Comment by kristjan

I've wanted to read some long-form RSS feeds from the beginning, and friends had use cases for feed filtering, so I built https://sponder.app.

The filtering was easy, but RSS doesn't do "from the beginning" (RFC 5005 exists, but is mostly unused), so scope crept into a webpage-to-RSS tool that lets me convert favorite.site/s/archive - autodetection of the article structure was a fun side quest.

The whole thing is a little function engine (Yahoo Pipes called), so the final goal is `merge(archive, live_feed) | drip(N items per D days)` to have the archive transition seamlessly into current content. I expect I can push that live tomorrow or so.

And of course Podcasts are just RSS, so hey, let's skip reruns. That's doable with filters on the episode description, but with history in place I'll add title similarity checking. I'm trying to think how to recognize cross-promoted episodes too, without having to crawl every podcast.

Importantly, Sponder's _not_ a client. There are enough clients, any many are great. Each implements some subset of features, so Sponder's an intermediary that consumes and publishes pure RSS for us to use anywhere we want.

Project two started over the weekend and is the NYTimes' Pips, but colors. You're building a stained glass window with regional constraints, and the big difference from using dominos is colors can mix. Also, triangles! The engine works, and I'm designing the tutorial and first handful of puzzles now.