It seems that weblog feeds are made available in a few ways.
The Hands That Feed You
On one hand, you can get a feed of entries from all a weblog's available categories. OK, this is great, but sometimes I really don't want to waste our collective bandwidth if I think one or a few categories aren't really to my particular liking. Now, while that doesn't necessarily add up to a lot of bandwidth on the individual scale, it does add up to a lot of bandwidth on the collective scale. A lot of people pulling from popular sites (304/Not Modified aside) can be "expensive". On the other hand, you can with some weblog software, get a feed for each individual category. OK. That's great. That means that I can selectively choose which feeds I want to aggregate. However, let's say I like 8 out of 10 of a particular weblog's categories. It's not that much of a hassle to put the 8 feeds into my aggregator, but let's face it, it is a hassle.
Three Hands Are Better Than Two
I got to thinking this morning that one of the qualities I like about
blojsom is its flexibility in being able to define, in some regular fashion, how the blog author wants to present information using flavors and the default category mapping. In addition to the two hands mentioned above, blojsom adds the ability to map a subset of categories to the default or "/" category based on a particular flavor. For example, for the default flavor, HTML, you get entries from all of my categories for this blog if you just hit
http://www.blojsom.com/blog/. However, for any of the syndication flavors (RSS and such), you get a subset of the categories from the blog,
http://www.blojsom.com/blog/?flavor=rss2. OK, so it's only one category (my moblog) that's left out, but it's still left out. Thank goodness
The Deck Is Still In My Favor
So, that's good stuff there with blojsom. However, the deck is still stacked in my favor in that for whatever flavor you choose, I as the blog author am telling you what content you're going to get. <kyles-mom>
What what what?!</kyles-mom>. Do you care? Honestly I don't know. But I want to give you a choice.
Playing Fair or No Aces Up My Sleeve
This morning I whipped up a "Choose Your Own Adventure" plugin. Let me describe it with some screenshots.
- Screenshot 1: A sample blog demonstrating a blog where all the categories get shown for the default flavor, HTML.
- Screenshot 2: A simple form allowing the user to choose a subset (or all) of the categories from that blog and a choice in which flavor to see the blog.
- Screenshot 3: The same blog where the user has chosen they only want to see the Java category for the HTML flavor.
- Screenshot 4: The same blog where the user has chosen the "Category with space" and "moblog" categories for the RSS2 flavor.
Is this crude? Yes, but it only took a few minutes. Is it a bit crufty? Maybe. Does it work? Yes. Is it a step in the right direction? It's a step in some direction, forward I hope. Why would I want to use this? Because you like what I say about blojsom and Java but don't give two diddly squats about my opinions on Jane's Addiction.
It's a way of saying, "I like you, but I don't like like you."
So, maybe with some pimpin' or if anyone picks up this entry, we'll see where this goes. For now, it's an interesting experiment that I have yet to unleash from the lab.
Thoughts?
Update: 1:34 PM
I read the
"Worse is worse" post. The last line I adapted to my thoughts here, "it is time for us to reject the simple-minded interpretation of the slogan, and start putting out weblogs that really are better (on the dimension of goodness that our readers have, not necessarily our own)."
Here's the photo of the front room tree as Russell requested.
And what's that shiny box in the lower left of the photo? Is is Cristal ... drink of choice for the true playa? Well, I'll leave it to you to ponder. I've got to go now, Puff Daddy is at the dizzo and we be up out this biznatch for the evening. Time to roll y'all!
Inventory (front to back): Row 1: Bacardi Rum, Bombay Sapphire Gin, Absolut Vodka, Lime Juice, Grenadine, Johnnie Walker Red, Sambuca, Christian Brothers Brandy. Row 2: Don Juan Mescal, Don Julio Tequila, Black Velvet, Ricard Pastise, Carolans Irish Creme. Row 3: Buttershots, Triple Sec, Vermouth (Extra Dry), Cointreau, Cherry Brandy, Chambord. Row 4: Apple Puckers, Vermouth (Rosso), Campari, Bushmills, Seagrams 7, Jack Daniels, Sabroso, Godiva. Row 5: 99 Bananas, 99 Apples, Creme de Menthe (clear + green). Row 6: Yellow Tail Merlot, Shiraz, and Chardonnay.
Let's just say there's even more top shelf liquor in the cabinet, freezer, and wine cellar that won't be making it out for the holiday party.
