Week Four

I'm pushing hard to try and catch up with the course, so hard on the heels of 'Week Three' comes 'Week Four', which is about RSS and newsreader applications.

I'm keeping it lean and simple this week. First up, I was tasked with setting up a free online newsreader, setting up some feeds, and linking to it from this blog. I chose google-reader in order to be consistent with my google-blogger account, and I cheated a little by choosing the bundle of feeds suggested by google staff for new users. Then I picked a few of the more interesting stories to share - I hope. So here it is.

Newsreaders are an interesting idea but much depends on finding a good stream to subscribe to in the first place. Although I'm a fan of LOLcats, pictures of anthromorphised animals in general make me yawn. Although I like news sites such as the English Guardian and Observer, I like to trawl through them when the mood takes me and click on interesting links; as opposed to having everything dumped into my newsreader. I'm not particularly interested in new gadgets because I can't afford them. And blogs? Well, I do a lot of reading. But it's mostly the classics, in book form, in delightfully musty second-hand condition, on a comfortable sofa, at home. A blog has to be pretty damn interesting to compete with that. Something by Alain De Botton would qualify - but guess what? He doesn't have a blog.

That's the thing, see. In this time when so many seem so eager to throw their opinions and the details of their lives into the 'blogosphere', perhaps one should be asking if it's a good idea to do so. Schopenhauer advised that we should keep our private affairs private. Over time we may come to regret that others know personal things. And, as a general rule, it's more advisable to show our intelligence by saying nothing than by speaking; for silence is modest and doesn't offend, while speech 'has something in it of vanity'. The opportunities for choosing one or the other are equally common, but it seems that many pick the fleeting satisfaction of speech over the permanent advantage of silence.