing only every other hour, or even three hours, I’d often still be following link trails from the previous update when the next hit. I’ve taken to actual browsing again – I only go to sites that I think of in the moment, which vastly limits what I end up reading – which in this case, is a good thing. Plus, I can pretend I’m just oldskool this way. ;)

  • http://workman.blogspot.com Workman

    You’re an RSS junkie, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But why no RSS feed on your own site? Seems a little selfish, now doesn’t it?

  • http://www.azf2k.com/ Aaron Cole

    It’s the “Refresh” button that gets me everytime. I turned off the feed count for my NetNewsWire dock icon, which helped.

    What in particular do you like about NewsFire?

  • http://www.blurbomat.com blurb

    Aaron, I’m writing a post about newsreaders. Look for it soon.

  • http://www.blurbomat.com blurb

    Workman, http://www.blurbomat.com/atom.xml

    All the feed you need.