I've started using HN pretty recently, and already impressed by some of the not-so-common and interesting topics and discussions here. Curious to know your favorites!
My favorite thing, which I don't know if I ever saved in my favorites, was a thread on your favorite HN comments.
A user linked to a thread (which I don't have saved sadly) of a different user talking about how they ordered a random unknown sweetener from somewhere internationally.
The package came by months later, and when the user opened it - white powder coated their kitchen, and their tongue.
They apparently loved the taste of it so much they carried the powder in a shaker with them everywhere. I remember them saying something along the lines of: "This stuff is so good that I haven't bothered to look up any health effects. I don't want to know. I'm fine with dying early, as long as I can keep on using this stuff."
I often pick up a book recommendation or other recommendation from here.
I read Blindsight by Peter Watts after a comment recently, and it has really stuck with me. It's a sci-fi book about contact with an interstellar intelligence.
For me the real gems are usually just on-topic comment threads for topics I want to read about. It's incredible when a domain expert shows up to give us the nitty gritty, and it happens--all the time.
I made http://HNLikes.com to aggregate the most frequently posted links for videos, papers, code, Wikipedia articles and more in HN comments. It's a good way to discover the many classics HN users love to post.
Apologies that this is self promotion, I only share because it's relvant to the question you've asked.
I saw a posting about the U.S. digital corps. It seemed cool and my recent college grad family member seemed to fit the criteria, after like 10 months of application, interview, etc the family member started the two year program last Monday.
It was in the comments, I can't find it now dangit, but it was a person talking about thier experience writing a game engine, I wanna say it was in Zig (maybe Rust) but it was about a certain game from when they were young and this game made them want to be a programmer and make games.
Then the person that had made that game long ago responded in the comments, so the (author? OP?) original commenter went on to thank that person in an authentic way and describe to that person how their game had inspired them to become a programmer.
I'm going to pivot my answer: it's not the best thing I've found on HN, it's how I use HN to find things.
- Ask questions about things you're unsure of, even if it's just TLAs.[1] I also like to ask for references, and those can occasionally be real gems.
- Respond to others. Especially, respond in a "yes, and..." rather than a "no, but ..." style, where that's possible.
- Avoid tendentious arguments. I'll point out corrections, but try to keep those short where possible.[2] Changing minds is ... difficult at best. Leaving clues for other readers may have value.
- Skip the main page and hit the lists: <https://news.ycombinator.com/lists>. "Best", "Invited", and "Pool" especially are worth exploring.
- If you find someone interesting, check to see what they've submitted. Often individual's submissions are interesting curations of their own, though often these fail to survive the HN queue.
- Use search. I rely on HN somewhat to search terms or individuals of interest, and to look for commentary on articles I turn up to see if there's any illuminating relevant discussion (especially older articles). This isn't always successful, but it's virtually always worth the effort, particularly using DuckDuckGo's !bang search capability: "!hn <search terms>". A blank search with a date range serves as a "best of day/week/month/year" feature (see comment below).
- Try to read the article first, or at least early in your perusal of the comments thread. Comments ... often ... deviate from and/or are only very vaguely grounded in the article itself.
- There are a lot of people shooting from the hip. There are also some absolute domain experts and Internet legends who drop by. It's quite an eclectic crowd, though the gems may be well hidden.
- You can read an individual's comments and posts from their profile. Reading the dang's (HN's moderator) comments is a good way to familiarise yourself with HN's culture and norms: <https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang> You can also email mods ([email protected]) with questions or concerns about the site and/or your account and activity.
- Karma and votes count for far less than you'd think, though they tend to filter out obvious crud pretty well.
If you're interested in things I've found interesting on HN, I've favourited far too many submissions. There might be some gems (and embarrassments) amongst those: <https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=dredmorbius>
I've also been looking at HN's historical front-page activity and have a sense of the topics which are most covered (based on classifying the submitted site). The top 20 (+ "UNCLASSIFIED") of those represent 97.6% of all front-page posts, and are:
(Data through 21-6-2023, code is sort of an evolving situation, and the tallies above fix some errors in other recent similar posts, though overall magnitude shifts are fairly small.)
Edits: A few late tweaks and additions partially based on my follow-up comment below.
________________________________
Notes:
1. Three letter acronyms. See also ETLAs (extended TLAs) and DETLAs (double-extended ...).
2. There are ... many ... exceptions to this. It's a goal and aspiration, not an accomplishment.
The challenge was to figure out where in the world a given photo of a street corner shop was taken. I spent half a day on the challenge and managed to figure it out through what I believe was some combination of rookie naïvete, persistence, and sheer luck.
The moment when I found the solution felt like it was the most brilliant thing I’ve ever accomplished.
[+] [-] cyrialize|2 years ago|reply
A user linked to a thread (which I don't have saved sadly) of a different user talking about how they ordered a random unknown sweetener from somewhere internationally.
The package came by months later, and when the user opened it - white powder coated their kitchen, and their tongue.
They apparently loved the taste of it so much they carried the powder in a shaker with them everywhere. I remember them saying something along the lines of: "This stuff is so good that I haven't bothered to look up any health effects. I don't want to know. I'm fine with dying early, as long as I can keep on using this stuff."
I really wish I could find this comment again.
[+] [-] phone_book|2 years ago|reply
Original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566
The sweetener mentioned is Neotame
[+] [-] qup|2 years ago|reply
I read Blindsight by Peter Watts after a comment recently, and it has really stuck with me. It's a sci-fi book about contact with an interstellar intelligence.
It's free online.
https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
For me the real gems are usually just on-topic comment threads for topics I want to read about. It's incredible when a domain expert shows up to give us the nitty gritty, and it happens--all the time.
There's also always this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
[+] [-] Tomte|2 years ago|reply
Mine is: https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=Tomte&comments=t
There is also "favorite submissions", if you leave off the &comments=t
[+] [-] rolph|2 years ago|reply
my favorites wont display common interests
[+] [-] penaazv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snarkyturtle|2 years ago|reply
Adam Morse's updated color palette: https://clrs.cc/
This really cool color scale generator: https://hihayk.github.io/scale/#4/6/50/80/-51/67/20/14/1D9A6...
[+] [-] rd|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muzani|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] botro|2 years ago|reply
Apologies that this is self promotion, I only share because it's relvant to the question you've asked.
[+] [-] _z2co|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dieselgate|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smlavine|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goddessoflists|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beeburrt|2 years ago|reply
Then the person that had made that game long ago responded in the comments, so the (author? OP?) original commenter went on to thank that person in an authentic way and describe to that person how their game had inspired them to become a programmer.
It was really neat to read.
[+] [-] penaazv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|2 years ago|reply
- Ask questions about things you're unsure of, even if it's just TLAs.[1] I also like to ask for references, and those can occasionally be real gems.
- Respond to others. Especially, respond in a "yes, and..." rather than a "no, but ..." style, where that's possible.
- Avoid tendentious arguments. I'll point out corrections, but try to keep those short where possible.[2] Changing minds is ... difficult at best. Leaving clues for other readers may have value.
- Skip the main page and hit the lists: <https://news.ycombinator.com/lists>. "Best", "Invited", and "Pool" especially are worth exploring.
- If you find someone interesting, check to see what they've submitted. Often individual's submissions are interesting curations of their own, though often these fail to survive the HN queue.
- Use search. I rely on HN somewhat to search terms or individuals of interest, and to look for commentary on articles I turn up to see if there's any illuminating relevant discussion (especially older articles). This isn't always successful, but it's virtually always worth the effort, particularly using DuckDuckGo's !bang search capability: "!hn <search terms>". A blank search with a date range serves as a "best of day/week/month/year" feature (see comment below).
- Try to read the article first, or at least early in your perusal of the comments thread. Comments ... often ... deviate from and/or are only very vaguely grounded in the article itself.
- There are a lot of people shooting from the hip. There are also some absolute domain experts and Internet legends who drop by. It's quite an eclectic crowd, though the gems may be well hidden.
- You can read an individual's comments and posts from their profile. Reading the dang's (HN's moderator) comments is a good way to familiarise yourself with HN's culture and norms: <https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang> You can also email mods ([email protected]) with questions or concerns about the site and/or your account and activity.
- Karma and votes count for far less than you'd think, though they tend to filter out obvious crud pretty well.
If you're interested in things I've found interesting on HN, I've favourited far too many submissions. There might be some gems (and embarrassments) amongst those: <https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=dredmorbius>
I've also been looking at HN's historical front-page activity and have a sense of the topics which are most covered (based on classifying the submitted site). The top 20 (+ "UNCLASSIFIED") of those represent 97.6% of all front-page posts, and are:
(Data through 21-6-2023, code is sort of an evolving situation, and the tallies above fix some errors in other recent similar posts, though overall magnitude shifts are fairly small.)Edits: A few late tweaks and additions partially based on my follow-up comment below.
________________________________
Notes:
1. Three letter acronyms. See also ETLAs (extended TLAs) and DETLAs (double-extended ...).
2. There are ... many ... exceptions to this. It's a goal and aspiration, not an accomplishment.
[+] [-] penaazv|2 years ago|reply
There's so much to explore! And these tips, hacks, and tricks are SO specific and useful. Thank you for taking the time to share this. Super valuable.
[+] [-] kwar13|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hackbraten|2 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23571886
The challenge was to figure out where in the world a given photo of a street corner shop was taken. I spent half a day on the challenge and managed to figure it out through what I believe was some combination of rookie naïvete, persistence, and sheer luck.
The moment when I found the solution felt like it was the most brilliant thing I’ve ever accomplished.
[+] [-] brudgers|2 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34423
[+] [-] ezedv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JimtheCoder|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshxyz|2 years ago|reply
i have many failed attempts but i keep tryjng in being a founder, thank you hn i love u
[+] [-] penaazv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryzvonusef|2 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36740357