I want to thank whoever recommended The Browser to me. A hunt through the blog comments and email yielded no name, so you remain our mystery informant.
In March, I wrote here that I felt uneducated, with respect to the world. Everyone gave me great recommendations.
Six months later, The Browser has made perhaps the most noticeable difference in my knowledge, or at least to my sense of my own knowledge. What I actually know or don’t know, well, who can say, of course. But in the past 6 months I’ve read articles on Putin, power politics, US foreign policy, historical research, the workings of the brain, and most recently an article from Outdoors about the effects of lightening strikes on humans.
How does the site work? The editor and staff read widely and digitally (if that is a word), hunting for intelligence. Then they clip and present the first few sentences of each article deemed worthy, with a link to the full original. We, the readers, have access to 5 free click-throughs a year. You can cheat the system, by searching for the articles yourself, but why, when a 12-month subscription is only $20?
I find that reading the beautifully written, occasionally arcane, wide-ranging articles from the Browser, along with general news snippets from the Internet, and a few sources in the areas of most personal interest (fashion, design, and women’s issues), makes me feel (at last) like a worthwhile citizen.
OK, throw in local TV for more discussion of the weather than you might think possible and breaking news about the Bay Area.
And, I subscribe to the Browser via Feedly, which is also how I read blogs. Now I think I’ll just add Refinery 29, for complete light-hearted nonsense, (also horoscopes), and I will finally have created the Privilege[d] News Of The World I’ve been waiting for since the first word was made binary.
New blog tagline? Making Fewer Uninformed Observations Since March of 2014.
Have a wonderful weekend, oh you citizens of the world, and thank you for sharing your non-trivial intelligence with me.
14 Responses
Thank you for mentioning The Browser! I’ll go and take a look! I feel smarter already.
My pleasure:).
Thanks, for the information on The Browser. I’ve fallen off my previous reading schedule over time and am beginning to feel like quite the dunderhead. I will look into it.
I think you will love it.
I’ll have to check out The Browser–thanks for the tip! I do like Feedly. It works very simply.
Yes, and I find their UI is getting better and better. Hope you like the Browser articles.
I’ve been using Longform.org, which seems like it’s similar to Browser with subjects ranging from sports to foreign policy, fashion, Ebola, and seemingly everything in between (although click-throughs are free). One of the articles I read this weekend was the one you mention about lightning strikes on humans- fascinating.
Ah I’d heard of Longform, just hadn’t investigated yet. Thanks.
I admire that you want to learn more about what’s going on in the world. I seem to want to know less, and don’t even feel bad saying I don’t know enough about something to have an opinion. Seems geriatric, something I maybe should rectify?
Before, when I was working, my response was just like yours. It’s only now that I have so much time, and since I have also expanded my blog topics. I felt that if I was going to know anything about complex topics, I wanted to know the intelligent stuff.
I’ll try The Browser because lately, I’ve been thinking there are too many lazy writers who don’t even bother to research what they’re writing about.
One site with the best of the best sounds great.
I think they hand out journalism degrees like they hand out candy. So much crap gets churned out in the name of constant content, and most of it isn’t worth reading. Sound byte writing.
These articles are definitely not sound bytes.
Hi Lisa,
It was I who recommended The Browser to you via email rather belatedly to your original posting regarding educational reading. I’m so glad that you’re finding it interesting and useful!
Mary
Mary, I thank you!
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