This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Eric Hodel. Original Post: Finding Random Reading Feed Title: Segment7 Feed URL: http://blog.segment7.net/articles.rss Feed Description: Posts about and around Ruby, MetaRuby, ruby2c, ZenTest and work at The Robot Co-op. Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Eric Hodel Latest Posts From Segment7

I’m really missing what reddit used to give me, which was things I liked to read that I didn’t know I wanted to read on the front page. Now reddit is full of dups and political stuff I don’t care about. It also has a recomendation feature never worked for me, I couldn’t tell the difference between it and the home page.

Google News solves the dup problem but has too much stuff I don’t care about. Sometimes it makes me laugh, but it still doesn’t tell me what to read, or even what I probably will like.

The recommendation service I love is Netflix’s, I’ve rated over 350 movies now and it is spookily good at picking movies I like. For example 11:14 has a silly-sounding plot summary:

Five seemingly random story lines intersect at precisely 11:14 p.m. in this innovative drama-thriller written and directed by newbie filmmaker Greg Marcks. Even though they’re strangers, Buzzy, Mark, Cheri, Jac and Eddie will become a part of one another’s lives—even if it kills them.

I forgot why I added it to my queue. When it arrived I thought it would be silly, but I really enjoyed it, and that wasn’t the first movie I’ve experienced this with. Also, it tells me to watch things like Afro Samurai and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy that I would never hear about or know about otherwise.

What I really want is Netflix for for my random web reading. I don’t care about what’s popular, I care about what is well-written and interesting. Does this kind of thing exist yet?

Until then, I think I’m going to switch to clicking wikipedia’s Random article button when I get bored.