The Joe reading list

I’ve been using Google Reader for the past few months to monitor some of my favorite blogs and news sites. I follow 10 to 15 sites at any one time. More than that, and I don’t have enough time to read it all: less than that, and I feel uninformed.

My list changes regularly, since the quality of feeds (and my interest in them) varies over time. Here’s what I’m currently watching.

ATW Daily News
Some of you may have noticed that I’m into the airline industry. ATW is basically the trade journal for airline managers, and it constantly has good news and gossip about what’s going on with Virgin America, the US-EU open skies agreement and other stuff most of you probably aren’t too interested in.

Coming Anarchy
Besides being friends with the authors, I find the material on CA to be consistently compelling, even if I don’t agree with it 50% of the time. It’s more interesting than reading the international section of the newspaper, that’s for sure.

Digg
I don’t keep this in Google Reader: I just have the top 5 stories on my home page, so I have instant amusement whenever I want it. GREAT for discovering random things you wouldn’t otherwise be looking for: the most recent gem I found through Digg was this directory of free online education links.

Frugal Cuisine
A blog specializing in cheap and tasty recipes, which are exactly what I need while I’m stuck in the US and living on student loans. It’s on hiatus right now, but I’m definitely looking forward to future posts once the author is finished moving.

Get Rich Slowly
This is an awesome blog on personal finance, particularly saving money. I’ve read a few like this, but Get Rich Slowly is the most consistent, and it regularly links to the better articles on other personal finance blogs. Reading these stories inspired me to start tracking my personal spending, and will (by my estimates) get me out of student loan debt a couple of years earlier than I otherwise anticipated.

Head of State Update
This is a really fun blog written by the author of Filibuster Cartoons. He follows the personalities who lead various countries around the world, as well as national elections and other interesting political stories. This site pretty much makes up for my not having an Economist subscription.

Japan Economy News
I lurk on this site quite a bit. I’m not an econ nerd, but I like this site because it’s kind of contrarian to what’s published elsewhere, and being able to see both sides of the argument makes me feel less stupid.

Lifehack
Deceptively similar to the much more popular Lifehacker, which links to all sorts of productivity tips and nifty software. I used to read the latter all the time, but after a while I noticed that I only liked 25% of the articles, since the other 75% were either (a) cheap crafts projects or (b) obvious computer tips like Firefox updates and “how to change your Windows desktop.” Lifehack is sort of like Lifehacker with that 75% of chaff removed, although it’s a bit more business and work-oriented.

Morgan Stanley Global Economic Forum
Adamu introduced me to this one. Probably the best free economics-related newsfeed you’ll find.

NewsOnJapan.com
I used to have a “Japan” search on Google News: now I just follow this feed, which reposts headlines of Japan-related articles from a bunch of different English-language news sites.

Steve Olson
I honestly don’t remember how I found him, but he’s a great read. Steve is sort of a self-help author, and his anecdotal blogging style kind of reminds me of Dale Carnegie. He’s very business-oriented, and he tries not to draw his platitudes out too far before grounding them in reality, which makes him better than most in this genre (in my opinion).

Wall Street Journal Law Blog
This is one of the better sources for gossip on what’s going on in the courts and the big US law firms. I used to read Above the Law as well, but it tends to be more frivolous, and the author’s use of the imperial “we” gets old after a while. WSJ covers all the “important” stories, which are really all I have time to keep track of anyway.

3 thoughts on “The Joe reading list”

  1. Hey Joe, thanks…I haven’t even made the site ‘public’ yet…just got it up and running and trying to get about a month’s worth of posts before I start making an effort to get some readers. So I left comments on a few blogs just to test if people would come, if they would read and if I got any feedback…thanks again!

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