markjgsmith

Viewing the everything feed

The website's new everything RSS has been live for a couple of days now. I've noticed that it doesn't display all that well in some feed readers. The reason is that many readers don't currently do a great job at displaying posts without titles. Since the everything feed includes everything, that means it has both posts where titles make sense like the blog, podcast and newsletter, but it also includes posts that have no titles, like the links and notes posts.

In the earlier days of the web, when most feed readers were created, pretty much all posts had titles. But then Twitter showed up and proved without a shaddow of a doubt that not only did posts not need titles, but people absolutely loved writting posts without titles. The RSS specification doesn't actually require a title. As long as you specify either a title or a description or both, it's technically a valid feed. Feed readers haven't adapted all that well to the new paradigm. It's somewhat understandable because to be fair it's a bit of a design challenge.

With that said here's how I handled it in Feedly. The feed was initially showing up with a load of posts that said 'No title'. I checked out the display settings and updated the 'density' settings from 'compact' to 'comfortable'. With that setting change, the title still displays as 'No title' but an abbreviated version of the description shows up below, so you can at least see what the post contains.

Other feed readers will likely have similar display settings. It's worth trying some of them to see if there's a view that works better with a mixed post type feed like the everything feed. #

Writing annoyances

As I attempt to write more blog posts I'm aware of various annoyances that get in the way. Here they are listed, hopefully I'll find a way to streamline.

Moving between folders - There's currently a seperate folder for each post type: blog, linkblog, podcast, newsletter and notes. That's partly historical. In the early days there was only the linkblog folder, then I added the blog, then podcast etc. It is a bit annoying having to jump between folders, especially on a small screen. I might make more sense in an interleaved world to have all the posts under the same calendar structure. The downside is it would likely becomes more difficult to find some posts. Currently blog posts are in year based calendar structure whereas links are in s day based calendar structure. In a combined world all the blog posts would be in a day calendar, so viewing all blog posts from 2024 for example would no longer be possible via the filesystem. That's actually very annoying, especially if you can't render a local copy of the website.

Linkblog links for blog posts - Each time I create a blog post I currently have to create both a blog item markdown file and an accompanying linkblog link markdown file. That's mostly because the latest page is set out in sections. If I don't add a linkblog link then folks are unlikely to see there was a blog post, since they are all the way at the bottom of the latest page. Creating the linkblog file is tedious because of the previously mentioned jumping between folders problem. A combined folder structure would make this easier, but also linkblog links might not be necessary in an interleaved everything main page paradigm.

Creating files with frontmatter - Creating the markdown files is really tedious at the minute. Both the filename which had quite a long format containing the date and time. Blog posts also have the title converted to snake case and used in the filename. What makes it annoying is you often don't know the title when you start writting the post, so you have to go back and update the file name afterwards. Also creating the frontmatter is annoying because you have to ensure you have the right date and time which also has to be in the filename. I would be great to have a way to make this easier. Long term it should probably be a custom UI, but it would be useful to have the bare bones method of creating files by hand streamlined as much as possible. You always want to be able to fall back easily to just creating a file in a text editor.

These are the main annoyances at the minute. I'll add more below if I think of / discover any more. #

Causing the problems they complain about

I’m having to write this post without internet connection because the world has decided that everything is my fault again. Let me explain.

Yesterday a confusion happened at a food place I went to. Seemingly, I got blamed for, at best the disorganisation of the staff. Though it looked very much like an entirely manufactured situation. They apparently couldn’t coordinate between preparation staff and payment staff and somehow it all became my fault even though I was very polite and calm, saying thank you, giving them plenty of money. Almost exactly the same situation happened previously at the same place a month or so ago. I wrote about it then too. That time they tried to short change me. It was the same staff.

This morning another confusion at another food place. I asked the women there not to cut the pork into strips, others there had it that way so it shouldn’t be an issue. Another staff member, a man, at the same exact moment walked past and said ‘good’. When she gave me the food, she shouted ‘Lie!’ very loudly in a very aggressive voice. I had literally no idea what she was on about, which I calmly said to her. I walked off confused by there entire situation. It’s good, yet it’s also all my fault. Clear as mud.

Anyway later today, I had to buy some new cheap headphones. At the small kiosk shop I went to, the woman there, who was covered in tatoos, tried to take my device off me when I asked if I could test the headphones. I wasn’t comfortable with that so I clumsily put the device in my pocket. A short while later after I had tested them, because she eventually handed them over so I could while purposely coughing all over them which unfortuntely is standard malicious behaviour here, I figured I’d haggle a bit. I opened my device, brought up the Notes app to type the amount I was suggesting. At some point I must have fat fingered the screen because the word ‘No’ was on the empty screen. I deleted it and typed the amount I wanted to pay, asked if she would sell the headphones for that amount. She said yes, I said thanks. And then as I prepared to pay she said I was lying and told me to ‘learn’. She still sold me the headphones.

Now several hours later my internet connection stopped working, and a woman on a motorbike just drove past and said ‘No’. To me. Everything in the universe is my fault again! Never mind that I probably wouldn’t have fat fingered the screen had the other lady not been so insistent on taking my device off me.

And of course as is customary here, everything will escalate until total destruction of the multiverse. At which point everyone will go into an unhappy funk and guess what, I’ll get blamed for that too, and eventually I will get mutilated.

Literally every single interaction is like this. It’s the same at other food places, at the bakery, at the internet places, the shops, the cafes. Every darn place I go to. Whatever happens in one place is followed up with punishments in the next places. And honestly imho 9/10 they cause the issues in the first place. #