GUNFIRE GUILLOTINE II

Sol Radguy's blog for things that may or may not be related to Guilty Gear.

Background image is from HELIOGENOMS A•D by Denki Akiba.

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Intro To RSS Feeds

Really Simple Syndication, Really Obtuse Entry.

POSTED: 2025 Aug 19

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Everyone and their grandma on Neocities and Hacker Network's got a blog like this somewhere on their website, but I wanted to have my OWN special boy RSS blog on my OWN special boy website.

That out of the way... I'll keep this short because otherwise I'll be reinventing the wheel.

Recently (as in, like, two weeks before writing this post) I finally got around to looking into this RSS feed thing I keep seeing all over the place. It's old as dirt, I knew that already, but what was it really. Why were geeks and nerds the web over always programming RSS feeds and how was it any different from a newsletter?

It turns out it's more like an opt-in — as opposed to opt-out — type of newsletter slash social media. I regret taking this long to look into it because it's awesome. It's so awesome I've gone and coded an entire new section of my website these past few days just so I can hype up RSS feeds.

So, what is it exactly?

"RSS" stands for "Really Simple Syndication" (usually) and, in short, as its name implies, it's a really simple way to receive updates from your favorite websites, blogs, and podcasts all in one place. You slap a URL into your reader software of choice and whenever the webmaster of the site updates the feed's .XML file, you get a new post in your reader.

The best part about all this is that there are NO ADS, no spam, no trackers, no algorithm, and no way for assholes to guilt you into staying subscribed if you wanna bail. That's the opt-in part. You choose when to subscribe and it's your choice if and when you leave. Isn't that crazy? Tech like that still kickin' around in 2025?! I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but the next great thing about it is that it's non-proprietary and simple as hell. It's not an Adobe or Apple product where it's all special file formats locked behind some bullshit subscription service and DRM. The code itself is almost like HTML's cousin; if you know anything about HTML and glance at it, it just makes sense. It's so beautiful.

Now for the pile of links I've been saving up for this.

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History of RSS & Usage Guides

Wikipedia RSS Article
More about the history and technical details of RSS as a whole.
"RSS Is Cool" blog by Irisnet
I recommend flipping through this if you're interested in the technical side of RSS but not all the fluff. A lot of what's mentioned here (like the RSS feed readers) I'll be re-sharing below, though.
Starikov's RSS Field Guide
This might be a little bit of information overload for anyone only casually curious about RSS, but it's how I first got into it seriously.
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RSS Readers

Feeder
Android only (Google Play Store & .APK download). Really simple/straight-forward RSS reader and the one I use. No AI bullshit, has a tagging system for ordering feeds, nothing crazy. I like it. If you're on Android I recommend this one.
Fluent Reader
Windows, Mac, Linux; Android app. Free and open source desktop reader with a "lite" version for Android.
Mozilla Thunderbird
Windows, Mac, Linux, Android. This is actually an email manager that you can set up to work with RSS. It's mentioned in a few RSS guides/threads but I couldn't be bothered getting it to work when there were easier programs out there. Mozillaheads might be more inclined, though.
Inoreader
iPhone. I don't know anything about this app other than that its name pops up a lot, I just felt bad not having at least one reader on here for people trapped on iPhones. Sorry.
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Finding Feeds

Feedly
A searchable index for website RSS feeds. There's some cool stuff on here. I think Feedly itself is also an RSS reader but you have to make an account to use it and that kind of defeats the purpose.
Starikov's RSS Starter Set
A bunch of different feeds organized by topic curated by Starikov. Most of my readers probably won't enjoy a majority of the feeds listed here, but there's some cool stuff in there.
Neocities' RSS Tag
A lot of people on here have their own RSS feeds. Hop around some sites in the tag and you'll probably find something cool. That's how I found Irisnet's blog.
WordPress websites
Any website running on WordPress has an RSS feed. You can find it by putting /feed at the end of the URL.
Tumblr blogs
I don't know why anyone would do this to themselves, but you can follow any Tumblr blog via RSS too by going to the non-mobile version of a blog (USERNAME.tumblr.com) and putting /rss after the url. Here's mine, for example: solradguy.tumblr.com/rss
A screenshot from an RSS reader showing an entry of a post from Radguy's Tumblr blog. It has a busty Sol Badguy squinting at the viewer with a tiny Freddie Mercury icon in the corner. Text reads 'Sol Badguy pup play reassurance' 'If you're gonna growl... Sol BadguyGuilty Gear Strive...' and 'Cake was baking in the oven and mother was m...''

You could get this lovingly delivered directly into your eyeballs daily.

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SRG Recommended Feeds

Here are some feeds I'm currently tracking that I think people that enjoy my posts or Neocities might like too.

General Interest

Internet Archive Blog — RSS
The official blog for the Internet Archive. They talk about cool archivism stuff on here and things like the technology they use to do it.
Official Guilty Gear Website (English) — RSS
This site runs on WordPress so they've got a secret built-in RSS feed. Get updates on Guilty Gear patch notes and Developer Backyard blog posts. There are feeds in Japanese and Korean too.
GUNFIRE GUILLOTINE II — RSS
Feed for my Neocities' blog. My feed is new so there aren't many posts, but I'm hoping to write more about Guilty Gear things, art, and translation stuff in the future.

Japanese

Maggie Sensei — RSS
Japanese learning.
How To Japanese — RSS
A little more advanced than Maggie-sensei, but updates less often. Also has a podcast.

Neocities Blogs

Eve Greenwood's Blog — RSS
Language learning and conlangs, and some other stuff.
localghost's Blog — RSS
Tech and web stuff.

Fiction

Beneath Ceaseless Skies — RSS
High quality speculative shortform fiction magazine.
Clarkesworld Magazine — RSS
Another quality shortform science fiction/fantasy magazine.

Articles

Longreads — RSS
Articles and blog posts on the longer side. Their curation is incredible, I generally enjoy reading whatever article catches my eye.
The MIT Press Reader — RSS
Excerpts, interviews, and essays from the official MIT Press website. A broad range of topics, though always backed by science and research.
Damn Interesting — RSS (main) - RSS (curated)
Articles on unusual topics from a broad range of things. Optional feed for their curated links of articles from other sites.
Atlas Obscura — RSS
Articles on interesting places or things. This site reminds me a lot of the brief "weird" things articles Cracked used to post back around 2009, in a good way.

Science

An edited XKCD comic of two stick figures talking. The first one says 'Theory of magical science is second nature to us Guilty Gears. So it's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows P.W.A.B Crow Kuruwaba and Absolute World' to which the second figures replies 'And Vastedge of course' and the first 'Of course.' At the bottom the comic reads 'Even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field.''
XKCD — RSS
Science/tech (usually) webcomic. You know XKCD.
NASA — RSS
It's NASA. Spaceships, black holes, stars, technology.
Quanta Magazine — RSS
Science magazine that covers a little bit of every field from computer science to biology to math and physics.
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eat the feed
A transparent image of Sol's Mercury emblem in black with an orange outline.
Sol Badguy sitting in a pile of rubble, smoking. A broken cross is behind him and the atmosphere is gritty and gloomy.