I'm a little amused that the release of a Diaspora alpha demo rocketed up on HN in a matter of minutes, while Appleseed, which has been cast as one of many superior alternatives to Diaspora, is languishing after nine hours.
The appeal of Diaspora was its story (university students raising money to build a version of facebook which would not raise privacy concerns) not its technical superiority. It also explains the amount of media coverage Diaspora received. Having just watched the social network, I came to the conclusion that the only reason that movie was made was the law suits surrounding the creation of that company. There's no appeal making a movie about two or three guys working harmoniously together to build something useful.
Even so, my perception of HN was intelligent developers/business owners who care more about the quality of the product than the hype surrounding it.
I'm not sure how the HN algorithm works, is it possible to get to the front page at this point? We seem to have shot up 10 points in the past hour or so, but it seems the time for the front page has passed.
Self posts tend to take a little longer to show up in the "ask" section. They'll stay there a bit longer too I think.