FeedCity: Newsonaut

Newsonaut
09 Aug 18:45 • Mark Rogers

The long and winding road back to Sublime Text

In the Newsonaut colophon, I list VS Code with the caveat: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” This is a line from The Godfather Part III where Michael Corleone expresses his frustrations over being unable to get out of the mafia. It was also parodied in T...

Newsonaut
06 Aug 21:15 • Mark Rogers

The story of how Newsonaut flourished, went on life support, and is making a comeback

This is my entry for AuguStory, a blogging challenge from Robert Birming to tell the story of your blog. Once upon a time, Newsonaut was called Newsloops. The name was a mashup of news and Kamloops, reflecting my frequent commentary on local news for the newspaper where I wo...

Newsonaut
05 Aug 23:21 • Mark Rogers

Hi, bots — c’mon in!

I’m not really sure that I care whether bots scrape Newsonaut and dump its contents into training grounds for large language models.

In fact, I kind of hope they do. There is nothing sacred on this site. If it gets chewed up and spat out into the primordial soup of the Internet, then so much the better.

Maybe my permuted content will slightly improve the response that someone, somewhere gets from an AI chat. I’m pretty sure any scrapings from Newsonaut would be accurate and possibly, at times, entertaining.

So welcome, bots. I embrace the slopiverse.

Addendum: OK, so they took it all long ago without my consent. A man can dream of freedom, can’t he?

Newsonaut
04 Aug 19:06 • Mark Rogers

My best output since 2020

This marks my 43rd post of the year, which is one more than the 42 I had in 2020. My next goal is to surpass the 64 posts I had in 2014. My best ever was 169 in 2011. In those days, though, it was more like a job. Now, writing has become one of the great pleasures of my life. You can see a graph of my progress on the Explore page.

Newsonaut
03 Aug 19:21 • Mark Rogers

Introducing, Font Lonesome

On the one hand, there are plenty of HTML entities that can be used as icons on your blog. On the other hand, just try finding them! I wrote about this recently when I pointed out that there is indeed unicode for the magnifying glass commonly used for search. It’s just not c...

Newsonaut
03 Aug 03:33 • Mark Rogers

My July replies

#julyreply

I replied three times for Robert Birming’s JulyReply challenge.

He now has a new challenge called AuguStory, where you write the story of your blog. That seems like something I could sink my teeth into.

Here are links to my three July replies:

» I seldom own my books

» Markdown makes learning HTML less scary

» Your metablogging is awesome

Newsonaut
01 Aug 18:33 • Mark Rogers

That time I had my own version of Blaugust, but in Blogtober

Blaugust is upon us, an annual challenge to set goals for the number of times you post in a month. Top prize goes to those how publish every day during August, but even five times will win you a bronze award. This is the first time I have heard of Blaugust, but a few years a...

Newsonaut
26 Jul 22:57 • Mark Rogers

A website from over 20 years ago is preserved in a folder of text files

While looking for something else, I came across a folder on my Mac called “free for X”. In it were a bunch of plain text HTML files which together made up a Mac freeware website that was the predecessor to thriftmac. So I uploaded it to a server, opened the home page and ...

Newsonaut
25 Jul 19:48 • Mark Rogers

My first pixel art

Katrina Evans has started a pixel club based on little windows. I’m an old dog willing to learn new tricks so I headed over to Piskel and gave it a shot using one of Katrina’s window templates. I decided to acknowledge wildfire season with a sunrise in the smoke. An orange orb in the grey was an easy start for a beginner. More often, I have a nice view of rivers, mountains and clear blue skies. If I get better at pixel art, I’ll try to show those instead. Edit: Katrina warned me they can be addictive, and sure enough I now have an animated gif of the Newsonaut rocket taking off.

Newsonaut
22 Jul 20:48 • Mark Rogers

I seldom own my books

#julyreply Michael Harley prefers to read books on an e-reader, and makes sure he truly owns them by stripping off the DRM if possible. » I own my books This is not a problem for me because I mostly borrow books from the library with an app called Libby. The library system w...

Newsonaut
19 Jul 18:38 • Mark Rogers

Markdown makes learning HTML less scary

#julyreply A post by Adam Newbold about how to ensure your website is portable had me thinking about how I sometimes do exactly what he advocates — upload HTML files to a server. Hardcore IndieWeb: Run your own website 100% independently for only $0.01/day The idea is that y...

Newsonaut
16 Jul 16:57 • Mark Rogers

RSS is handy but don't forget to explore the sites

[This post is for RSS Club members only.] RSS Club was started by Dave Rupert as a way of providing RSS-only content. I took it as both a technical challenge and a thought-provoking way of talking about the pros and cons of RSS. One of the things I like most about RSS is tha...

Newsonaut
15 Jul 17:44 • Mark Rogers

RSS Club

This is a test of RSS Club. You should be able to read it in your RSS app, but not on the website.

Newsonaut
13 Jul 20:27 • Mark Rogers

The surprising variety of national flag dimensions

Updated July 21, 2026, to include Vatican City, Togo and Niger. A pet peeve of mine is seeing flags with the wrong dimensions. Maybe I should learn to move on, but I can’t help it. Designers with a love for visual consistency are quite happy to show you every country’s flag ...

Newsonaut
10 Jul 18:01 • Mark Rogers

Explore the hundreds of articles I have posted over the years

I’ve decided that Archive sounds dry and musty. It’s a rare reader who would venture into a section of a blog called Archive. So I’m rebranding to Explore. All my hundreds of post titles are still listed by date and you can click on them to read the articles. But you can als...

Newsonaut
07 Jul 20:57 • Mark Rogers

A design trap at the playground

Sign at a playground A design trap is when you start off with what seems like a good idea, then cling to it even when it obviously isn’t working. It appears that happened with this sign. I have obscured the name of the local body that made it because they had good in...

Newsonaut
03 Jul 16:53 • Mark Rogers

Your metablogging is awesome

Re: Your Metablogging is Lame as Hell

#julyreply

Are you an enthusiastic newcomer to blogging? Write about it!

Do you have tips and tricks that other bloggers might like? Tell us about them!

Did you learn something about blogging that you feel needs to be told? Share it!

Are you blogging about blogging because you think it’s a good way to get attention on Bubbles or Bear Discover? Well, that is kind of annoying. But I’ll read it anyway!

Newsonaut
30 Jun 22:23 • Mark Rogers

The search symbol that needs only seven characters

Back in the day, reporters would record their phone interviews by attaching a suction cup to the back of the earpiece part of the handset. It was attached by wire to a machine that did the recording. You can still buy them. There was a time when their use was widespread enou...

Newsonaut
28 Jun 23:18 • Mark Rogers

The many ways to explore blog posts from personal sites

I have a new page in the main navigation, but it took me three tries to give it a name that seemed right. It’s basically a list of links to feeds that allow you to explore and discover blog posts from independent, personal websites. In my opinion, you’ll find lots more inter...

Newsonaut
22 Jun 23:09 • Mark Rogers

Learning to write on your own is good exercise for your mind

There’s a steep hill at the end of the block that goes through a park with a nice view of the city. It’s the equivalent of about six blocks long. At one time, I would be huffing and puffing by the time I got to the top. If my wife was with me, I would jokingly tell her to le...

Newsonaut
19 Jun 22:50 • Mark Rogers

My 11ty experiment has turned into a time travel story

I took another stab at creating an 11ty site, and this time succeeded. Not only that, but I’ve decided to grow the Neocities blog I made into a work of fiction complete with story and character arc. There are many 11ty tutorials, but the one that caught my eye was this one f...