Welcome to the new Creativity Hacker. If you remember the old site, things will look very different this time around, but there’s method beneath the madness. Follow me down below the fold to find out how I’m organizing things this time around. And more importantly, why.
Take Back Control of What You Read
The internet used to be a place where you decided what you wanted to read. You visited sites you trusted, you followed writers you respected, and then you read their stuff at your own pace. But these days, most people get their information from social media and algorithmic feeds—streams of content carefully tuned to maximize the platform’s benefit, not yours. And if you don’t read something right now, it’s lost forever in the ever-churning sea of “new.” That’s not an accident - it’s designed that way to keep you hooked.
Well, I’m not interested in playing that game. So here’s what I’m doing differently.
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First of all, I no longer publish a newsletter because that just replaces one algorithm telling you what to be interested in (Big Tech’s) with another one (me). Instead, I’ll just post stuff here on whatever topics interest me, and let you decide if there’s anything here that you want to keep an eye on.
And the key to unlocking all this personal power is this:
That icon is like your secret agent watching my pages for updates, and any time you like, you can ask your agent for a report. You’ll find them all over the site. Is there a project you’re enjoying? You’ll find one at the top of the page, in the breadcrumb. (Those are the links just under the site logo, that show you where you are in the site.) Each level of the hierarchy has its own watch icon. Or maybe there’s a specific theme keyword that interests you? There’s one on that theme’s listing page too, or listed beside each keyword at the bottom of an article. There’s even one at the bottom of every page that you can use to track the whole site.
This idea isn’t new. The whole thing is based on a technology that’s almost as old as the web itself: RSS feeds. No tracking, no AI, no manipulative engagement tactics—just the latest content, on whatever topics you want, and only delivered when you ask for it.
How Does That Work?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a way to follow a website’s content without relying on social media or email. To make it work, install an RSS app and tell it which sites and pages you’re interested in. (It can be any website, not just mine.) Then, when you’re in the mood to catch up on stuff, open the app and it will list any new content that has been added to those sites since you last checked. Think of it as a custom-built newspaper, curated entirely by you.
To follow a feed, find one of those RSS feed icons you want to monitor and copy the URL it links to. Give that URL to your RSS app, and it will do the rest.
You can follow dozens, or even hundreds, of web sites this way without having to go to each site manually and look around to see what’s changed. Your RSS app will tell you which sites have new articles, and even show you a preview of what they’re about.
There are lots of different RSS apps that can do this for you, and even web sites, if you prefer not to install another app. Either way, many of these tools also have databases full of RSS-friendly sites, organized by topic, so they can be another great way to explore your favorite subjects and find relevant content to add to your feed.
But if you don’t know where to start in choosing an RSS tool, here are three that I’ve used myself:
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Feedly (user-friendly and widely used)
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Feeder (open source, lightweight)
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NewsBlur (has both web and app interfaces, open-source, customizable)
Can You Combine Feeds?
Yes, you can. I can’t generate a different custom feed for every possible combination of sections and tags, because that would create an unmanageable number of feed pages, but you can combine multiple feeds yourself in your RSS app. Just tell your app about each one and it will watch them all for you.
Why RSS Matters
RSS is more than a convenience—it’s a way to take back control over what you read. It removes the manipulation, the noise, and the commercial incentives that shape so much of online content.
If you want to read what interests you—not what an algorithm decides is good for engagement—RSS is the way forward. This site is my small contribution to that idea.
