Information garden parties

I asked today on Mastodon (which I approached cautiously as if it were a loaded gun) for people to share their blogs with me so I can work on building a more current feed reader. I use The Old Reader which costs money but does much of what i want with a minimum of fuss. I might throw that out and go with Planet (though must figure out which one) or moonmoon.

We need to bring back things like blogrolls, blog carnivals, and construct our own feeds. Yes I know I’m going to have to explain “blog carnivals”. Later!

I suggest we all host some little local garden parties. Not necessarily in a garden – but to “garden” our information feeds.

We can give each other recommendations – we can build some systems that don’t utterly suck!

I am very much enjoying NOT reading news, social media, reddit, or anything Fast or Scrolly. It’s good here! Try it!

Let’s encourage each other to curate our own information feeds that are noncommericalized, not being SHOVED INTO OUR EYEBALLS by an unknowable ALGORITHM, and that nurture, feed, and connect us like actual humans!

(I do love tiktok and the endless fountain of creativity there! HOWEVER.)

What do we love about blogging? It’s so personal and strange! It doesn’t have to fit into anything that is a made up “genre” motivated by money! (though it certainly can!)

Anyway, just from my one post to my very tiny mastodon account with not many followers at all, I got back some fun blogs! I favor rambling eclecticness, wit, diaries, anything people are either obsessed with or know a lot about, and noncommercial, non-categorizable approaches to blogging. You will note I already have my old fashioned blogroll over there on the oldfashioned sidebar. Here’s some more from today, lightly and irreverently annotated!

* jr conlin’s ink stained banana – entertaining short essays, tech infused but happily not lacking broader culture. Maybe my favorite of the new blogs I riffled through today

* ddurst’s blog – opinions on tech stuff, music production geekery, rock music criticism, and more

* ODonnellWeb – one of those blogs that has been many things but right now is all about birding, with lovely photos of places to go birding!

* Our Magic – Metagrrl’s blog about rpgs and building a very elaborate miniature landscape which I hope to see in person sometime! Honestly, Dinah is one of my early blogging heroes, so good and thinky, versatile, and someone who always comes up with new interests & projects. Discardia! Cocktails! Methodically walking the entire map of San Francisco! ::hearteyes::

* Long story short pier – Kip Manley’s gonzo criticism and far-ranging overthinking of just about anything and everything, everything and nothing. A good kind of blog! (Does have some ads for Kip’s books; we’ll allow it!)

* We Don’t Agree – Frank Miroslav’s very interesting essays, more a list of well thought out essays than “blog”, which I expect to be more off the cuff. Political, tech, economic analysis.

In short – I have gone full “FUCK THIS”. Seriously.