{"id":104,"date":"2005-11-02T18:12:39","date_gmt":"2005-11-03T00:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2005\/11\/02\/really-simple-syndication-isnt\/"},"modified":"2008-02-11T23:29:21","modified_gmt":"2008-02-12T05:29:21","slug":"really-simple-syndication-isnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/11\/really-simple-syndication-isnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Really Simple Syndication Isn’t"},"content":{"rendered":"
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock<\/font><\/h6>\n

Wednesday, November 2, 2005.<\/strong> There is nothing simple about Really Simple Syndication. RSS makes little sense. I finally understand that with it I can create a personal Internet connection for all of my favorite sites to let me know when they update; I think I get a phone call. But why? One to 10 times a day I manually click my bookmarks of Romenesko<\/a>, Salon<\/a>, Slate<\/a>, and Jon Carroll’s column<\/a> and James Lileks’ The Bleat<\/a>. Once a week I check Roger Ebert<\/a>, and the Washington Post<\/a> and New York Times<\/a> book pages, as well as see if Moby Lives<\/a> is still down. RSS does this for me? Big deal.<\/font><\/p>\n

Rather than drop in some funny bit or longer, reflective and unfunny essay, I’ve spent some days trying to figure out how to make Brick a true blog. I’m not a hi-tech idiot, or a low one, either, but reading about code — and, worse, reading supposed clear explanations about code — turns my brain to a large cotton ball, not as white and fluffy as it should be, either.<\/font><\/p>\n

Why? Actually, putting an answer to that in words and basic grammar is tough, but it clarifies what I want from a blog, if a blog is what I want. (Now there is a classic sequence of faulty logic.)<\/font><\/p>\n

Blogs made with even freeware are sophisticated yet easy to update and easy to upload — and both can be done anywhere there’s computer access with an Internet connection. (Now, apparently, a blogger even can use a cell phone, LordLoveADuck.)<\/font><\/p>\n

(I created this Web site with Dreamweaver 4 (circa 2002 C.E.) and still upload with the FTP “Fetch,” on what now is called Macintosh Classic. I have no trouble with either and have redesigned entirely and still maintain the Web sites of two non-profits this way.)<\/font><\/p>\n

I am not interested in “trackbacks” (Google this yourself and best of luck) and certainly not putting the comments of others on my own site — what a lot to manage. It’s the searchability I think is missing, though. RSS provides this, as does the similar Atom business, by “pinging” when I make an update of my site. (Maybe I should take a break and do a ping myself. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Yes, I washed my hands afterward.)<\/font><\/p>\n

I am pretty sure I can just cut-and-paste the XML code high in “currentbrick” for automatic pings, which refreshes the searchability of my Brick. I understand I could create a blog then direct it here to the Brick pile. Then again, my site has had two 400-plus-hit days in the last two weeks. That’s plenty. Who are these people? Perhaps I needn’t bother whizbanging it up. -30-<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, November 2, 2005. There is nothing simple about Really Simple Syndication. RSS makes little sense. I finally understand that with it I can create a personal Internet connection for all of my favorite sites to let me know when they update; I think I get a phone call. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technical-difficulties"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":213,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/06\/over-before-you-know-it-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":104,"position":0},"title":"Over Before You Know It","author":"Ben S. 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Maybe try again in a day or two. -30-","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1421,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/06\/a-man-for-all-cats\/","url_meta":{"origin":104,"position":4},"title":"A Man for All Cats","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"VENTURA, Calif. -- Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle may be an anachronism twice over, writing a humor column five times a week. That makes him a columnist hero. Sure I like some of his pieces better than others, which might mean he's uneven. But it's likely more of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Few Bullets More"","block_context":{"text":"Few Bullets More","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/ventura-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":96,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/06\/self-evident\/","url_meta":{"origin":104,"position":5},"title":"Self evident","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, June 7, 2005: Why is it that very smart people do such stupid things? I am a very smart person so I should know. -30-","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}