Hacker News Reader

Very similar to the Scanner Grannies of the last century.

Back before talk radio was everywhere, old ladies would put on a scanner in the kitchen and leave it on for days, weeks, years just for company.

Sometimes they'd put on the local easy listening station at the same time to fill in the gaps between scanner traffic.

Thanks for this term, that's quite interesting! But it's kind of strange that this turns up only in 5 Google results.

This was in the world before there was a Google.

I was a journalist, and scanner grannies regularly called the assignment desk to make sure we hadn't missed something they heard.