Reverse RSS Stats

January 28th, 2023
meta, tech
In 2013 I built a weird feature where clicking on "◂◂ RSS" at the top of a post gets you an RSS feed that runs in reverse from that post, with a 'new' old post with the publication of each new new post. It's a bit hard to think about, and reminds me of trying to keep tenses straight when time traveling.

I was reminded of it today when someone submitted the post to HN, so I calculated some stats:

  • If you had subscribed to the reverse feed in 2013 when I introduced it in post 740 you would be down to an empty feed on 2019-06-03 when I published post 1,480.

  • In publishing this post (2,074), someone who subscribed in 2014-10-01 when I published post 1,037 should now be at the end.

  • At my current rate (~200/y) someone who subscribes to the reverse feed on this post today should reach my first post around 2033.

I wish more people offered feeds like this!

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