Interest inversion
Here's a weird result: to some extent, the more interesting and prolific a weblog writer is, the less of their
stuff I'll read. It's not consistently true, but happens more often than I'd like.
I get busy. A few non-bloglines days pass. I come back, and wham! Too many hundreds of unread things.
Examples:
- O'Reilly Radar -- stuff I remain interested in, but just too much of it.
- Dave Pollard -- Dave's postings are so well-written, thoughtful, and feel so much more real-life important than most of what's out there, that I feel like I really ought to read each one. But they are also so thought-provoking that I need to set aside time to think through implications and applications ... and I just don't end up finding the time. So those stack up, but I can't bring myself to just hit the catch-up thing.
- Jon Udell -- thought provoking like Dave's, except with a tech bent that has me itching to try out many of the ideas he writes about. But, again, no time for that.
By contrast, folks who write shorter entries, and write one or fewer of them a day, tend to be quick
and easy to catch up on in the
interstitial time. Most of the Python-, Ruby- and Haskell-related weblogs that I read fall into this category.
Despite my continuing strong interest in programming languages, LtU is getting too prolific. In a similar kind of irony to my main point here, their improved server interface and performance may actually hurt the community.
A few are just lost causes, no way would I find the time to keep up with them.
I have a bloglines category "Too Much" that has these three feeds in it:
- Erik Thauvin -- too many postings, and each one contains way too many interesting links
- BoingBoing -- just for fun
- James Robertson -- (nice redesign, by the way. I hadn't
seen the site itself in months).
11:56:07 PM
Random radio Weblog