* Avoid headlines that make me angry, unless the news is really important. The discussion is never worthwhile, don't even bother.
* WSJ, Bloomberg, and WaPo won't let me read articles with w3m, so I skip the article. If the topic is tremendously interesting, I'll check the comments.
* TED and nautil.us are the information verison of empty calories. I've never gained any long term benefit from reading them.
* Javascript framework churn is intense. It's not worth trying to keep up with the details unless you do web development. If, like me, you don't, it's still worth reading the headlines to keep abreast of what frameworks are popular, what paradigms they embody, and who's pushing them. This changes every six months or so.
* It's always worth scanning the comments in threads about programming languages. There are some really interesting people who sometimes jump into those threads and blow your mind.
* Know your prejudices and look for information that challenges them. My prejudices are that I think Windows is lame, that MacOS is infuriating, that Javascript is terrible, that vim is better than emacs, and emacs is better than IDEs, and object orientation is a failed paradigm. So I look out for articles that have a different point of view. I've learned that Microsoft has some really interesting technology, that Apple is infuriating even to its own users but it doesn't matter because they're sitting on the world's biggest pile of dollar bills, that Javascript is usually unnecessary but occasionally useful, that kakoune is even better than vim, and that nobody agrees about what object orientation even is.
