I may be in the minority, but I actually rarely visit HN’s homepage, but rather follow @newsyc150 on Twitter, and just get a feed of articles that hit 150 votes (there are other increments, too).

It’s not overwhelming — I generally feel it hits the sweet spot of signal-to-noise. I only pull up Twitter a few times a day, and scan to find interesting things there. My Twitter feed is generally light — I don’t follow any individuals, only sites I want to see updates on without having to poll them.