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Current Mood: bouncy

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so like, many, wtf is "RSS" or "atom?", or: how can i be consistently updated on what you post?

i'm so glad you asked, hypothetical reader! if all goes to plan, you may have even clicked on a link directly on my homepage over at viscountexx.buzz!

i'll split this up between two sections: what RSS is, and then how to make use of it.

what RSS (and atom) is

so you know websites? you best start believing in them, 'cause you're in one. different pages on the web are made of magic spells crafted from the runes we speak in (latin script plus punctuation marks), and the language of these spells is called the "hypertext markup language", or HTML. this spell will tell your web browser to show all the text that's inside it, in all sorts of fancy ways. "tags" tell your browser "That's a paragraph" or "that's a navigation section"!

RSS is super similar! it's a kind of webpage, for example here's a link to mine! If you look at this page, your browser will probably tell you it's not HTML, however. That's because it's in a very closely related (parentally so. or a superset, whatever.) language - XML, the extensible markup language. Where HTML has specific tags that tell your browser how to display the text and images on your screen, XML is more broad. It defines tags that can be read, primarily by programs but ideally by people too!

let's take an example real quick. <title>Many, Viscountexx of Chitin</title> this is a tiny piece of things, but all it rly means is that between these two title tags (enclosed in <> to tell the computers what's up, with </title> meaning it's "over"), is the text that should be the title of my page! now, any program or person who reads this, knows what the title is. and tags can nest inside other tags, too! from here, RSS has a standard of what tags mean what things. i think you can put arbitrary ones, but RSS is there so programs know to look for the title, description, blog posts & webcomic pages, podcast audio files (that's right! podcasts work the same way! even the ones on Apple Podcasts!) if you're wondering what atom is - it's still XML, but the standards and tags are slightly more updated. most things can use atom or RSS if they want!

so, RSS is a kind of webpage, but you don't read it with a web browser. instead, the programs that read it are called... RSS readers! and you know what they do? on a set interval, they just... refresh the page. and if there's differences, new posts from last time they looked, they download those (and the podcast files, or images, or whatever else). then they can send a notification to you, via email, phone push notification, or just wait until you look at the program yourself!

wow cool! how do i use one to stay updated?

i thought you'd never ask, dear reader! first of all, you're going to need an RSS reader. RSS is pretty old, which means there are lots of options here but some may seem clunky, and some have died. infamously, google reader was a service that Google decided was useless and unprofitable, despite all the people who were still relying on it. in any case - i personally use the app Feeder for android, available here on the "play store'' or f-droid. it's completely free and doesn't contain any ads, and it generally does what i ask it to! you can also look into AntennaPod for podcasts, on a related note.

now, from here, all you need is the link to your RSS feed. simply add a feed to your reader, tell it how often to refresh all your feeds, how it should notify you, organize things... some readers probably even let you filter out posts by keywords and fancy stuff like that. enjoy being regularly updated whenever your faves post stuff, all without any need for anything except refreshing a url on the internet!

if i got anything wrong or inaccurate or just in need of clarification, pls let me know! and if you already have a favorite RSS reader, please recommend it in the comments so people can know about their options!

Current Mood: thonking

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on difficulty, "beginner projects", and computers

so a pattern i see a lot, MAINLY across various computer related fields, is someone responding to a thing labeled as "easy" with "oh my god no it's not?" from someone who has never done a task anything like the one they're trying to do. and i'm not going to say people are wrong for this reaction! partially, here, i think that pushing people into your hobbyist activities like installing linux or self hosting your own website by labeling them as super easy for Anyone to do, is iffy. bad practice, even.

however™, in these situations, i think about hobbies outside computers. and this is aimed at both prospective project-doers, and project-creators who want people to use their stuff! but like, go look at a "beginner"... sewing project, for example. for a beginner sewing project, you need:

at least a needle, if you're not doing machine stitching - i would argue using a machine can still be a beginner activity, but that's up for debate - you should still know how to use a sewing machine if you're gonna use one. that's a power tool and it CAN hurt you.
knowledge of how to thread a needle
thread
fabric
pins or tape
an iron
knowing how to make at LEAST one type of stitch and finish it so your shit doesn't come unraveled

these things are obtainable! not expensively, you might even have all of them already. or some of them! and you can often look up specific tutorials for the stitches you need, or you might look up "hey my fabric is bunching up, why" and find some useful guides on how to prevent it. but it doesn't make the project not easy for the field of sewing. a good tutorial for a beginner project SHOULD include at least information like "if you don't know what this is, here's where to get that info" if not full explanations.

note: to the people making tech projects? put this shit in your docs/tutorials. do not assume someone knows what a firewall, a port, or a router is if it's a self hosting project. don't assume they know what SWAP is if they're setting up a linux machine! give ppl the opportunity to learn.

but the big problem i see happening a lot is that "using a computer" is a vague broad field that has all its skills globally transferrable. "know how to use a computer? then installing linux should be easy!" is a silly statement because these fields are all different but connected:

programming
playing video games
using a word processor or other GUI applications
using a terminal for text commands
networking
digital audio
chatting with your friends on the internet
building PCs
modding laptops
and much much more!

a field of hobbyist craft will always have a different set of required prior knowledge and tools than another field. installing linux is easy if:

you understand what an operating system is
you have hard drives and a spare usb stick
you have access to another computer in case something is messed up
you understand what hard drive partitions are
you understand what a filesystem is
and again, much more - there's a lot of requisite knowledge!

this means it's not something anyone can just do without any research or time investment. which is, again, true of every single hobby. maybe you can sketch but you struggle with lineart, or you don't own paint. that's okay. you're not an expert in everything. but you can learn, and you shouldn't put the cart before the horse unless that's how you learn (i sure fucking do. i'm absolutely gonna sew a plushy or a bag as my first real sewing project since i was a kid.)

i hope this ramble made sense! 💖

Current Mood: excited

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first post

hello world!!

hello hello i'm here on dreamwidth now!!! i don't know what's in store for me using this whole thing but i'm gonna find out, probably post some poetry, recipes, etc!