Cutting Through The Noise - A System
This week's edition will be a little bit more techy, a little bit more 'inside baseball' than usual.
I've spoken in previous newsletters about information consumption and how we face a torrent of it in today's climate, fired at out ears and eyes 24/7.
So, this week, I was going to talk a little (a lot) about how I've been fighting the deluge.
If this isn't your thing, that's cool, there are a few links at the end of the piece you may dig and see you next week!
///
Firstly, Newsletters. Pretty much everyone has one these days and they run the gamut from personal journal-like beasts to link roundups. I can't remember who said it, but a comparison was drawn between the initial blogging explosion on the net and the way newsletters are right now. Here are the Newsletters I currently sub to:
- The Two Fisted Homeopape by Ryan K Lindsay
Come on, if you're not already subbed to this, I don't know what to say.
- John Lees' Newsletter by, uh, John Lees
Many of you are probably already acquainted with John's work and I think his newsletter has had a few shout outs in Ryan's newsletter too. The latest newsletter sent out this week was a particular favorite, talking about passion projects in comics. It's well worth a read and will get you fired up and in that #makecomics frame of mind.
- Orbital Operations by Warren Ellis
You know what this is already, right?
- Restricted Frequency by Ganzeer
I think Ellis mentioned this newsletter which is what got me to subscribe. Ganzeer is an artist, writer, and designer who has an excellent serialized comic called The Solar Grid. The newsletter is a nice mix of process and the personal. The latest edition has an interview with James Harvey which was a great read.
- You Snooze You Newsletter by Christof Bogacs
I think Ryan turned me onto this one. A lot of cool process and insight into the #makecomics side of things. Plus, the latest edition has a shout out to this here newsletter!
- HotPod by Nick Quah
I like podcasts. A lot. This newsletter sometimes gets more into analysis and metrics of shows but is also a good source of new shows, trends, etc.
- 7 on 7 podcast reviews by goodlistener
7 short reviews of podcast episodes that came out this week. A good way to learn about new shows.
There are also a bunch of other creator and peer newsletters I'm subscribed to (Ed Brubaker's for instance) but whose publishing schedule is a bit more relaxed. The above all come out weekly.
I think newsletters are a good source of information. They go straight to your inbox, you can peruse them at your leisure without the pressure of an RSS reader or Twitter feed and they're a heck of a lot more personal than a Tweet or Facebook update. Plus, any information contained therein has already, in a sense, been curated. So you're only getting the good stuff.
Another bunch of newsletters I subscribe to are based around websites. Instead of sticking places like Aeon, Brain Pickings or Nautilus into an RSS feeder I just sub to their newsletters. That way you get a weekly (or daily) roundup of their stories. Pick your poison from those and you're good to go.
Despite the death of Google Reader (RIP, good buddy), RSS feed readers are still a thing. I flitted between a bunch of them before settling on NewsBlur. At the time of writing, I am subscribed to 62 RSS feeds. Which sounds a lot, I guess. But NewsBlur's secret sauce is its filters and 'training' features.
Take, for example, The Ringer, the beautiful offspring of the much missed Grantland. It has some excellent articles on film and TV sometimes (their recaps of Legion are a favorite -- watch Legion!), but at the same time publishes a heck of a lot on the NBA, baseball, etc.
What NewsBlur allows you to do is highlight words in the title of a post and then give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. Do the latter and posts containing that word in the future will not show up in your RSS feed, instead they are marked as read . You teach the reader what you do and don't want to see, cutting through the noise once again.
A thumbs up will put a little green dot next to the post in the feed. There may be a particular topic you want to surface a bit more, etc. At this point, this sounds like an advert, but I just think NewsBlur is a really innovative piece of tech in the RSS field that not a lot of people know about.
After that, anything I want to read later goes into Pocket. Pocket is a site (and app) that strips out all of the ads and bloat from an URL and focuses on the text to allow you to read articles offline whenever you want.
I then set up an IFTTT recipe that will shoot any story I favorite in Pocket into Pinboard. Pinboard not only has full-text search (meaning you can type a term and search in any article you have saved in your archive) but it also creates a cached copy of the link in case that link should ever disappear from the web.
This jury-rigged system that has evolved over the years has basically produced a searchable archive of any story or article I found interesting from the last 5-6 years. It is a godsend for finding that one article that inspired a train of thought or story idea.
It may seem a lot, but it's a system that once setup requires nothing in the way of maintenance and easily cuts through the noise of ever-present online chatter.
How does everyone else do it? Send me your systems!
///
Here are the promised links for this week:
- The Spoils of War
This week Trump bombed Syria and suddenly he was 'presidential'.
- Life is a Video Game - Here are the cheat codes
My mileage varies with Mark Manson, but I thought this was pretty much on the money:
I agree with this article. The AI in F.E.A.R is still some of the best around, leaving modern games in the dust and it's all built on simple programmable patterns laid on top of each other.
///
I promise you next week won't be so heavy!
Until then...
I've spoken in previous newsletters about information consumption and how we face a torrent of it in today's climate, fired at out ears and eyes 24/7.
So, this week, I was going to talk a little (a lot) about how I've been fighting the deluge.
If this isn't your thing, that's cool, there are a few links at the end of the piece you may dig and see you next week!
///
Firstly, Newsletters. Pretty much everyone has one these days and they run the gamut from personal journal-like beasts to link roundups. I can't remember who said it, but a comparison was drawn between the initial blogging explosion on the net and the way newsletters are right now. Here are the Newsletters I currently sub to:
- The Two Fisted Homeopape by Ryan K Lindsay
Come on, if you're not already subbed to this, I don't know what to say.
- John Lees' Newsletter by, uh, John Lees
Many of you are probably already acquainted with John's work and I think his newsletter has had a few shout outs in Ryan's newsletter too. The latest newsletter sent out this week was a particular favorite, talking about passion projects in comics. It's well worth a read and will get you fired up and in that #makecomics frame of mind.
- Orbital Operations by Warren Ellis
You know what this is already, right?
- Restricted Frequency by Ganzeer
I think Ellis mentioned this newsletter which is what got me to subscribe. Ganzeer is an artist, writer, and designer who has an excellent serialized comic called The Solar Grid. The newsletter is a nice mix of process and the personal. The latest edition has an interview with James Harvey which was a great read.
- You Snooze You Newsletter by Christof Bogacs
I think Ryan turned me onto this one. A lot of cool process and insight into the #makecomics side of things. Plus, the latest edition has a shout out to this here newsletter!
- HotPod by Nick Quah
I like podcasts. A lot. This newsletter sometimes gets more into analysis and metrics of shows but is also a good source of new shows, trends, etc.
- 7 on 7 podcast reviews by goodlistener
7 short reviews of podcast episodes that came out this week. A good way to learn about new shows.
There are also a bunch of other creator and peer newsletters I'm subscribed to (Ed Brubaker's for instance) but whose publishing schedule is a bit more relaxed. The above all come out weekly.
I think newsletters are a good source of information. They go straight to your inbox, you can peruse them at your leisure without the pressure of an RSS reader or Twitter feed and they're a heck of a lot more personal than a Tweet or Facebook update. Plus, any information contained therein has already, in a sense, been curated. So you're only getting the good stuff.
Another bunch of newsletters I subscribe to are based around websites. Instead of sticking places like Aeon, Brain Pickings or Nautilus into an RSS feeder I just sub to their newsletters. That way you get a weekly (or daily) roundup of their stories. Pick your poison from those and you're good to go.
Despite the death of Google Reader (RIP, good buddy), RSS feed readers are still a thing. I flitted between a bunch of them before settling on NewsBlur. At the time of writing, I am subscribed to 62 RSS feeds. Which sounds a lot, I guess. But NewsBlur's secret sauce is its filters and 'training' features.
Take, for example, The Ringer, the beautiful offspring of the much missed Grantland. It has some excellent articles on film and TV sometimes (their recaps of Legion are a favorite -- watch Legion!), but at the same time publishes a heck of a lot on the NBA, baseball, etc.
What NewsBlur allows you to do is highlight words in the title of a post and then give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. Do the latter and posts containing that word in the future will not show up in your RSS feed, instead they are marked as read . You teach the reader what you do and don't want to see, cutting through the noise once again.
A thumbs up will put a little green dot next to the post in the feed. There may be a particular topic you want to surface a bit more, etc. At this point, this sounds like an advert, but I just think NewsBlur is a really innovative piece of tech in the RSS field that not a lot of people know about.
After that, anything I want to read later goes into Pocket. Pocket is a site (and app) that strips out all of the ads and bloat from an URL and focuses on the text to allow you to read articles offline whenever you want.
I then set up an IFTTT recipe that will shoot any story I favorite in Pocket into Pinboard. Pinboard not only has full-text search (meaning you can type a term and search in any article you have saved in your archive) but it also creates a cached copy of the link in case that link should ever disappear from the web.
This jury-rigged system that has evolved over the years has basically produced a searchable archive of any story or article I found interesting from the last 5-6 years. It is a godsend for finding that one article that inspired a train of thought or story idea.
It may seem a lot, but it's a system that once setup requires nothing in the way of maintenance and easily cuts through the noise of ever-present online chatter.
How does everyone else do it? Send me your systems!
///
Here are the promised links for this week:
- The Spoils of War
This week Trump bombed Syria and suddenly he was 'presidential'.
- Life is a Video Game - Here are the cheat codes
My mileage varies with Mark Manson, but I thought this was pretty much on the money:
- The AI in F.E.A.R" All reactions can be divided up in two ways: Solutions and Distractions.
Solutions are actions and pursuits that resolve a problem preventing it from continuing or happening again in the future. Distractions are actions or pursuits designed to either make the Player unaware of the problem’s existence or to dull the pain the problem may be causing.
If a Player feels they understand a problem and are capable of handling it, they will pursue a Solution. If players are just sick of Life’s shit, then they will likely pursue Distractions to help them pretend the problem isn’t actually there."
I agree with this article. The AI in F.E.A.R is still some of the best around, leaving modern games in the dust and it's all built on simple programmable patterns laid on top of each other.
///
I promise you next week won't be so heavy!
Until then...
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