We seem to have a few RSS subscribers on this site who think that doing RSS refreshes in 5-minute or even smaller intervals is a good idea. Let me assure you: it is not, and you are stretching your welcome on this blog (and probably many other blogs) with this behavior. There is only a small step from this to what could be called a denial-of-service attack...

This blog is updated typically no more than once a day, often a lot less. 5-minute intervals polls thus catch an update once every 24*60/5 = about every 300 times. It's like opening all the windows of your house while switching on the heater; not a good use of resources. Also, it poses the question about what you are doing all day long other than reading news...

Please stop. 1-hour intervals are plently, and even 1-day intervals are good enough.

[P.S. We are talking about individuals here, not RSS indexing sites that may have a legitimate reason for short intervals...]