What is RSS?

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These small xml icons are popping up all over the internet. Clicking on them allows the reader to view a link to the site’s RSS (Really Simple Syndication) page and subscribe to them using a NewsReader. These “feeds” allow the reader to quickly scan headlines and, if interested, view a summary (or in some cases the entire) article. RSS is a very efficient method of reading and sharing information.

Sites can have many RSS feeds, such as Channel3000 or the Washington Post. Isthmus’s Daily Page has a feed, as does WisPolitics.

Getting Started:
Download a NewsReader:

RSS FAQ.

I’ve also posted a brief screencast that demonstrates my use of a RSS NewsReader (NetNewsWire). 13MB Quicktime

Be Your Own Security

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Mark Hoekstra:

The world is an increasingly dangerouse place. Research has shown that people need to get inspected to feel secure, even if the actual inspection is a complete farce. Yet as a society we cannot hire half the population to perform bogus inspections on the other half in order to keep up with market demand for perceived security

Classic – read it all.

Favre Yearns for Quiet

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Larry Weisman:

He recently had the windows of his truck tinted a dark shade to secure perhaps a little anonymity on the roads in this football-mad city of 100,000. Any Packers player is recognizable here. Favre? Anywhere, anytime.

“When I stop at a light, I don’t stop beside a car in the next lane,” he says. “If there’s two cars, I’ll pull up between them. I notice where I’m going to park. I envision what’s going to happen if I park there or here. People say, ‘It’s terrible you have to live like that.’ But it’s not. I love playing football. Some people live for being known, for sitting and being seen, but I always joke that I’m going to be like Don Meredith and suddenly be gone.”