I haven't found anything that beats a quick RSS scan to keep up with both secure internal feeds (using basic auth) and public feeds.

NetNewsWire synchs read state across Mac, iPhone, iPad use. It's fast, simple, and quick to scan.

Too bad that some sites no longer offer RSS/Atom support.

An early CDC 9 track drive about the size of a refrigerator had a great party trick.

Each drive had two reels and two columns to maintain slack when the the tape reels reversed or stopped. When a column loaded you got a loud, satisfying PHONKKK as the vacuum pulled the loop of tape to the bottom of the column.

Each drive had two manual feed buttons to spin the tape in one direction, or the other.

And no interlock.

So all you had to do was load a tape (it was traditional to find a fellow graduate student with thesis data on tape, and do a quick swap with a scratch tape).

Load the tape.

Then press both buttons at once, listen to the PHONKS, watch the reels spin madly, stretching the tape to a tiny thread until it broke, provoking another round of PHONKS.

and listen for the scream.

I believe CDC added an interlock