"an HN" is right if HN is meant to be read "aitch en." The a/an rule is based on phonetics.
And to your question, I guess not. :P
The pronunciation is "hacker news", not "acker news", therefore "a" and not "an". The consonant is pronounced, not silent.
Edit: oh, that's not german you wrote. You're right about "H N"
I don't think this has anything to do with cynicism. Currently HN has 4 main topics: bitcoin, startup, tech, and misc. And they're kind of a stretch from each other, only a subset of us are really interested in all four.