RTFA: http://rtfa.net/

rtfa.net
read the fucking article

RTFA is four years old today! Four more years! Four more years!

There have been several incarnations of the site during this time-period, starting with a custom Perl script and ultimately arriving at Wordpress. The software engineering setup that supports RTFA has also evolved, such that it’s now version-controlled and deployable to development and production environments. A number of custom utilities operate behind the scenes to enable editors to quickly excerpt and post new entries, and for publishing images. Also, we’re now using Eastern time, instead of Pacific. To me (farkinga) this has been a great opportunity to learn new things and test other things out.

As far as the world is concerned, it’s been a wild and action-packed journey. RTFA covers science, technology, politics, culture, and generally anything that is cool. Within these spheres, so much has changed that it’s hard to recognize the topology of the Internet anymore. Two of the most revolutionary changes of the last four years, in my opinion, are broadband video (i.e. YouTube) and social networking (i.e. MySpace, Facebook). Of course, business and politics have stayed as interesting as ever. The US is still in Iraq and the Dow is back under 10,000.

Subscribe to the feed, visit often, and post comments. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride, and read the fucking article!