Friday, November 22, 2013

The Post-Google Reader Blues

Every now and again, I hit news burnout. I hit the wall earlier this year and haven't been regularly reading the news for the last few months. While I was on my news hiatus, we as a society lost Google Reader. I've attempted on several occasions to get Feedly to work, and finally got it sorted out on Friday morning. I made a little effort to use Pulse on my Kindle Fire, but it's fairly tedious to use, so I haven't taken to it like I did to Google Reader.

As I was sorting Feedly out, I went to look at a blog I used to enjoy, Abu Muqawama. The author, Andrew Exum, took a leave of absence a little over a year ago, and left the blog to a couple of long-term guest authors. While reviewing my old feeds, I discovered not only that Exum has discontinued the blog, but that it's taken less than a month for the Center for a New American Security to straight up delete it, in its entirety. I'm actually rather upset, because there are several of Exum's posts that I would have copied and saved for my own purposes. There are also rumblings that the Ink Spots blog has gone defunct, though it's at least still present.

At any rate, something else that I've come up with, using my mad HTML editing skills, is my own local HTML file (built from the OPML file I exported from Google Reader) that organizes my feeds. It's much lower tech than Google Reader, Feedly, or Pulse, but it has the virtue of being a touch more reliable than free services (or blogs) that can disappear, even without any sort of notice.

Just in case you're curious what's currently in my feed, have a look:

General News
Site; RSS: BBC News - NE Scotland, Orkney & Shetland
Site; RSS: CNN.com - WORLD
Site; RSS: Guardian World News
Middle East News
Site; RSS: al Arabiya English - Middle East
Site; RSS: al Jazeera English
Site; RSS: Arab Times
Site; RSS: BBC News - Middle East
Site; RSS: CNN.com - WORLD/Middle East
Site; RSS: The Economist: Middle East and Africa
Site; RSS: Kuwait Times
Site; RSS: Memri Latest Reports
Site; RSS: Muscat Daily Oman News
Site; RSS: Oman Observer
Site; RSS: Oman Tribune
Site; RSS: Site Intelligence Group - Jihadist News
Site; RSS: Times Of Oman
Global Security News
Site; RSS: 1913 Intel
Site; RSS: Abu Muqawama
Site; RSS: CNN Security Clearance
Site; RSS: CSIS: Event Feed
Site; RSS: CSIS: Publication Feed
Site; RSS: FAS Strategic Security Blog
Site; RSS: Foreign Affairs
Site; RSS: Foreign Policy
Site; RSS: Guardian: Julian Borger's global security blog
Site; RSS: Ink Spots
Site; RSS: Kevin Hanrahan
Site; RSS: Michael J. Totten's blog
Site; RSS: Michael Totten
Site; RSS: Michael Yon - Online Magazine
Site; RSS: Science of Global Security & Armed Conflict
Site; RSS: Small Wars Journal
Site; RSS: Spacewar.com
Site; RSS: The Long War Journal (Site-Wide)
Site; RSS: Wired.com Danger Room
Site; RSS: Wired.com Threat Level
Site; RSS: Understanding War
Site; RSS: War Is Boring
Podcasts
Site; RSS: BBC Documentaries
Site; RSS: BBC Global News
Site; RSS: BBC Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews
Site; RSS: BBC Newshour
Site; RSS: BBC Xtra Arabic
Site; RSS: The Faroe Islands Podcast
Site; RSS: Fit for Duty
Site; RSS: The Heritage Foundation - Past Events
Site; RSS: The History Chicks
Site; RSS: KSL Nightside Project
Site; RSS: The Michael Medved Show
Site; RSS: NASACast Audio
Site; RSS: Orkney Talking Newspaper
Site; RSS: Prime Minister's Questions
Site; RSS: The Sporkful
Site; RSS: War Studies' Podcast
Webcomics
Site; RSS: AmazingSuperPowers
Site; RSS: Ctrl+Alt+Del
Site; RSS: Cyanide and Happiness
Site; RSS: Filibuster Cartoons
Site; RSS: Pearls Before Swine
Site; RSS: Penny Arcade
Site; RSS: Real Life Comics
Site; RSS: Romantically Apocalyptic
Site; RSS: Terminal Lance
Site; RSS: Wondermark
Site; RSS: xkcd.com
Pictures
Site; RSS: Astronomy Picture of the Day
Site; RSS: Uploads from Callum McKain
Site; RSS: Uploads from chimpaction
Site; RSS: Uploads from Defence Images
Site; RSS: Uploads from Official U.S. Navy Imagery
Site; RSS: Uploads from the Oregon Military Department
Site; RSS: Uploads from Orkneyjar
Site; RSS: Uploads from The Central Intelligence Agency
Site; RSS: Uploads from The United States Army
Site; RSS: Uploads from United States Marine Corps
General Interest
Site; RSS: McSweeney's
Site; RSS: Musings from a Stonehead

You know what they say: knowledge is power.

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