A few subscriptions for 2013

I haven’t been writing much here at Snarkmarket, but I do still lurk in the Old World. By which I mean of course: Google Reader. And what feeds there do I follow? Here are a few you might not know about. If you follow them, I guarantee your 2013 will be just a little bit more interesting:

• Kevin Slavin’s Fresser is consistently smart, weird, provocative. He’s a master of the tumblr aside, or tag-on, or whatever it’s called. Here’s a good example. He also posts the occasional glimpse into what is an interesting peripatetic life.
• I’ve mentioned M. John Harrison several times here before. Besides being one of the best fiction writers in any genre of the whole early 21st century, he’s somehow a virtuoso web writer, with a style all his own. His Ambiente Hotel is perhaps my single favorite feed. I think I find its opacity and misdirection refreshing in a world of web content that goes down a little too easy; that knows its analytics dashboard a little too well.
• I’m biased, but you know, my mom’s tumblr is really very good. Bits and pieces, words and images, all orbiting a few deep themes.
• I almost hate to give this one away, because it’s such a treasured gem: Trivium is an infrequently-updated blog about… what exactly? Super-serious computer science? Algorithms? Set theory, crazy math, a bit of art? All of those things. My advice: subscribe, and even if you don’t understand any of the links—seriously, like none at all—you will enjoy the atmosphere. And you might even begin to imagine yourself a philosopher-programmer, almost gnostic in your meditations…
• I have no idea how Noah Brier manages to post so much when he is simultaneously running a super-successful startup. Perhaps it’s just his startup’s content-selection algorithm posting on his behalf? Either way: there is just tons of consistently good stuff here, all at the nexus of media, technology, and culture.
• Matt Webb’s posts are rare but oh they are good. This is what RSS is for, these days: you set a snare, leave it, and trap for yourself the words you want to read most. Trust me, just subscribe and wait for the feed to turn bold. It might take a few months. It will be worth it.