Ask HN: How do you *use* HN?
1) How often do you check it (and for how long each time)?
2) What's your routine while on HN? Do you just browse through the highest voted articles, or maybe go through the new, or just ask HN, or different?
2) What's your routine while on HN? Do you just browse through the highest voted articles, or maybe go through the new, or just ask HN, or different?
Because of this, I'm writing my own app for processing the web. A "browser for the easily engaged". It pulls the articles from all the major tech sites, including ranking, then it pulls the target articles. It learns what I like and don't like by doing Bayesian filtering on the client-side. Sort of a meta meta tech news app.
After all, how would a hacker consume news, if not by hacking it?
As a fellow geek, I like this idea but I've checked out similar systems over the years and found I could never fully get on board.. why? Because I ended up checking the source anyway to make sure I didn't miss anything that I might find interesting but that the filter filtered out anyway.
I can trust filtering for e-mail, since it wipes out non-content (usually). But filtering out content I "might not like" is tricky - I learn more about the world by being exposed to things I don't (initially) appreciate so I like to see a little noise in the mix. HN provides a sort of filtered noise that strikes just the right balance for me.
So instead of filtering, I'm starting with Bayesian ranking. I agree about the pop-back-over thing too, but I wonder why? I'm really curious to see why I would pop back over to the regular site. As I identify these reasons, I can decide whether or not these are good reasons or not.
In my case I'm configuring canto(http://codezen.org/canto/) to use crm114. It's not working properly yet, but you have my repo here: http://gitorious.org/foobarnews
Basically I'd like to eventually have a stand-alone app. No point in making a web app if people can just like on another tab. So I've picked what I'm most comfortable with in stand-alone apps: Microsoft stack with F#. I'm using Webkit as a browser and doing some persistence in a MS Access database for now, although that will probably change.
I think I'm pretty far along for just a solo effort. It pulls all the main articles from HackerNews, Digg, Reddit, and a couple more places. You can view the target article and vote them up or down, all without leaving the app. Of course, like any project, still a long ways to go.
Would love to hear how things go for you.
I usually look for titles that catch my interest, gradually working my way down the page and becoming less selective.
Often I read the comments first.
Note to both posters and content creators: titles matter a lot, please write good, descriptive and ideally non-salacious ones :-)
Note: I do realize the irony of this post. I assume this is a new HNer and I hope to help educate him and all those who happen to read it, instead of just down voting him.
And I appreciate and welcome the consideration to educate (no sarcasm intended, mean it).
In terms of grabbing top comments quickly for articles that take my interest, it's unbeatable.
edit: if someone is interested, they should make a plugin that scrapes HN, to allow hovering over a HN item to see the top comment(s). (it can also scrape my site if it encounters a temp ban on HN -- although Javascript can scrape anyhow, so it could be done client side.)
-- in fact hovering or right-clicking over any Comments links around the web to reveal comments would be awesome instead of having to be forced to click through all the time, including in the rss reader. Also, bookmarking or somehow recording any particular useful comment would also be great. You could also use that bookmark data and similarly send it to a central site, to build up a new social news site based on comments. (it could end up looking like http://hackerbra.in/links and http://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments). Headlines are linkbait now, stories are poorly written, but comments can and do have insight.
Another use would be in hovering over shortened links. OTOH, it could be something webmasters install. The Backtype API would be useful for this, but it is too limited at present (no url lookups.)
Here's the logo: http://hackerbra.in/upcom4.png -- no bra, no India (If India was concerned, they would've placed proof of business entity requirement, like with .com.au. And, big props to India for that wise decision.)
So many interesting topics, so much stuff to learn, so many smart people.
Actual 'use' of HN? I've found a number of people here that I would not hesitate to call friends, a much larger number of acquaintances and a few people that I work with, one on a day-to-day basis.
If I have a question that matters to me I don't hesitate to post asn "Ask HN", and for the most part they are answered in a way that is both enlightening and of a different caliber than what I'd get from other sources.
As I'm writing this comment, I notice that there are basically no stories at all on the front page that interest me. I like the stories that are more intellectually interesting, whereas everything on the front page is at best topical, although most of it is very derivative even for topical stuff. Right now I don't feel like there's a single story on the front page where I'd learn anything interesting or useful if I read it, and the gossipy article are too predictable for me to care.
But the truth is that if you spend more than a little time here each day, then it's no longer career research. It's just another form of procrastination that keeps you from getting stuff done. So enjoy HN, but don't overdo it.
Btw does somebody know a website to read HN on the iPad? (something like iCombinator for iPhone but for iPad)
I read HN first thing when I wake up, right before sleeping, and all through the day... often in little one or two minute bursts, saving links for items I want to read later. I start out on the home page, move to /ask then finally /new.
It's a great way to be motivated by reading about people who are creating amazing products. I find myself being pushed to do more when I see others talking about what they are creating.
I usually scan the comments before reading an article and if nothing's changed since my last visit I then scan through the new submissions.
Just noticed you are in Israel. I was there last year, loved it.
2) If it's my morning read at work then I'll skim through the headlines on the main page looking for information security related stuff, and use instapaper for anything that looks like it's worth reading on the train home. Maybe 5 mins tops over coffee.
If I'm at home on the weekend I'll read the main page on my TV in the morning for about 20 minutes. In the evening I tend to read the main, ask and new pages for up to an hour.
A few times a week I'll visit /new. This isn't enough but I find it too fast and furious, especially with showdead on. I'd be more likely to visit /new all the time if it only showed posts from users with >100 karma, say.
I often stay around ten to twenty minutes on the site (as interludes to read the comments as I read the highest voted articles).
As a bonus, I'd say that I'm as green as grass on HN; I made my account yesterday after about a week of lurking. I think its signal-to-noise ratio is higher than other sites (I'm thinking of Proggit here) and the comments make for a genuine discussion.
I check it a couple of times a day, but rarely do I go the "new" (which I think I should do more).
I use it as metanews as often as news - if there's a big piece of news, I don't have anywhere else to pick someone's brain about it than HN.
Sometimes I just browse the general index serendipitously - often with great success.
Edit: It looks like it was from @wvl. Wvl, please put contact info on either your website or hn profile.
I use it to read Hacker News -- I leave it on the 'all' filter and scan the new items a couple times a day. The browser extension lets me see which comment threads I've read that have new comments, and then highlights those new comments for me. At the end of the day, I'll usually filter it down to the top 20 to see anything I might have missed.
The bookmark RSS folder also contains my other aggregated, filtered feeds which include Twitter friends that don't talk too much, mentions, a highly-filtered list of affordable VPS deals, and a couple of good signal-to-noise blogs.
google reader says 211 subscribers
I've never submitted a link, but did a couple of "Ask HN" threads.
pretty much every typical "startup question" has ben answered there in great detail.
besides the search i watch hn about twice a day. i actually started off with giles bowkett's mini app[1] (makes daily overviews of new-posts-of-the-day) in order to make reading hn less racey.. well, give that i now read hn straight from the source, i now accept that i rather have it a bit more racey :)
I go through front page and look posts that are interesting to me. Then I go straight to the comments.
If the comments raise my interest in the actual article, I go read that.
On repeat visits, I tend to stick only to new stories, and stories where I saw an interesting conversation developing.
In big threads, I do a CTRL F for "minutes", "1 hour ago", "2 hours ago", "3 hours ago".(would make my life a lot easier, if pg had some way to highlight comments from a specific period...i.e. highlight every comment made within the last [3 hours][V] <---that's a drop down box)
That said, I usually start with the link on PG essays and YC write-ups.
I come to HN to look for articles that describe how to do things better/optimize tasks (generally that thing is/task relates to hacking/start-ups). I then think of the broader applications of these ideas.