This is why I think there are multiple webs, not just one. Allegedly "open" by default ("the open web" is a redundancy like how "PIN number" and "ATM machine" are), there's the "behind a paywall web" and the "filled with ads and redirects web" and the "blocked because you don't live in the right region web" or the "blocked because your intense web use flagged you as an automated agent web", and so on. There's also the cozy web (where one only talks about how cozy their web is). This is why I want to leave the web: Every time I get it to a "Goldilocks"/just right web, something knocks it out of whack.

I have a long-running support case with the support team WhoSampled, recently purchased by Spotify, about being blocked after visiting the site once. It's necessary to have a firewall these days, but because of the aggressiveness of automated visitors, website owners have to be overly protective. My work IP is banned from Wikipedia because it's behind a "VPN". (Technically, yeah. But the "Get a VPN" advice is now no longer a guaranteed way to see content on the web.) I wish I could prove my humanity if not once and for all, but for the next, say, 5 years, and then renew my validation. I want 5 years of not having to prove I'm a human being. Make me have to show up to a post office if it comes to it. Assuming those are still around in 5 years.

New rss.chat feature: It now supports feed discovery, so you can subscribe to any html page on the site in a compatible feed reader. I tested it in FeedLand and NetNewsWire and it works.  

It was very much a Buddhist class. The teacher was a middle-aged man from Iowa, very diminutive in stature but the power to clear things up, amazing. Fair to say that changed my life and feelings about myself, and makes me more of a spectator in my movie than being the main character. 

The BB Edit and Fetch icons will be forever embedded in my heart

That works with a lot of Buddhist teachings (from lojong, to tonglen to “feeding the demons’) and the psychotherapeutic modes in shadow work, gestalt, “changing chairs”). There is something very powerful about giving the “demons” what they want, or facing them and giving the younger version the adult presence. I always marvel how a small bit of technique can upgrade a mind so it’s hard to act in (never really be bothered again by) the old ways.

Thanks, always a  pleasure to see the work. Looking forward to testing & musing.

John, nice to see you here! 👍

I began publishing on the web with BB Edit, the FTP client Fetch, and a prayer. In 2002, I used Radio Userland to say hello to the world and have fun. In 2008, I put my energies into online communities - social networking, forums, and virtual worlds. But, my efforts did not belong to me. I'm back on my blog using self-hosted WordPress. I miss the community aspects I had found, so here I am trying RSS.Chat. Can I use this for more writing than messaging? Maybe this post will show me.(Clearly, my limation is with Markdown and not this platform.)

All this _chat_ about RSS is making me think back to when I first found out about it & how excited I was. I assumed everybody would have a blog and read others via RSS. In 2005 I started a podcast with my class of 10 year olds. They had great fun and, I believe learned ...

If you have a website, if you don't have a WAF (web application firewall), you've basically committed malpractice. But that's incredible, right? Automated traffic can just take down your website or crawl it and duplicate it and easily re-publish it, which is actually better than when it brings down websites. Again, you now have to add software to keep things running.

I mean, it's embarrassing right? We have this thing that we almost universally think is awesome, the web, but we have to have a Swiss Army Knife of extensions to install and tweak just to have a tolerable experience? Sites that tell you to turn off the extension that you installed to hide ads, to show the ads, so that you can read the article?

It's astonishing that you have to add software (browser extensions) to simplify things. "Oh yeah, just get an ad blocker." What? I have to add complexity so that I can get simplicity?

Or at least it didn't in the old version we're using. But it's so strange: you can do this in the attachments section, just not in the comments. It's so obvious to add support for this in both.

Clicking on an image thumbnail to enlarge it in a comment thread is pretty much table-stakes for any bug tracking software. So naturally, Jira doesn't support it.

And now - 'avec logo' - much improved, IMHO.

Done.

Logging on to demo.rss.chat and interested to see where it all goes. 

I added rss.chat into NetNewsWire - might add this one as well. 

There is one I know of. Inkwell, by micro.blog, will allow you to post to Micro.blog.

Thanks for clearing that up, Dave. Seeing what's happening here just makes me think of all kinds of stuff, but I suppose that was the idea! 😃

I am fully aware of WordLand. I keep a watchful eye on everything you do, Dave. I have since 2001 when I found DaveNet and Scripting News. 

Dumb question but are there any apps which combine both rss reading and writing? I can’t find any… 🤷‍♂️

Replying to myself! 🤣

Still interesting…

It turned out that way, didn't it. ;-)

Funny thing is at the time Microsoft had a product that was meant to compete with Apple's iPod, called Zune, and it wasn't getting in there. I went there and proposed we turn it into a podcasting platform. They never responded. 

Lots of examples of things like that. They needed to pivot, turn the corner, realize there was another market they could get at that Apple couldn't because Apple viewed audio as valuable and podcasting says "one listen and throw it out." There really was a niche there back then. Now, it would never go over, because the installed base.

“In less than six months, more than 2,000 podcasters have sprung up. Eventually an iPod-like device will have a subscription capability built in so you won’t even need to be tethered to a computer. It’s not hard to imagine an iPod with WiFi capabilities that could become a radio with no geographic limits.”

Also that's something micro.blog does really well. 

I support what Manton has done there. 

We have to work together to build the web, we can't do it by all trying to work with the BigCo's. They have other (understandable) motives.

We thought about doing that and decided not to.

Just wrote a post about that on scripting. 

Don't think of this as a product Rob. Think about features you want in other people's products. Think of this as a source of feeds, not a destination for them.

I have a whole other product for that called FeedLand, btw. ;-)

I was just thinking how amazing it'll be once we can aggregate our own RSS into this chat and it's transparent to everyone. My goodness that'll be amazing.