Hacker News Reader

The first spike is annotated with "Changes in HN logging system".

The second is annotated with "Bot activity: combated with some HN/YC software".

You'll need to save the image in order to get it in full size. Sorry there's no other way around this.

You can also follow the link, go to Dropbox web and select direct download from the top right dots menu. That gives you a version that is fully zoomable.

I just visited the Dropbox link on my phone, long press on the image -> open in new tab. It opened the full resolution image with the ability to zoom and pan at will.

Biggest spike:

"Diffie and Hellman win Turing award"

Second biggest right before:

"Stripe Atlas"

"Microsoft acquires Xamarin"

"Apple / FBI dispute"

Much as I'd like to believe that a Turing Award could triple HN's traffic, it was bots.

That's noted in the graphic, but closer to the X-axis rather than at the top of the spikes.