It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news
294 comments
I missed this thread completely, but these perceptions have basically been around as long as HN has. I don't believe the community is less technical than it used to be; if anything, the opposite, actually.
If you or anyone wants to see more posts of type X, the best thing to do is to find interesting links of type X and submit them.
If you or anyone wants to see more posts of type X, the best thing to do is to find interesting links of type X and submit them.
Software is becoming less and less of a tech industry and more and more commoditized. Very little innovation in the past 5-10 years. Very few successful companies during that time have come about by having incredibly innovative and novel technology - almost all are simply using run of the mill, commoditized technology to solve business problems that they have large domain knowledge of. Given this, it makes total sense that having detailed esoteric technical knowledge is no longer the path to success in 2021, and ultimately, hacker news has always been predominately about one thing - how to get rich. The best methods have simply shifted over the last 15 years from being a tech genius to being technically-proficient domain knowledge expert
^^ This comment is spot on; my personal path has evolved from low-level "let's build everything ourselves" to "which components/services/apps can I leverage to serve my clients and get a new feature out in a few days instead of months".
We're moving up on the abstraction ladder, and as hacker news has always had an early adopter audience, focus is shifting here first.
Assuming these trends are highly correlated with the Kondratieff cycle, I expect a new trend to emerge about a decade from now. My best bet is focus will shift deep into the implementation again, but now in another context (Maybe on edge devices, data/code floating in the void, more decentralized, ...).
I've put my money where my mouth is, and my personal bet is on interactive 3D, as 3D capable devices are becoming more of a commodity and the current generation of youth (future buyers) will be a very technically literate audience that has grown up playing games and being connected 24/7.
Maybe I should send myself a reminder about this post in 10 years from now; curious to see what will have emerged by then on this site...
We're moving up on the abstraction ladder, and as hacker news has always had an early adopter audience, focus is shifting here first.
Assuming these trends are highly correlated with the Kondratieff cycle, I expect a new trend to emerge about a decade from now. My best bet is focus will shift deep into the implementation again, but now in another context (Maybe on edge devices, data/code floating in the void, more decentralized, ...).
I've put my money where my mouth is, and my personal bet is on interactive 3D, as 3D capable devices are becoming more of a commodity and the current generation of youth (future buyers) will be a very technically literate audience that has grown up playing games and being connected 24/7.
Maybe I should send myself a reminder about this post in 10 years from now; curious to see what will have emerged by then on this site...
I think it's also that we've solved many of the tech problems that can be solved by a single, genius savant. These days it's more "cross functional teams."
When problems are solved by three or more people working together in a Zoom meeting, "making technology" becomes a lot less like being a hacker.
And a lot more boring regular business suit stuff becomes part of the conversation.
When problems are solved by three or more people working together in a Zoom meeting, "making technology" becomes a lot less like being a hacker.
And a lot more boring regular business suit stuff becomes part of the conversation.
> Very little innovation in the past 5-10 years.
That means the time is now! The changes and innovations that we are looking for are being formed right now! I can't wait to see what comes out of all this. Sure the HN community is getting a little homogenized but the creator of the next big thing is likely already here among us, and they're unknowingly depending on us to seed them with the concepts and values that we care about.
That means the time is now! The changes and innovations that we are looking for are being formed right now! I can't wait to see what comes out of all this. Sure the HN community is getting a little homogenized but the creator of the next big thing is likely already here among us, and they're unknowingly depending on us to seed them with the concepts and values that we care about.
im not sure i disagree, but i have a few points that i believe do fit the timeframe:
* openAIs text engine
* teslas driver assists
* serverless workers as ga in cloud
* container instances as ga in the cloud
* .net core, blazor?
* cloudflares infrastructural innovations
* next.js or whatever the latest framework is called (was it nuxt?)
* webassembly ga?
* rust ga?
* openAIs text engine
* teslas driver assists
* serverless workers as ga in cloud
* container instances as ga in the cloud
* .net core, blazor?
* cloudflares infrastructural innovations
* next.js or whatever the latest framework is called (was it nuxt?)
* webassembly ga?
* rust ga?
These are all very minute, if they even register, improvements when you step back and look at the grand scope of things...
Perhaps this goes against most commenters here, but I find HN to be an appropriate mix of both that has not changed much with time. Reading that link of Hacker News from 15 years ago feels little different from what it is today. This contrasts dramatically with the Reddit of 10-15 years ago vs what it is like today.
Discussion here is also still very high quality. I find it remarkable.
Discussion here is also still very high quality. I find it remarkable.
This sounds bad but mild shame helps keep a community working
Any time someone hits out with a pun or whatever comment someone will say "this isn't reddit" and the comment is made hard to read - over time I have to imagine that has helped keep it from becoming reddit
Of course I am also burying the lede a bit. Paid and dedicated (I think?) moderators is an absolute key factor too
Any time someone hits out with a pun or whatever comment someone will say "this isn't reddit" and the comment is made hard to read - over time I have to imagine that has helped keep it from becoming reddit
Of course I am also burying the lede a bit. Paid and dedicated (I think?) moderators is an absolute key factor too
Paid, not sure, but I've lurked around here enough to verify the dedication. The mods not only curate and consolidate multiple links (e.g., 3+ things that said Facebook was down this last week), but they also openly communicate what they did.
Dang is paid, which is obviously part of what gives rise to the dedication. And not that the vast majority of HN moderation is not openly communicated. It's things like score adjustment to push certain type of posts lower and boost others which are deemed to not have gotten enough attention.
I think as reddit continued to decline, more people here became interested in debating politics, societal stuff since there was no other "serious" place for it. I wish some of that stuff wasn't here, since it takes away from discussions in other threads.
But (and I hope dang sees this) occasionally when HN "strays" away from tech it's absolutely brilliant. There's tons of discussion here on some health issues, diets, stuff like that, where I would never have found such good discussion (even the anecdotal evidence is interesting and useful) and where you can really walk away being better off from having read it. If that means tolerating the occasional thread about how appropriate politics is in the workplace, or how bad everything is for mental health, I'm more than happy to keep coming back here for that.
edit: by the way, I'd be quite interested in what a thread like this posted 8 years ago would look like. Wouldn't be surprised if people were saying this website was "going downhill" too back then. I think as long as the 12-18 only-cares-about-memes demographic stays on reddit, HN will stay just fine.
But (and I hope dang sees this) occasionally when HN "strays" away from tech it's absolutely brilliant. There's tons of discussion here on some health issues, diets, stuff like that, where I would never have found such good discussion (even the anecdotal evidence is interesting and useful) and where you can really walk away being better off from having read it. If that means tolerating the occasional thread about how appropriate politics is in the workplace, or how bad everything is for mental health, I'm more than happy to keep coming back here for that.
edit: by the way, I'd be quite interested in what a thread like this posted 8 years ago would look like. Wouldn't be surprised if people were saying this website was "going downhill" too back then. I think as long as the 12-18 only-cares-about-memes demographic stays on reddit, HN will stay just fine.
>But (and I hope dang sees this) occasionally when HN "strays" away from tech it's absolutely brilliant. There's tons of discussion here on some health issues, diets, stuff like that
I've found the opposite. While there is enough knowledge about computing to keep the discussion informed and aligned with reality, outside that field we're mostly laymen. See the various UFO threads, the peculiar support for Wim Hof, the contentious COVID discussions... The health discussions in particular remind me a lot like the enthusiasm for polyphasic sleep 10-15 years ago, or the more recent enthusiasm for microdosing LSD.
I've found the opposite. While there is enough knowledge about computing to keep the discussion informed and aligned with reality, outside that field we're mostly laymen. See the various UFO threads, the peculiar support for Wim Hof, the contentious COVID discussions... The health discussions in particular remind me a lot like the enthusiasm for polyphasic sleep 10-15 years ago, or the more recent enthusiasm for microdosing LSD.
Well, I love Wim Hof breathing (and it helped me when I had Covid, and helps with HRV and energy levels), and now take Vitamin D, glycine, Zinc, and other stuff that seemed to help me a lot. On top of that, if you've ever dealt with any chronic illness (GERD in my case), you'll find the wealth of anecdotal, n=1 info posted in HN comments is much, much more helpful than anything you'd find anywhere else. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. There are some discussions you could have on reddit, or any other site, but the discussion quality would be 5-10% what it would be here, simply because of the different audience. People here tend to have more life experience, and I'm grateful for the scraps of wisdom that get shared in non-tech conversations here.
I have GERD and I’d like to see those HN discussions of it
Well, all I did was search "GERD" in the comments; I found out that GERD's linked with inflammation, and went down the rabbit hole about Wim Hof, keto/carnivore, probiotics, etc. Helped a lot, though I still sleep around 6h a night and need to lose some weight, so I'm not worried that it hasn't been completely resolved yet.
I'm open to new info, but, has the Wim Hof method not been confirmed in dozens of ways; from scientific studies to visceral demonstrations?
N of 1, WHM helped me with a number of issues that I had thought were just going to be part of life. I don't think it deserves to be lumped in with "various UFO threads", or implied to be "unaligned with reality".
As for "contentious COVID discussion"; do you not remember when the lab leak theory was banned from Facebook and Twitter, for over a year, with millions of posts removed? This was one of the few places with morsels of quality discussion. The topic has much to be "contentious" about, that's not HN's fault.
N of 1, WHM helped me with a number of issues that I had thought were just going to be part of life. I don't think it deserves to be lumped in with "various UFO threads", or implied to be "unaligned with reality".
As for "contentious COVID discussion"; do you not remember when the lab leak theory was banned from Facebook and Twitter, for over a year, with millions of posts removed? This was one of the few places with morsels of quality discussion. The topic has much to be "contentious" about, that's not HN's fault.
A cursory glance at the Wikipedia article seems to suggest that it does what it says on the tin: makes you more resistant to inflammation caused by certain stressful external conditions (e.g. extreme cold). So it "works" in that sense. However:
> Critics of Hof say he overstates the benefits of his method. On his website he says that it has reduced symptoms of several diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson's disease. However, these claims have not been demonstrated scientifically. Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, one of the scientists who studied Hof, stated that "[Hof's] scientific vocabulary is galimatias. With conviction, he mixes in a non-sensical way scientific terms as irrefutable evidence."
So I would assume the OP criticism of WHM is not about its use for specific scientifically studied and documented purposes, but for the claim that it can aid in the treatment of a vast array of other medical conditions.
Interesting discussion on the SBM blog: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/wim-hof-the-iceman/
> Critics of Hof say he overstates the benefits of his method. On his website he says that it has reduced symptoms of several diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson's disease. However, these claims have not been demonstrated scientifically. Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, one of the scientists who studied Hof, stated that "[Hof's] scientific vocabulary is galimatias. With conviction, he mixes in a non-sensical way scientific terms as irrefutable evidence."
So I would assume the OP criticism of WHM is not about its use for specific scientifically studied and documented purposes, but for the claim that it can aid in the treatment of a vast array of other medical conditions.
Interesting discussion on the SBM blog: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/wim-hof-the-iceman/
That's a very gracious interpretation of OP's criticism, where he compares WHM to UFOs and "unaligned reality".
I had a look at your link, and didn't see much to interest tbh. It looked to me like smug skeptics, who haven't tried the method, joking about how much they dislike the cold. N of 1, I don't mind the cold any more, after despising it for my previous life. All I had to do was try it to verify.
The link's author, Ms. Hall, has a history of retracted articles on the site, for "too many issues with the treatment of the relevant science".
The worst part of her article, to me, was the denigration of WHM's confirmed attenuation of the inflammatory response - as if that's a "circus act", and "might not be useful". Inflammation is implicated in countless medical conditions. Managing it is a big deal, well worth exploring, and that's really fucking obvious.
The second most insane part was where they claimed his methods have resulted in deaths, without the context that this was from people trying the method alone where they could injure themselves from passing out (like in water). There are constant warnings not to do this from Wim and his trainers. That's very deceptive for a site that claims to be science based in their title.
Wim Hof's blood kills E.coli on it's own, and he has trained people to be able to do the same under laboratory conditions. Isn't that fucking fascinating? Not to the skeptics, apparently. He has trained 70+ year olds to climb mountains in their jocks - not worth a mention, it seems.
The top comment discusses the brown fat hypothesis, without doing the basic research to find that this is an explored subject - it is confirmed WHM doesn't generate heat from brown fat, rather it's the intercostal muscles.
TBH I'd consider that whole page and comment section a bad smear job. Not great, for a site that has "science based" in the url.
I had a look at your link, and didn't see much to interest tbh. It looked to me like smug skeptics, who haven't tried the method, joking about how much they dislike the cold. N of 1, I don't mind the cold any more, after despising it for my previous life. All I had to do was try it to verify.
The link's author, Ms. Hall, has a history of retracted articles on the site, for "too many issues with the treatment of the relevant science".
The worst part of her article, to me, was the denigration of WHM's confirmed attenuation of the inflammatory response - as if that's a "circus act", and "might not be useful". Inflammation is implicated in countless medical conditions. Managing it is a big deal, well worth exploring, and that's really fucking obvious.
The second most insane part was where they claimed his methods have resulted in deaths, without the context that this was from people trying the method alone where they could injure themselves from passing out (like in water). There are constant warnings not to do this from Wim and his trainers. That's very deceptive for a site that claims to be science based in their title.
Wim Hof's blood kills E.coli on it's own, and he has trained people to be able to do the same under laboratory conditions. Isn't that fucking fascinating? Not to the skeptics, apparently. He has trained 70+ year olds to climb mountains in their jocks - not worth a mention, it seems.
The top comment discusses the brown fat hypothesis, without doing the basic research to find that this is an explored subject - it is confirmed WHM doesn't generate heat from brown fat, rather it's the intercostal muscles.
TBH I'd consider that whole page and comment section a bad smear job. Not great, for a site that has "science based" in the url.
I think it's almost the opposite. There are great subreddits for pretty much every niche in programming. HN is one size fits all, and a lot of content just never makes the front page, because of bad luck in the New queue, or it's too niche.
The front page is the way it is because the regulars and the regular content have reached an equilibrium.
The front page is the way it is because the regulars and the regular content have reached an equilibrium.
Mind pointing us to a particular subreddit or item that didn’t make the front page?
More so that we all don’t miss out on those new opportunities!
More so that we all don’t miss out on those new opportunities!
/r/embedded tends to be pretty decent. Of course it's highly specific to embedded development, but the better subs tend to be the more narrowly-focused ones.
r/programming is pretty solid, from what I recall, although I don't go on there often. I used to frequent r/scala when I was actively using that language, as an example of a niche. My reddit front page, with my idiosyncratic collection of subs, often produces a comparable amount of joy to the HN front page, but in a different set of verticals than here.
I do think the presence of politics and other "normy" attracting things will trigger and hasten the decline of HN.
A social media site is only as good as its users and sadly the average person has a short attention span, poor reading comprehension and a preference for anecdote and feelings over data and substance.
A social media site is only as good as its users and sadly the average person has a short attention span, poor reading comprehension and a preference for anecdote and feelings over data and substance.
I agree with your overall thrust, but I certainly wouldn't have picked those examples.
The diet threads just make me roll my eyes and think "Californians will believe anything"!
(Sorry California, I know you don't all fit the stereotype.)
The diet threads just make me roll my eyes and think "Californians will believe anything"!
(Sorry California, I know you don't all fit the stereotype.)
Believe me, tons of people who deal with chronic health issues have seen a dozen doctors who couldn’t help a bit, wasted tons of money, and if a single comment has good anecdotes about an effective supplement or lifestyle change, you’re happy for every scrap you get. It’s like drinking non-sparkling water in the desert: could be San Pelegríno instead, but at least you’re not dying of thirst.
Have you had avocado toast? It’ll rock your world, seriously.
It'll also bankrupt you.
I feel (because it's a feeling) that HN stays good because it lacks images in the discussion area. The clean look, no adds, limited everything really proves the case that less is more.
I feel (because it's a feeling) that HN stays good because it lacks images in the discussion area. The clean look, no adds, limited everything really proves the case that less is more.
It's maybe fifty cents a slice if you make it yourself
A large organic hass avocado is between $2 and $4. You need at least half of one to make good avocado toast. If the loaf of bread cost you $5, and makes 20 slices, that's a base cost of $2.25.
> A large organic hass avocado is between $2 and $4.
This is pretty outrageous. In the 1990s, we would shop for avocados in Mission district Mexican grocery stores, where they would average four for a $1. People don't realize that everyone had an abundant number of avocados in every Bay Area home back then because they were so cheap and plentiful.
Something happened, and by the end of the 1990s, the drug cartels had taken over the avocado market and raised the prices by a considerable amount. One wonders how much the average consumer of avocados contributes to the criminal cartels by keeping them flush with cash.
This is pretty outrageous. In the 1990s, we would shop for avocados in Mission district Mexican grocery stores, where they would average four for a $1. People don't realize that everyone had an abundant number of avocados in every Bay Area home back then because they were so cheap and plentiful.
Something happened, and by the end of the 1990s, the drug cartels had taken over the avocado market and raised the prices by a considerable amount. One wonders how much the average consumer of avocados contributes to the criminal cartels by keeping them flush with cash.
To be honest, the cartels rule and own everything in Mexico (maybe not always directly, but their influence is enormous), so I don't see why avocados are special in this regard.
> I don't see why avocados are special in this regard
They are special in the sense that the cartels went after the avocado industry in the 1990s due to the rise of synthetic opioids, which hurt their drug profits. Both avocados and heroin are primarily produced in Michoacan state. According to some sources, the avocado industry became more profitable for the cartels than heroin.
They are special in the sense that the cartels went after the avocado industry in the 1990s due to the rise of synthetic opioids, which hurt their drug profits. Both avocados and heroin are primarily produced in Michoacan state. According to some sources, the avocado industry became more profitable for the cartels than heroin.
Those prices seem overly dramatic. Avocados (certainly not native to the "few acres of snow" that is Canada) is 5 for ~$6 at the moment. Bread is sometimes $4 for a crunchy loaf I like, or maybe $1 in flour when I make my own.
I don't eat avocado toast, but it costs a lot less than what most people spend on decent coffee in a morning.
I don't eat avocado toast, but it costs a lot less than what most people spend on decent coffee in a morning.
I'm currently paying $4/avocado at the farmer's market. Grocery store has them at $3. Los Angeles.
If you or anyone else is interested in bringing the price of avocados down, the state of Hawaii is currently funding (on a very small scale) avocado farming in Hawaii, which produces a non-Hass variety that is about two to four times the size, and has a slightly buttery taste, but when prepared with the standard ingredients, doesn't really differ all that much from the Hass except in color; it has a more yellowish tinge than green. But seriously, if anyone wants to beat the cartels at their own game, Hawaii is where it's at for avocado production.
I did put the term "organic" in there for good reason. Yes, I know that not everyone cares, but I was trying to go to the opposite end of the spectrum to the "50c" claim I was replying to.
You can make okay avocado-toast for a lot less, especially if you've been spending the last year and a half baking your own bread anyway. I don't think I've ever spent $4 on an avocado, but if I did, it would have to be the equivalent of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baked_potato#/media/File:North...
.
.
Little is less appetizing than a half-used avocado. Might as well make two slices, so it doesn't go to waste.
A friend of mine turned me on to fried avocado. Much better than avocado toast, if you aren't inclined to count calories from fat...
A friend of mine turned me on to fried avocado. Much better than avocado toast, if you aren't inclined to count calories from fat...
If I need to store guac, a layer of lime juice and plastic wrap without air-avo contact keeps it green and good. Can't say I've tried keeping half an avocado but I suspect the same technique could work if the acidic flavor isn't a nuisance (there might be alternatives to lime). Maybe a spray bottle could apply it.
I just stick an avocado half in a plastic container in the fridge. Stays green enough for days. If it gets brown, it's a thin layer that doesn't affect the flavor anyway and you can remove it without losing too much avocado if you don't like it.
Here's a secret hack to bring back the flavor of old avocado in the fridge for a few days: a half teaspoon of soy sauce and a few drops of hot sauce. You can thank me later.
I don't pay over a buck for them. And a loaf of bread is two bucks.
https://jacksmarket.net/weekly-ad/
https://jacksmarket.net/weekly-ad/
It's not 16 dollar a slice good. Let's be real here.
Find me a menu where it’s listed for $16/slice please. I want to try it.
https://www.cultivarsf.com/MENU/BRUNCH
at 15 and tax per slice, it's aight at best, and that's being generous.
at 15 and tax per slice, it's aight at best, and that's being generous.
[deleted]
I would be all in on the avocado toast and pomegranite seeds diet.
I think California having the lowest Covid-19 rate in the nation has helped its reputation a lot. We’ve traditionally caught a lot of flack for woo woo crystal healing but it seems Texas and Florida are totally stealing our thunder these days.
One of the lowest. Not the lowest. And you can't infer too much about it without considering a lot of other stuff, like demographic composition.
Considering how diverse California's demographic composition is, as opposed to say, Vermont, they deserve credit for doing better than the country as a whole.
There might be some to that, but having bottom quartile infection rates while containing an eighth of the US population seems like a strong statement from any angle.
Infection rates are, by definition, adjusted for population. In a pandemic, you may want to talk about rates given population density, but California is in the middle of the pack there (even Florida is more dense.)
Not to mention the fact that Florida is notoriously older too.
You would think an improving reputation would lead to people migrating to a state instead of leaving.
This is strange, are we even reading the same front page? ( I am pretty sure HN dont have personalised front page )
I just ran through the first 100 Front page times and there are barely any business related news.
I also dont see how the community here sometimes tilts more towards business than technology. Other than some rare news on another Unicorn, Public Listing, earning from FAANG. There has rarely been any business news on HN at all.
There are some economics news ( if you count them as business news ), but are again in the minorities.
YC backed start up Jobs are only shown may be once per day. They are more like ads on HN. Who is hiring is also only a monthly posting.
I am actually in flavour of more business news, but I also think the current balance seems to be fine.
I just ran through the first 100 Front page times and there are barely any business related news.
I also dont see how the community here sometimes tilts more towards business than technology. Other than some rare news on another Unicorn, Public Listing, earning from FAANG. There has rarely been any business news on HN at all.
There are some economics news ( if you count them as business news ), but are again in the minorities.
YC backed start up Jobs are only shown may be once per day. They are more like ads on HN. Who is hiring is also only a monthly posting.
I am actually in flavour of more business news, but I also think the current balance seems to be fine.
You are right, as of the moment of writing this, there is next to no "business news" on the FP right now.
Anecdotally, I would claim that there is a lot more non-tech content during the week, and mostly tech content on the weekends (see for yourself via the "past" link at the top).
Anecdotally, I would claim that there is a lot more non-tech content during the week, and mostly tech content on the weekends (see for yourself via the "past" link at the top).
I think it is fair to say, non-tech / business / economics / stocks ( and as well as politics ) etc tends to get more during the week because that is how the news and PR cycle works. i.e Business aren't going to publish their quarterly results during weekends, economics forecast etc get there by mid week ( Monday is never a good to start PR ).
So may be if you only ever go on HN during weekdays, the amount of business entries could be a little higher, but generally speaking I still believe HN aren't anywhere business focus at all. ( If it was I wouldn't have to rant about Supply Chain and Operation management every time the topic comes up )
So may be if you only ever go on HN during weekdays, the amount of business entries could be a little higher, but generally speaking I still believe HN aren't anywhere business focus at all. ( If it was I wouldn't have to rant about Supply Chain and Operation management every time the topic comes up )
You can do an analysis of this, you don't have to rely on personal impressions. Download representative samples of the top hn posts over time. Use open source or free sample tools to classify the text of posts or titles and see how that has changed. You could even do a write up on the experience
If you think we don't talk about hacking enough, then give us something to talk about
If you think we don't talk about hacking enough, then give us something to talk about
I agree. Personal impressions are heavily influenced by mood.
There's a lot of stuff here about software that doesn't make the front page. I tend to scan the front page first and then go look at what's in the "new" section. There's a lot of good stuff there that doesn't generate a lot of comments that I follow the links provided.
I'll come back and leave a comment on some of those. But by the time I do they may be a page or two deeper and not much makes the front page if they haven't already by that point. A later post on the same subject might make the front page though. I've seen that happen a lot here.
That said, there's still a lot here about "software, hardware, computer science". As far as "hacker culture" goes I'm not really sure what that is.
I'll come back and leave a comment on some of those. But by the time I do they may be a page or two deeper and not much makes the front page if they haven't already by that point. A later post on the same subject might make the front page though. I've seen that happen a lot here.
That said, there's still a lot here about "software, hardware, computer science". As far as "hacker culture" goes I'm not really sure what that is.
I do this too. If there was a simple enhancement I'd like to see to HN, extending how far back you can go on /new, /ask and /show would be it.
/show is currently capping out at only 41 entries, and /ask is 61. Looking at them both it seems the cut off is -48 hours. Extending this to 72 hours would be trivial and prevent older posts ageing off too quick - not everyone looks at those pages every day.
I'm hoping dang has this on his long list of to-do items!
/show is currently capping out at only 41 entries, and /ask is 61. Looking at them both it seems the cut off is -48 hours. Extending this to 72 hours would be trivial and prevent older posts ageing off too quick - not everyone looks at those pages every day.
I'm hoping dang has this on his long list of to-do items!
It ebbs and flows. There was a time not so long ago where it seemed like every third article on HN was about yet another JavaScript framework.
I'd much rather read about a startup's postmortem than about some monads-as-a-service library releasing version 14.374.299
I'd much rather read about a startup's postmortem than about some monads-as-a-service library releasing version 14.374.299
>every third article on HN was about yet another JavaScript framework.
Felt like that with articles about Rust as well
Felt like that with articles about Rust as well
> There was a time not so long ago where it seemed like every third article on HN was about yet another JavaScript framework.
I know it feels this way but it was in fact a very long time ago. That was 2011-2012ish IIRC
I know it feels this way but it was in fact a very long time ago. That was 2011-2012ish IIRC
It did definitely drag on for far longer than that.
2009-2012 was the time of post-jQuery, with a lot of discourse around better alternatives to that (e.g. underscore.js, backbone.js).
React was released in 2013, which sparked a lot of offshoots. Vue came in 2014, and Angular in 2016, which I would say is the earliest point where you could see a significant drop in the activity.
2009-2012 was the time of post-jQuery, with a lot of discourse around better alternatives to that (e.g. underscore.js, backbone.js).
React was released in 2013, which sparked a lot of offshoots. Vue came in 2014, and Angular in 2016, which I would say is the earliest point where you could see a significant drop in the activity.
IIRC the front-end JavaScript frameworks had considerably less coverage than node.js projects.
2011-2014 was the time everything that could be written in js was written in js. Didn't matter if it was a good idea, I just loved the energy here!
2011-2014 was the time everything that could be written in js was written in js. Didn't matter if it was a good idea, I just loved the energy here!
Maybe. I lurked for a long while before creating my account in 2012 so that sounds about right.
HN is HN. It ebbs and flows like the tide. I love HN for what it is, a news feed of interesting articles, with a bias towards technology but not always. I've been introduced to so many things because of the wide range of articles that are fascinating to like-minded people.
> I'd like to see conversations about software, hardware, computer science, and hacker culture resurge and dominate here.
Feel free to upvote the articles that you enjoy. But forcing HN to only be about the above would probably lead to its demise.
> I'd like to see conversations about software, hardware, computer science, and hacker culture resurge and dominate here.
Feel free to upvote the articles that you enjoy. But forcing HN to only be about the above would probably lead to its demise.
Programmers aren’t interested in the same programming related topics because everyone is too specialized now. The topics I’d be interested in would be boring to someone else, etc. aside from stuff about elixir which we all geek out on. So general tech topics like dunking on Facebook/apple/surveillance tech and complaining about leetcode job interview headaches get much traction.
This is probably the main explanation, I agree. There are countless programming languages and storage methods and so on, 99% of which aren't really of interest to me. I use one long-out-of-fashion programming language only ever mentioned as a punchline, and one non-trendy database. Broader topics usually are of interest to me, and tech-adjacent or societal things relevant worldwide like approaches to housing, homelessness, how we use the environment, developments in growing/selling food (robot restaurants).
As a relatively new user, at first I was curious about every topic but over time I learned to avoid "I built an AI GPU Compiler in Rust" threads because the whole discussion goes way over my head.
There is an alternate defintion of hacker, that of the "startup hacker" or "growth hacker," that this site seems to follow more closely.
Disappointing, for sure.
Disappointing, for sure.
Yeah. It is less of a “roots” definition of hacker and more of a “how can I hack the system to get rich with technology”.
>To the popular press, "hacker" means someone who breaks into computers. Among programmers it means a good programmer. But the two meanings are connected. To programmers, "hacker" connotes mastery in the most literal sense: someone who can make a computer do what he wants—whether the computer wants to or not. [0]
[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html
[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html
It is obvious to anyone who has been here for a while that this community is in decline, in the sense that it has less depth, less quirkiness, and less 'real' diversity of opinion (although dang does a good job of stemming the tide). The 'hivemind' has emerged here to squash contrasting positions.
The funny thing is, no one thinks they are a part of this emergent 'hivemind' but the end result is the same.
The funny thing is, no one thinks they are a part of this emergent 'hivemind' but the end result is the same.
Saying community is in constant decline is such an internet thing. A certain other website with a blue background and trumpets has been full of messages like this for the last 20 years, yet it's still a fun place to lurk.
HN is one of the few places on the internet where you can play devil's advocate and still live to see the top of the comments page because the number of people who read half sentences and instantly flag/downvote is very low. I think this is one of the biggest things setting it apart from Reddit.
HN is one of the few places on the internet where you can play devil's advocate and still live to see the top of the comments page because the number of people who read half sentences and instantly flag/downvote is very low. I think this is one of the biggest things setting it apart from Reddit.
> Saying community is in constant decline is such an internet thing. A certain other website with a blue background and trumpets has been full of messages like this for the last 20 years, yet it's still a fun place to lurk.
But repeatedly saying that something is in decline doesn't mean that there is no decline. Also something can be in decline and still remain a fun place for a long time. Both can be true at the same time.
But repeatedly saying that something is in decline doesn't mean that there is no decline. Also something can be in decline and still remain a fun place for a long time. Both can be true at the same time.
Except that it's really true. This is a rearguard action and has been for a long time.
'Attacked from within' was pretty accurate, Kuro5hin eventually went that way too even if they were acutely aware of the problem:
https://atdt.freeshell.org/k5/story_2009_3_12_33338_3000.htm...
'Attacked from within' was pretty accurate, Kuro5hin eventually went that way too even if they were acutely aware of the problem:
https://atdt.freeshell.org/k5/story_2009_3_12_33338_3000.htm...
I noticed an increasing number of flagged comments that do not violate any guidelines lately. I feel like it's slowly approaching the state of Reddit where unwelcome opinions are quickly removed. One would expect this to happen in polarising discussions such as politics, but interestingly it's happening on random tech topics as well.
I think it has more to do with discourse in general declining and HN isn’t immune but it explains why no one thinks they’re a part of it
I’m guessing the hive mind largely lurks and doesn’t post or comment.
I read daily but rarely feel compelled to comment. Those relatively rare comments also rarely receive an up or down vote. I’m generally amazed how often the more prolific posters comment.
Funny, I'd say there's less, no, a LOT less, startup / business oriented discussion here than in the past. To me, the big thing that has emerged over the past few years has been a lot more "stuff" that can loosely be described as "politics / culture / public policy / society" or whatever. And if I could wave a magic wand and change anything, I'd ban that stuff. Because I agree,
"I'd like to see conversations about software, hardware, computer science, and hacker culture resurge and dominate here"
That said, there is still a lot of that stuff. But the proportion of various topics have definitely shifted over the years.
"I'd like to see conversations about software, hardware, computer science, and hacker culture resurge and dominate here"
That said, there is still a lot of that stuff. But the proportion of various topics have definitely shifted over the years.
The HN guideline says "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" can be on-topic. In my opinion this summary is pretty much correct and also useless, because hackers seem to be curious about almost everything. I am interested in politics after all. But I don't think HN is or can be a good venue for political discourses. Of course some links can be very political and yet marginally technological due to the overreaching influence of technology over society, but there are annoyingly political links that I used to flag immediately nowadays.
I'm also concerned that the front page seems to prefer topics that only make sense in USA and especially California. For example I found following links posted today to be especially domestic:
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28806363 The Off-Grid Laws of Every State in America
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28809517 Tesla’s Texas Move Is Latest Sign of California Losing Tech Grip
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28812137 America’s unemployed are sending a message: Safety and compensation matter
Yeah, you can still argue that they somehow gratifify someone's intellectual curiosity. For me they don't.
I'm also concerned that the front page seems to prefer topics that only make sense in USA and especially California. For example I found following links posted today to be especially domestic:
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28806363 The Off-Grid Laws of Every State in America
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28809517 Tesla’s Texas Move Is Latest Sign of California Losing Tech Grip
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28812137 America’s unemployed are sending a message: Safety and compensation matter
Yeah, you can still argue that they somehow gratifify someone's intellectual curiosity. For me they don't.
There are so few sites out there where you can have a real discussion about “ anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity”. I recall posting on a space subreddit an article that talked about mining asteroids for water, and it was abundantly obvious that zero of the responders read past the title (which only mentioned mining asteroids, not the water part). Hacker News is far from perfect, but here at least you have some real hope that others will read the posted article and drive a discussion based on the specific content. I would hate for this site to be too tech focused… I mean what other site would I go to if I read, for example, a great article on theory of the mind, an obscure language, etc.
The intellectual curiosity rule was fine when most people in here were hackers.
Now hacker news has become the exception.
Now hacker news has become the exception.
Hackers have long been interested in politics/culture/public policy.
There has always been a strong anti-authoritarian ethos to hacker culture, one where personal privacy and bodily autonomy and the right to encryption were intrinsically at odds with corporate and government attempts to control and surveil, and I hope that doesn't go away.
There has always been a strong anti-authoritarian ethos to hacker culture, one where personal privacy and bodily autonomy and the right to encryption were intrinsically at odds with corporate and government attempts to control and surveil, and I hope that doesn't go away.
> Hackers have long been interested in politics/culture/public policy.
Well, yes, but usually from an aesthetic perspective, rather than a moralistic one. E.g. bad laws and cronyism being seen as ugly hacks and misfeatures on what could be a beautiful and elegant system of law; the cleverness of computer intrusion being more important than its consequences; the Internet (Tor, cryptocurrency, whatever) "routing around damage" — i.e. systems of law that seek to constrain behavior — and this being seen as "natural and inevitable" in the same way one might prescribe no moral agency to carnivorous animals killing their prey; etc.
Communities that start out full of hacker-aesthetes, seem to invariably shift to being full of engineer-moralists. HN wasn't purely a hacker-aesthete community when it started — it was tempered with a good number of other types of people — but they're certainly even more rare here now.
Well, yes, but usually from an aesthetic perspective, rather than a moralistic one. E.g. bad laws and cronyism being seen as ugly hacks and misfeatures on what could be a beautiful and elegant system of law; the cleverness of computer intrusion being more important than its consequences; the Internet (Tor, cryptocurrency, whatever) "routing around damage" — i.e. systems of law that seek to constrain behavior — and this being seen as "natural and inevitable" in the same way one might prescribe no moral agency to carnivorous animals killing their prey; etc.
Communities that start out full of hacker-aesthetes, seem to invariably shift to being full of engineer-moralists. HN wasn't purely a hacker-aesthete community when it started — it was tempered with a good number of other types of people — but they're certainly even more rare here now.
I mean there is and has been wide diversity in thought within the hacker community, so there's certainly people who view things only through asthetics.
But I don't think that erases the presence of explicitly moral/ethical thoughts within the hacker community. The philosophical and political manifest in the hacker community in many forms: anarchic, communal, utopian, anti authority, anti centralization, pro equality and merit, etc.
For example: From The Hacker Manifesto
"... You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals...."
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Hacker_Manifesto
also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic
But I don't think that erases the presence of explicitly moral/ethical thoughts within the hacker community. The philosophical and political manifest in the hacker community in many forms: anarchic, communal, utopian, anti authority, anti centralization, pro equality and merit, etc.
For example: From The Hacker Manifesto
"... You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals...."
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Hacker_Manifesto
also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic
[deleted]
[deleted]
It mostly has gone away. There is a certain type of corporation that we just have to trust now, since seemingly noone is qualified to judge the brilliant people who work there or the merits of their product. Some jurisdictions even require you to prove you use this product as a condition of employment or entry into business establishments.
Yes please. People trying to discuss those topics on here makes me come back less. It’s probably the worst part of the site for me overall.
Would you be interested in a wrapper around hacker news that lets you filter to only technical discussions?
(I'm already playing with wrapping it so that probably isn't hard to add)
(I'm already playing with wrapping it so that probably isn't hard to add)
If I could filter all politics out of hacker news that would be great. the comments especially are filled with "useful idiots"
I have filtered a lot of politics on twitter by blocking prominent politicians and mute words.
I have filtered a lot of politics on twitter by blocking prominent politicians and mute words.
> the comments especially are filled with "useful idiots"
Does such a broad brush add to the discussion?
Disagreement can be healthy. I'd say the varied political and philosophical perspectives of HN and Slashdot contributed a lot to changing my worldview. (Hopefully for the better, though we're all still learning.)
Does such a broad brush add to the discussion?
Disagreement can be healthy. I'd say the varied political and philosophical perspectives of HN and Slashdot contributed a lot to changing my worldview. (Hopefully for the better, though we're all still learning.)
I'm simply not at all interested in political topics here and don't care about the (potential) healthy disagreement. Those threads always derail and spiral to opinions and "us vs. them" mentality.
Never have I found a political comment section here that helped me emerge enlightened. I tried for years, eventually gave up and I'm objectively feeling better because of it.
Never have I found a political comment section here that helped me emerge enlightened. I tried for years, eventually gave up and I'm objectively feeling better because of it.
[deleted]
I added a flag for technical and then sort it by hot [1]. I just needed to train a classifier so there's less manual classification needed.
Maybe something like a naive bayes [0] will work? I'm not sure if it's the best dataset. I could make my own dataset by just looking at how many removed comments there are :P
I haven't implemented a classifier before so it may take me a few days. If you'd like to be notified when it's actually working send me an email at info@{the site name}
[0] - https://www.kaggle.com/kinguistics/classifying-news-headline...
[1] - https://efficientdemocracy.com/technical-and-hot
Maybe something like a naive bayes [0] will work? I'm not sure if it's the best dataset. I could make my own dataset by just looking at how many removed comments there are :P
I haven't implemented a classifier before so it may take me a few days. If you'd like to be notified when it's actually working send me an email at info@{the site name}
[0] - https://www.kaggle.com/kinguistics/classifying-news-headline...
[1] - https://efficientdemocracy.com/technical-and-hot
These types of articles are actually what kept me here. The unique blend of comp sci, and socio-political-economic-whatever discussions is fantastic.
I second this. Twitter and Reddit are not places I’m interested in participating in any kind of political discussion but for whatever reason I’m inclined to participate here, frequently against my better judgement to just stay quiet. I’m coming here regardless because it’s how I keep my finger on the pulse of the industry and for better or worse use that to make most of my tech leadership decisions at work, so it’s nice to be able to do both in one place.
That said I probably spend too much time here because of it.
That said I probably spend too much time here because of it.
I really think it makes the site worse. I’m already an avid Twitter user, I come to Hacker News for discussions and content that I couldn’t find anywhere else. The political discourse on here is just lower-quality and less interesting than on Twitter.
If you think the discourse here is lower quality than on twitter, I'd really like to know how you're curating your twitter feed.
Aggressively. I'm constantly following new people and unfollowing loads of other people. I try to keep a good mix of tech, music, and philosophy in with all the policy and politics. I also liberally mute and block. Only way to make it usable, but the result is far better than political discourse on Hacker News.
Any specific recommendations for consistently good/high signal-to-noise accounts for tech, philosophy, policy, and politics?
Yes it is good. I truly believe there is no engineering in a vaccum — I don't mean morally, like it's "not right" to not consider the context, but rather not considering the context is simply incomplete engineering.
Lately 60% of HN's front page is indistinguishable from Ars Technica. Just common denominator techy or popsci news.
I'd rather see a post about yet another JS framework honestly.
I'd rather see a post about yet another JS framework honestly.
That's fairly constant over time.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28816110
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28816110
I actually think this is a problem hackers have in general. It's the Zuckerberg problem. You build something cool, you want to talk about all the tricks you did to scale to N billion users and all anyone can talk about is that genocide you caused. You just built the tech, right? It's all about the Tech. Except it's not about the tech when you're actually having an effect on people's lives, and we should be more willing to openly talk about that. Is it easier to pretend that stuff doesn't exist? Sure. But it does exist, and we do need to actually discuss what happens in the real world due to the technology we work on.
Except it's not about the tech when you're actually having an effect on people's lives, and we should be more willing to openly talk about that. Is it easier to pretend that stuff doesn't exist? Sure. But it does exist, and we do need to actually discuss what happens in the real world due to the technology we work on.
I agree with you, and I'm not asking anybody to pretend that anything doesn't exist. It's just that I would prefer that the "politics / culture / social / whatever" conversations happen somewhere else. But that's just me. I understand that not everyone will agree.
But still, for me, I'd much rather see "How I built a startup on Guile" than yet another story about how (Facebook|Instagram|TikTok|Twitter|Usenet|Gopher|UUCP|BBS's|whatever) are bad for our mental health. shrug
Even better, I'd like to see "How I wrote my own Guile interpreter in COBOL, added Java and Rebol interop, ported it to the Raspberry Pi, and interfaced it with my handbuilt analog computer, and then built a startup out of it."
I agree with you, and I'm not asking anybody to pretend that anything doesn't exist. It's just that I would prefer that the "politics / culture / social / whatever" conversations happen somewhere else. But that's just me. I understand that not everyone will agree.
But still, for me, I'd much rather see "How I built a startup on Guile" than yet another story about how (Facebook|Instagram|TikTok|Twitter|Usenet|Gopher|UUCP|BBS's|whatever) are bad for our mental health. shrug
Even better, I'd like to see "How I wrote my own Guile interpreter in COBOL, added Java and Rebol interop, ported it to the Raspberry Pi, and interfaced it with my handbuilt analog computer, and then built a startup out of it."
Zuck and his employees at Facebook need to talk about the social impacts of their tech, for sure. But why does that topic need to be discussed on HN? We (both broader society, as well as the subset of it that makes up the "tech community") have other forums for that.
Facebook created React to get notifications to show up in real time so you no longer needed to refresh the page. There's a place for discussion on the impact of realtime notifications on mental health, and a place for discussion on the use cases of React. You absolutely can separate conversations about technologies from their impact
Software & tech got boring & not worthy of discussing when it biggified & cowardly retreated to inside the corporate firewalls.
There's a lot less to talk about because it's all much more boring, much more is already on tap and available, much of what hacking is done is boring as heck now, inside the bowels of vast enterprises.
The hacker spirit is in jeopardy.
There's a lot less to talk about because it's all much more boring, much more is already on tap and available, much of what hacking is done is boring as heck now, inside the bowels of vast enterprises.
The hacker spirit is in jeopardy.
I post articles and deep-reads that I personally find interesting from all ranges of topics. I like hackernews because of the discussions and the comments.
Personally, I think the diversity of threads here is an asset. There was a front-page thread here on Ham Radio yesterday which I know nothing about but reading through the comments was fascinating!
Agree that sorting by /new and upvoting the content you like is hugely helpful.
Personally, I think the diversity of threads here is an asset. There was a front-page thread here on Ham Radio yesterday which I know nothing about but reading through the comments was fascinating!
Agree that sorting by /new and upvoting the content you like is hugely helpful.
I think it may be time for a userbase fork. All the politics, policy and economic, and general business news to one side, all the hardware, software, science, startup, and tech business news to the other.
So you want subhackernewses? Like /h/business ?
No, don't group by content - group by people. Let the people decide which group they want to discuss things with.
Going from subreddit to subreddit where each one has its own community only breeds anonymous behaviour - toxicity. What you ultimately want to do is find the ~1k people that want to discuss the things that you want to discuss.
Going from subreddit to subreddit where each one has its own community only breeds anonymous behaviour - toxicity. What you ultimately want to do is find the ~1k people that want to discuss the things that you want to discuss.
i actually like this idea, but would be hard to execute as comments might intermix them
I don't want to read about startups and I do want to read technology-related political news (I have other sources for non-technology political news). I'd rather skim past the things I'm not interested in on a single site than two.
IMO Startup and Tech Business come in the first category.
What intrigues me is that the "Hackers", who care about state, programs, and process, haven't turned attention to the State, and set about un-jacking its programs and streamlining its process.
Why haven't we got a robust git server with anonymous read-only access for everyone who pays taxes that holds all (unclassified) legislation/regulation affecting society?
Commits would be possible for elected officials/appointees only.
Similarly transparent treatment for the tax code.
Come on, Hackers: let's beat the entropy out of (or at least minimize it) in the res publica.
Why haven't we got a robust git server with anonymous read-only access for everyone who pays taxes that holds all (unclassified) legislation/regulation affecting society?
Commits would be possible for elected officials/appointees only.
Similarly transparent treatment for the tax code.
Come on, Hackers: let's beat the entropy out of (or at least minimize it) in the res publica.
If the elected officials & appointees actually cared for something like this, it would have existed already.
Ultimately, the problem is that the "res publica" is not actually for the public. The whole premise that a single person can meaningfully "represent" millions is so laughable, I don't know why we keep pretending it's actually democratic.
Ultimately, the problem is that the "res publica" is not actually for the public. The whole premise that a single person can meaningfully "represent" millions is so laughable, I don't know why we keep pretending it's actually democratic.
>The whole premise that a single person can meaningfully "represent" millions is so laughable, I don't know why we keep pretending it's actually democratic.
What does "meaningfully" mean, in this context?
What does "meaningfully" mean, in this context?
It means that votes taken by the representative actually advance the specific interests of their constituents.
The problem is that, for this to be the case, constituents must have a working communication channel. But when you have a single representative ostensibly speaking for millions (or even tens of thousands) of people, any such channel is quickly overwhelmed, and becomes mostly a token thing.
Council democracy tries to solve it by ensuring that, at every level, each delegate speaks for a relatively small group of people - small enough that it can regularly assemble to keep the delegate under control at all times.
The problem is that, for this to be the case, constituents must have a working communication channel. But when you have a single representative ostensibly speaking for millions (or even tens of thousands) of people, any such channel is quickly overwhelmed, and becomes mostly a token thing.
Council democracy tries to solve it by ensuring that, at every level, each delegate speaks for a relatively small group of people - small enough that it can regularly assemble to keep the delegate under control at all times.
Indeed, such an improvement would have to be insisted upon by the demos.
But the res publica has NEVER been a democracy at any point.
What we have is a gnarly attempt to scale from the individual to the group, the singular to the plural, the integer to the list(integer).
Hence my comment: technically savvier people like those who visit this site badly need to give this res publica an enema.
But the res publica has NEVER been a democracy at any point.
What we have is a gnarly attempt to scale from the individual to the group, the singular to the plural, the integer to the list(integer).
Hence my comment: technically savvier people like those who visit this site badly need to give this res publica an enema.
Engineers of all people should know that scaling is best achieved by distributed systems.
If only there were 50 smaller units of analysis beside the District of Columbia to which to distribute political power!
Admittedly, this many years on, it's hard to introduce fresh concepts. The only way for such smaller units of analysis to achieve any gravitas would be to acquire the notoriety of the States. . .
Admittedly, this many years on, it's hard to introduce fresh concepts. The only way for such smaller units of analysis to achieve any gravitas would be to acquire the notoriety of the States. . .
US states are too large themselves. For this to work, it needs to start literally at the very bottom - a local assembly on the block / neighborhood. From there, it can be scaled up indefinitely in a multi-layer federation.
We have something like that in the UK, it shows you all the legislation and tracks changes made to them over time: https://www.legislation.gov.uk
There was a marked shift many years ago. SV seems to have recruited too many people, so inevitably the discussion shifts to the average worker. It's all about management now, so obscure hacking content will not be upvoted. It has also become too 'corporate' , focused on big tech and funding, and not the indie heroes. The comments have become more personal, in line with the me-culture of the time.
This is of course a subjective view coming from my observations that I often learn new management/marketing terms that i shouldn't be learning, being constantly perplexed by the career ladders mentioned, and learning about tools that are useless to anyone but google.
Also don't forget the constant shilling about various paid services that are the second coming of christ until the next second coming.
This is of course a subjective view coming from my observations that I often learn new management/marketing terms that i shouldn't be learning, being constantly perplexed by the career ladders mentioned, and learning about tools that are useless to anyone but google.
Also don't forget the constant shilling about various paid services that are the second coming of christ until the next second coming.
This doesn’t really align with the reality. HN’s audience is not heavily concentrated in Silicon Vally or the U.S. - less than 10% of the audience is based around Silicon Valley [1]. Most discussion about Silicon Valley companies, individuals and culture is critical and negative.
At any time there are multiple articles about “obscure hacking” topics on the front page. Right now there are 10, by my count - though others may count fewer of course. But when I talk to hacker types about HN, they always comment on the cool obscure articles they find here.
All the content can’t always by obscure, can it? Surely if everything is obscure, nothing is.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26916747
At any time there are multiple articles about “obscure hacking” topics on the front page. Right now there are 10, by my count - though others may count fewer of course. But when I talk to hacker types about HN, they always comment on the cool obscure articles they find here.
All the content can’t always by obscure, can it? Surely if everything is obscure, nothing is.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26916747
Discussion fora are usually dominated by a minority. You won't read about the habits, diets and anxieties (housing, options, politics, tools, city life, commute) of people from berlin , moscow , paris, melbourne, while you learn the people, areas and streets of SF by name. HN is a megaphone for globalizing the SV culture.
> You won't read about the habits, diets and anxieties (housing, options, politics, tools, city life, commute) of people from berlin , moscow , paris, melbourne
This seems like a non sequitur from your original complaint (not enough obscure tech content).
But still, this is not my perception at all. HN gets many fantastic comments from people sharing their perspective of their home location and culture. I’m in Melbourne and over the years have written plenty of comments about life in my city and country that were solidly upvoted and well received.
It’s natural that a lot of the discussion on a tech forum will focus on SV being the place where most of the biggest tech companies are, but the real value in HN is the long tail of unique content and comments from all over the world.
As I mentioned in another comment [1], the “notice-dislike” bias, often mentioned here by dang, is a powerful phenomenon, which can lead us to focus too much on what we dislike and overlook the stuff that we do like and that is right there to be found if we take a moment to notice it.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28814878
This seems like a non sequitur from your original complaint (not enough obscure tech content).
But still, this is not my perception at all. HN gets many fantastic comments from people sharing their perspective of their home location and culture. I’m in Melbourne and over the years have written plenty of comments about life in my city and country that were solidly upvoted and well received.
It’s natural that a lot of the discussion on a tech forum will focus on SV being the place where most of the biggest tech companies are, but the real value in HN is the long tail of unique content and comments from all over the world.
As I mentioned in another comment [1], the “notice-dislike” bias, often mentioned here by dang, is a powerful phenomenon, which can lead us to focus too much on what we dislike and overlook the stuff that we do like and that is right there to be found if we take a moment to notice it.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28814878
I think I agree with the GP here.
A lot of discussion is US centric. Even to the point where people will bring up esoteric Prop-xx legal references and be upvoted as if that is at all relevant in a global context.
I don’t believe the 10% number of SV participation. If it really is 10% I want to know the percentage of contributing commenters.
For instance, I have seen very little Melbourne centric content at all here. Perhaps Canva (though that’s Sydney) and only because of their insane valuation and relationship back into the valley.
Given the Timezone difference, there should be a time period where Australian content dominates, but I don’t even see that.
A lot of discussion is US centric. Even to the point where people will bring up esoteric Prop-xx legal references and be upvoted as if that is at all relevant in a global context.
I don’t believe the 10% number of SV participation. If it really is 10% I want to know the percentage of contributing commenters.
For instance, I have seen very little Melbourne centric content at all here. Perhaps Canva (though that’s Sydney) and only because of their insane valuation and relationship back into the valley.
Given the Timezone difference, there should be a time period where Australian content dominates, but I don’t even see that.
> there should be a time period where Australian content dominates
There is absolutely a time window when you’re more likely to see articles about Australia here; late afternoon and evening when people in the US should be asleep (notwithstanding the number of insomniac hackers likely to exist in a country of 330M people).
Recently there have been big discussions about the Vic earthquake, the Vic/NSW pandemic response, the new military alliance, and there are always big discussions about new Australian laws relating to surveillance and tech/media interference.
You won’t get a time where Melbourne or Sydney dominates every day, as there are many other major cities awake during the same time (there are plenty of big stories about Europe during the US quiet period). And big stories about FAANG companies will always get a lot of traffic/discussion as they affect people around the world fairly equally.
> A lot of discussion is US centric
I didn’t and don’t dispute that. But the claim was that content/discussion about/by topics/people elsewhere is almost completely drowned out, which is not accurate. It’s an understandable perception, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny if you look closely at the stories and comments.
There is absolutely a time window when you’re more likely to see articles about Australia here; late afternoon and evening when people in the US should be asleep (notwithstanding the number of insomniac hackers likely to exist in a country of 330M people).
Recently there have been big discussions about the Vic earthquake, the Vic/NSW pandemic response, the new military alliance, and there are always big discussions about new Australian laws relating to surveillance and tech/media interference.
You won’t get a time where Melbourne or Sydney dominates every day, as there are many other major cities awake during the same time (there are plenty of big stories about Europe during the US quiet period). And big stories about FAANG companies will always get a lot of traffic/discussion as they affect people around the world fairly equally.
> A lot of discussion is US centric
I didn’t and don’t dispute that. But the claim was that content/discussion about/by topics/people elsewhere is almost completely drowned out, which is not accurate. It’s an understandable perception, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny if you look closely at the stories and comments.
A second point, there is a huge Asian tech scene that feels very under represented here. I’m going to guess that’s more to do with there probably being cooler Chinese language versions of HN out there… but I don’t know.
There is just as much tech/innovation/startups happening in China… but you wouldn’t know reading HN.
There is just as much tech/innovation/startups happening in China… but you wouldn’t know reading HN.
There's been loads of discussion about the China's tech ecosystem on HN over many years. Of course a lot of it is politically charged, due largely to the actions of national governments and a few people's over-enthusiasm to get caught up in political battles (and it doesn't help that HN is blocked by China's firewall, along with language and cultural barriers). But there's also been plenty of discussion here between ordinary people about what's going on there.
And there are always plenty of Show HNs and other discussions from elsewhere in Asia, particularly India of course, but also Japan and Singapore.
Much of it you may not be aware of, as it's often not explicitly stated in titles or intros.
And there are always plenty of Show HNs and other discussions from elsewhere in Asia, particularly India of course, but also Japan and Singapore.
Much of it you may not be aware of, as it's often not explicitly stated in titles or intros.
Why not be the change you want to see? Submitting articles is free and really easy.
> This seems like a non sequitur from your original complaint (not enough obscure tech content).
I don't see that person making that point.
> It’s natural that a lot of the discussion on a tech forum will focus on SV being the place where most of the biggest tech companies are
It isn't from a hacker perspective. Hacker culture is about what you can do yourself. If the homebrew computer club had been the IBM club things might have looked very differently.
> but the real value in HN is the long tail of unique content and comments from all over the world.
The complaint is that it isn't unique but usually the same narrative. You'll find plenty of Europeans on hacker news complaining about Europe. The reality is that most things are easier in Europe than in most of the US. That isn't a hard case to make. It just isn't popular.
> As I mentioned in another comment [1], the “notice-dislike” bias, often mentioned here by dang
That there is a given explanation isn't that surprising. Like when someone thinks there is a political bias on hacker news they always got in response that there can't be one because both left and right thinks there is. But that is just how a liberal bias would look like. Those more to the left would think it's too economically liberal and those more the right would think it's too culturally so. Yet the same explanation continues.
If you look at the front page now most of the technical topics aren't really current. "SSH Tunneling", "HN 15 Years ago", "NSA (2014)", "Lisp", "ScummVM", "V-USB", "Super Mario 64", "Amiga 68000", "Amiga 3000T". Those aren't really topics that requires current knowledge to discuss. On the other hand there are 3 current stories about Facebook. It's hacker nostalgia combined with a SV narrative. Which would be fine if it didn't result in current technical and hacker perspective topics clashing with that narrative.
I do realize that this is meaningless. I don't even read hacker news that much anymore. But there is my 2 cents.
I don't see that person making that point.
> It’s natural that a lot of the discussion on a tech forum will focus on SV being the place where most of the biggest tech companies are
It isn't from a hacker perspective. Hacker culture is about what you can do yourself. If the homebrew computer club had been the IBM club things might have looked very differently.
> but the real value in HN is the long tail of unique content and comments from all over the world.
The complaint is that it isn't unique but usually the same narrative. You'll find plenty of Europeans on hacker news complaining about Europe. The reality is that most things are easier in Europe than in most of the US. That isn't a hard case to make. It just isn't popular.
> As I mentioned in another comment [1], the “notice-dislike” bias, often mentioned here by dang
That there is a given explanation isn't that surprising. Like when someone thinks there is a political bias on hacker news they always got in response that there can't be one because both left and right thinks there is. But that is just how a liberal bias would look like. Those more to the left would think it's too economically liberal and those more the right would think it's too culturally so. Yet the same explanation continues.
If you look at the front page now most of the technical topics aren't really current. "SSH Tunneling", "HN 15 Years ago", "NSA (2014)", "Lisp", "ScummVM", "V-USB", "Super Mario 64", "Amiga 68000", "Amiga 3000T". Those aren't really topics that requires current knowledge to discuss. On the other hand there are 3 current stories about Facebook. It's hacker nostalgia combined with a SV narrative. Which would be fine if it didn't result in current technical and hacker perspective topics clashing with that narrative.
I do realize that this is meaningless. I don't even read hacker news that much anymore. But there is my 2 cents.
> You won't read about the habits, diets and anxieties (housing, options, politics, tools, city life, commute) of people from berlin , moscow , paris, melbourne, while you learn the people, areas and streets of SF by name.
Is that even true? I feel (as in: likely a misperception) that I learn more about life in Berlin these days on hn than from real life, and I have visited many times, trains run twice an hour and I have friends and family there. Sure, there's the occasional council level politics topics about some SV thing but that's rare.
Plenty of platforms offer hard focus on a topic, for any topic, no scarcity on that front. The achievement of hn is broadness of scopewithout losing identity. It's great.
Is that even true? I feel (as in: likely a misperception) that I learn more about life in Berlin these days on hn than from real life, and I have visited many times, trains run twice an hour and I have friends and family there. Sure, there's the occasional council level politics topics about some SV thing but that's rare.
Plenty of platforms offer hard focus on a topic, for any topic, no scarcity on that front. The achievement of hn is broadness of scopewithout losing identity. It's great.
Techies from Berlin, Bangalore, Moscow.. come here to live vicariously (SV culture).
Unscientific and outdated but there were a couple of polls on locations.
In US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6583918
Which US state: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5222370
Worldwide: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6582647
https://imgur.com/a/xOAvftj for charts https://pastebin.com/77KGTfwe for data
In US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6583918
Which US state: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5222370
Worldwide: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6582647
https://imgur.com/a/xOAvftj for charts https://pastebin.com/77KGTfwe for data
+1 to this. You're not going to find a Common Lisp/OCaml/Zig/Derek Lowe thread with 100+ replies ever but you're going to find quality discussion in any thread about them and your questions in those threads will rarely sit unanswered.
If 10% are located in and around one location and the rest are spread around the world, then that would definitely count as 'heavily concentrated' in my book
Sure, you can interpret it that way! But the original complaint seemed to imply that a majority (ie more that 50%) of content/discussion here is about/by Silicon Valley topics/ people.
If 90% of usage is outside SV, that leaves plenty of room for content/discussion that is not focused on SV, which is exactly what we see.
But let’s not get into a debate about the meaning of vague terms like “heavily” :)
If 90% of usage is outside SV, that leaves plenty of room for content/discussion that is not focused on SV, which is exactly what we see.
But let’s not get into a debate about the meaning of vague terms like “heavily” :)
If you think content about your local patch of land on this ball of mud is more interesting to hackers than ideas then you're doing it wrong. I live in California, but one thing I love about night owl Hacker News is that stories about low-level assembly hacks are more likely to reach the front page, because the Russians and Eastern Europeans are online, and they have an appreciation for assembly like it's poetry, and that's simply an attitude that's hard to find around here in California where your colleagues will look at you like you're green if you're not using the latest new-fangled online framework tool created by the startup next door.
I’ve heard they’ve created a whole electronically synthesized universe in one of their offices so they can hack all night during the day and still go to management seminars in the evening. (DNA)
go to /new and upvote the stuff you want to see more of. Surprisingly few people seem to do so, and early voting has quite an effect.
Related, the upvoting has a snowball effect. I'm sorry to say but most people are too lazy to read a link that doesn't already have a few upvotes. Why is a post with 800+ points on the front page more worthy of your clicks then a brand new post? ( And yes, i'm slightly bitter my submissions aren't more popular)
The first half-hour is crucial. The continued success of your post is generally defined by reaching (and staying on) the front page.
Yeah, and not for any mysterious or secret reason either - new is sorted by time, and front by .. ok that's a bit mysterious and secret, but some function of points, comments, time, views, clicks, etc.
So, roughly speaking, you have until another full page's worth of new comes in to get enough engagement to rank in the front two or three pages.
So, roughly speaking, you have until another full page's worth of new comes in to get enough engagement to rank in the front two or three pages.
Also under lists in the bottom bar, the second chance pool[0] and invited reposts list[1].
Also, obviously, it's better to post more of the kind of content you want to see, rather than complain about the content you don't like.
Also, remember that leaving a comment (even a thoughtful one) without also leaving an upvote acts as an implicit downvote and will eventually trigger the flamewar detector in a thread. It's entirely possible a lot of technical threads get sunk because they simply generate technical conversation but not enough kudos.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/pool
[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/invited
Also, obviously, it's better to post more of the kind of content you want to see, rather than complain about the content you don't like.
Also, remember that leaving a comment (even a thoughtful one) without also leaving an upvote acts as an implicit downvote and will eventually trigger the flamewar detector in a thread. It's entirely possible a lot of technical threads get sunk because they simply generate technical conversation but not enough kudos.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/pool
[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/invited
> Also, remember that leaving a comment (even a thoughtful one) without also leaving an upvote acts as an implicit downvote and will eventually trigger the flamewar detector in a thread.
This happens if the post has at least 20 or 40 comments (I don't remember the number now). Most post in https://news.ycombinator.com/newest die with no of very few comments and upvotes, so most of the times it's not bad to add a comment to an obscure post. Sometimes a post is not good enough for upvoting, but it looks promising and the author may have some interesting insight.
This happens if the post has at least 20 or 40 comments (I don't remember the number now). Most post in https://news.ycombinator.com/newest die with no of very few comments and upvotes, so most of the times it's not bad to add a comment to an obscure post. Sometimes a post is not good enough for upvoting, but it looks promising and the author may have some interesting insight.
The biggest drift I noticed is mainstream news articles reaching the front page more frequently. I use and abuse the "hide" functionality, but sometimes I wish there was a setting to hide bbc, reuters, new york times, npr, and the gang - like a "hide" feature for domain names.
Very surprised to see this post and thread... Actually feeling a bit happy and vindicated.
I pointed this out very recently and got downvoted heavily.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28479960
I still believe that if the thread above can make it to the top then introspection is needed.
Peace.
I pointed this out very recently and got downvoted heavily.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28479960
I still believe that if the thread above can make it to the top then introspection is needed.
Peace.
I feel that HN has mostly been a business news site for the last 6 years, and has been trending into a more zeitgeist focused site in the last 2-3.
I've fulfilled my need for more technical discussions elsewhere for a while now.
One place I've liked is lobsters.
edit; I'll add that I've also started seeking out deep technical knowledge about a subject in the official places for the subject in question. For instance, for deep discussions on Kotlin I go for the KEEP and Slack channels.
I've fulfilled my need for more technical discussions elsewhere for a while now.
One place I've liked is lobsters.
edit; I'll add that I've also started seeking out deep technical knowledge about a subject in the official places for the subject in question. For instance, for deep discussions on Kotlin I go for the KEEP and Slack channels.
This is the social media arm of a for-profit startup incubator business. The "hacker" is just corny branding, man
Your first sentence is true and relevant. Your second is, in a certain light, false (and a bit mean). pg is definitely a hacker in the traditional sense, and much of the stuff posted here is on topic for hackers in the TMRC sense.
The shift in the last few decades is that hacking is now a thing that can result in becoming an accidental millionaire. That's going to have societal and cultural effects on the community, like it or not.
The shift in the last few decades is that hacking is now a thing that can result in becoming an accidental millionaire. That's going to have societal and cultural effects on the community, like it or not.
PG made a second rate e-commerce site and sold it to the most gullible company in the world (Yahoo!). He’s never been anything close to what would be considered a “hacker”. This site’s purpose has always been to shill for YC investments. Sometimes there tech talk that occurs but it’s not the reason HN exists.
If only business news.
A few months ago HN was flooded with articles about Navalny.
There is quite a lot of this kind of political spam, from different countries.
I wonder if you’re affected by the “notice-dislike” bias the dang [1] often talks about?
Looking at the front page now, there are zero business news stories. At least 15 (half) are straight tech, and a further 8 are tech or science related. Of the remaining 6, one is about Covid-science, one is about tech-politics, one is about culture, one is a YC job listing, one is about HN 15 years ago and the last one is your complaining that there is not enough tech content here.
Sure there’s been a lot of content about Facebook scandals /outages this week, and maybe that’s what you’re focusing on.
But there is a “hide” button on each story, so you can always hide all the stuff that doesn’t interest you and just read the tech content, which always makes up more than half the items in the front page.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Looking at the front page now, there are zero business news stories. At least 15 (half) are straight tech, and a further 8 are tech or science related. Of the remaining 6, one is about Covid-science, one is about tech-politics, one is about culture, one is a YC job listing, one is about HN 15 years ago and the last one is your complaining that there is not enough tech content here.
Sure there’s been a lot of content about Facebook scandals /outages this week, and maybe that’s what you’re focusing on.
But there is a “hide” button on each story, so you can always hide all the stuff that doesn’t interest you and just read the tech content, which always makes up more than half the items in the front page.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Before my time, but HN was originally called "Startup News" which is more-or-less business.
Something I noticed about Slashdot was that it started out talking about the latest processors, software, and Linux kernel patches. Then the conversation ever-so-slowly started drifting towards CEOs, the sharemarket, politics, and the like.
It's a side-effect of an aging user base. Young people get excited about New Things! With big numbers!
Older people get bored of the latest technological advancements and instead become interested in whether Zuckerberg will get dethroned or not.
It's a side-effect of an aging user base. Young people get excited about New Things! With big numbers!
Older people get bored of the latest technological advancements and instead become interested in whether Zuckerberg will get dethroned or not.
> Older people get bored of the latest technological advancements and instead become interested in whether Zuckerberg will get dethroned or not.
As I age I am less interested in business topics, and more interested in technological advancements
As I age I am less interested in business topics, and more interested in technological advancements
Older people learn that, even if you have zero interest in politics, politics will still be done to you. And older people learn that they often don't like how that works out, and therefore conclude that they'd better start paying at least some attention to politics, whether they want to or not.
> Older people learn that, even if you have zero
> interest in politics, politics will still be done to you.
And ironically the author became the abusive politician.
I wouldn't say that. He pulled his country out of the very abusive Versaille treaty, had he stopped there he would today be regarded a hero by all sides. I'll leave it at that!
Errrrr ok
You wouldn't say Hitler was an abusive politician?
Abusive, yes. Abusive politician, not in the context of what he started with.
Defending Hitler is a weird flex but ok
Is it Casual Hitler Sunday again?
I don't think it's a matter of becoming bored, but about being able to better discern the truth.
Eg: Most new things will be completely irrelevant in a couple of years.
Eg: Most new things will be completely irrelevant in a couple of years.
Good point. A few years ago, the big thing was AI. Everybody was talking about how AI would put half of the population out of jobs. Nowadays it's all about cryptocurrencies, which are being hyped as nothing short of a revolution. It's always the same nonsense with a different name.
Most tech, even the overhyped stuff, seriously outlives the news cycle. Type into trends.google.com something that was popular a few months ago, you'll see what I mean.
For example, remember Cathie Wood? She's already forgotten. The "Facebook whistleblower" will be forgotten in about a month.
For example, remember Cathie Wood? She's already forgotten. The "Facebook whistleblower" will be forgotten in about a month.
I think that the old adage is very apt:
The commoners talk about people. The learned talk about things. The wise talk about ideas.
The commoners talk about people. The learned talk about things. The wise talk about ideas.
I don't think it's a function of age, but of size. As Slashdot got larger, it attracted more people who didn't or couldn't talk about those things.
Larger? I feel like Slashdot has shrunk tremendously over the last 10 years and I believe the shift to politics is the main reason.
I have screenshot that I took a couple of years ago where the entire "Most discussed" section had the word "trump" in it. Every single one. That was the tipping point for me.
Maybe the site is larger now than it was a decade ago but it sure doesn't feel like it.
I have screenshot that I took a couple of years ago where the entire "Most discussed" section had the word "trump" in it. Every single one. That was the tipping point for me.
Maybe the site is larger now than it was a decade ago but it sure doesn't feel like it.
Usually when people talk about the rise and fall of Slashdot they are not referring to anything that happened on that domain in 2011 or later. Slashdot was great while it broadened in scope, but the wide scope made it vulnerable to both even more open competition (e.g. reddit, where absolutely every niche can have its niche) end more specific specializations (e.g. kuro5hin, for a few years), leaving the site with a broadness it could not really fill anymore.
I genuinely wonder if HN has been stagnant with the same people visiting it as 5 years ago. And thus your statement is accurate.
Surely with the influx of people early in the pandemic this isn't the case?
Why would the pandemic send more users to HN?
I was a regular reader of Slashdot in the early 2000s. There were loads of discussions about politics, open source politics, flamewars, Microsoft EVIL, etc... Maybe not as much business and stock, perhaps because tech wasn't worth that much money yet, but it wasn't like all oooooh shiny tech news. IIRC 911 was one of the top commented posts, and US elections were probably up there as well.
These days Microsoft kinda mellowed out (at least with regards to its attitude to open source and the non-MS dev community), and new tech giants came into the fray, but at least to me, the mix of news topics don't really seem that much different.
These days Microsoft kinda mellowed out (at least with regards to its attitude to open source and the non-MS dev community), and new tech giants came into the fray, but at least to me, the mix of news topics don't really seem that much different.
superflit2(2)
I find I have to flag/hide about a third of the front page every time I visit to filter out the really boring dreck. Most of it comes from a couple dozen of domains, like npr, guardian, washpost, nytimes, nature, cbc, cnbc, newyorker, atlantic, etc, which does make the filtering easier.
The biggest thing is just that after so many years here, there's very little new to discuss; most topics have been beaten to a bloody pulp, and you know what people are going to say before you even read the comments.
The biggest thing is just that after so many years here, there's very little new to discuss; most topics have been beaten to a bloody pulp, and you know what people are going to say before you even read the comments.
That's the very reason why I stopped following TechCrunch and HackerNoon. It stopped being about tech content and nowadays it's all about the next shiny unicorn or cryptocurrency, IPOs, VCs and interviews with CEOs that sound like TED talks.
Another signal of this direction of things: last year's HackerNoon prizes were for the best (individual) contributors (and back then I managed to grab one of them). This year they were all about the best startups. Why should I spend a few days to put together a comprehensive technical article that eventually doesn't get enough eyeballs because the network is more interested in boosting visibility for (often well-paying) startups and VCs?
I understand that the IT biz side is also important and we need to follow what's going on that side too. The problem is that the IT biz side is cannibalizing everything else and there aren't many large platforms with deep technical content left.
I also understand why things are going in this direction - sponsors and VCs pay better than individual contributors, and by diluting the technical content one widens the potential audience. But it's not a healthy trend for the IT industry. The best ideas come when many technical minds meet and speak in the same place, not when the talk is all about the next unicorn to invest on or the next scandal in <put the name of humungous IT company here>.
In the meantime, I've moved my content to my private blog, and many other technical writers have been doing the same. Going back to private blogs because your content doesn't get enough visibility on large platforms feels like moving back the clock of innovation by at least two decades though, and it's not a good thing.
Another signal of this direction of things: last year's HackerNoon prizes were for the best (individual) contributors (and back then I managed to grab one of them). This year they were all about the best startups. Why should I spend a few days to put together a comprehensive technical article that eventually doesn't get enough eyeballs because the network is more interested in boosting visibility for (often well-paying) startups and VCs?
I understand that the IT biz side is also important and we need to follow what's going on that side too. The problem is that the IT biz side is cannibalizing everything else and there aren't many large platforms with deep technical content left.
I also understand why things are going in this direction - sponsors and VCs pay better than individual contributors, and by diluting the technical content one widens the potential audience. But it's not a healthy trend for the IT industry. The best ideas come when many technical minds meet and speak in the same place, not when the talk is all about the next unicorn to invest on or the next scandal in <put the name of humungous IT company here>.
In the meantime, I've moved my content to my private blog, and many other technical writers have been doing the same. Going back to private blogs because your content doesn't get enough visibility on large platforms feels like moving back the clock of innovation by at least two decades though, and it's not a good thing.
It's not really surprising.
Engineering (which most programming is) is the economic application of scientific knowledge for human value/advantage.
Thus that implies several things:
• the core engineering is defined by economics, psychology, sociology, etc. at least 50% with technical/scientific knowledge/skills being the other 50%
• the money engineering generates is subject to human need and preference which is why the above liberal arts areas matter
• competitive value to the customer defines all projects, all hires and all salaries and decisions are only partially rational even with rational R&D, buying and selling processes
• factors that define the negotiation of value for price involve soft sciences which are messy but completely unavoidable. Those of us who "excel" in those areas have realized this and learned skills related.
• all of this is what "business" actually is!
• thus if you do software seriously, you also should be serious about business - this is analogous to Alan Kay's quote: "people who are serious about software should build their own hardware".
If you want "purity", become a scientist - nominally they don't care about anything but the purity/attainment of knowledge. But that alone does NOT pay well. That's why there are 200+ PhDs in physics waiting for each US tenured university position but companies doing engineering can't get enough and pay for that.
Science is only 100 years old as a profession. Engineering is many 1000s of years old because it has practical application which everyone else in society can easily agree to fund.
Engineering (which most programming is) is the economic application of scientific knowledge for human value/advantage.
Thus that implies several things:
• the core engineering is defined by economics, psychology, sociology, etc. at least 50% with technical/scientific knowledge/skills being the other 50%
• the money engineering generates is subject to human need and preference which is why the above liberal arts areas matter
• competitive value to the customer defines all projects, all hires and all salaries and decisions are only partially rational even with rational R&D, buying and selling processes
• factors that define the negotiation of value for price involve soft sciences which are messy but completely unavoidable. Those of us who "excel" in those areas have realized this and learned skills related.
• all of this is what "business" actually is!
• thus if you do software seriously, you also should be serious about business - this is analogous to Alan Kay's quote: "people who are serious about software should build their own hardware".
If you want "purity", become a scientist - nominally they don't care about anything but the purity/attainment of knowledge. But that alone does NOT pay well. That's why there are 200+ PhDs in physics waiting for each US tenured university position but companies doing engineering can't get enough and pay for that.
Science is only 100 years old as a profession. Engineering is many 1000s of years old because it has practical application which everyone else in society can easily agree to fund.
Hmmm...Maybe I just tune out the business stuff, but I mostly see topics relating to programming, science, and technology, with a smattering of pure business stuff and product/startup announcements.
I think this may be a taxonomic problem. Consider this topic:
> Facebook's own data is not as conclusive about teens and mental health [1]
The article is about Facebook, so its definitely a business article. But it also an article on technology and society, and about the science that describes how social media consumption effects mental health.
HN would lose something if it focused purely on technology. While its essential to understand how technology works, and what changes are on the horizon, the beauty of HN is it also explores how science and technology interconnect with business, government, society, culture, etc.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28813041
I think this may be a taxonomic problem. Consider this topic:
> Facebook's own data is not as conclusive about teens and mental health [1]
The article is about Facebook, so its definitely a business article. But it also an article on technology and society, and about the science that describes how social media consumption effects mental health.
HN would lose something if it focused purely on technology. While its essential to understand how technology works, and what changes are on the horizon, the beauty of HN is it also explores how science and technology interconnect with business, government, society, culture, etc.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28813041
Seems like a trivial solution to include a mechanism for categorization. Good ole Slashdot has had this forever...
Adding tags/topics has been a constant requested workaround to allow some filtering since almost the begining of HN.
Never understood the rejection.
PS: I have always read that it opens mind to other subjects. When I have enough time I agree, but when very busy I would favor some filtering to save precious time.
Never understood the rejection.
PS: I have always read that it opens mind to other subjects. When I have enough time I agree, but when very busy I would favor some filtering to save precious time.
"Rich people in their free time talk about art. Artists in their free time talk about money."
FYI, these are guidelines for "on-topic" for HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
There is a big difference in technology and business. Open source vs closed source. When you create a technology to solve a tech problem and you want kindness and share with the community like "Don't be evil". When you create a business, you want to earn as much money as possible for yourself and your investors and everyone wants too therefore competition is generated and everything is hidden
When you want make a technology you are fun like tech pioneers and when you want to the profit from a technology you are startup builder like PG, Musk, Gates, Bezos
When you want make a technology you are fun like tech pioneers and when you want to the profit from a technology you are startup builder like PG, Musk, Gates, Bezos
Not saying it doesn't at times but right now this was #23 on my front page and it was the first business referencing submission. Everything else was tech stuff / OSS and a 99% invisible post.
I think hacker culture died in the early 2000s , it used to be that there was no money in hacker culture so it kind of attracted a certain person who wasn't interested in money or where it wasnt their main thoughts.
Now there are so many ways to make money , startups, Fang salaries, crypto, so money kind of dominates the thoughts
I have a theory that the current generation will kind of rediscover hacker culture when they hit their 40s and 50s and become financially independent and are no longer motivated by money and there will be a big resurgence.
Now there are so many ways to make money , startups, Fang salaries, crypto, so money kind of dominates the thoughts
I have a theory that the current generation will kind of rediscover hacker culture when they hit their 40s and 50s and become financially independent and are no longer motivated by money and there will be a big resurgence.
[deleted]
I wish it was more business (and tech) news oriented.
All I see lately is a lot of culture war, partisanship, 'intersectionality' and other things they were rarer before the Trump era.
I remember a time when people were getting downvoted for suggesting that maybe, Airbnb and Uber should follow local laws, fast forward 5 years and it's a cultural battlefield...
I miss the time when we were just yelling at each other over the use of singletons, or whether POST or PUT were idempotent...
All I see lately is a lot of culture war, partisanship, 'intersectionality' and other things they were rarer before the Trump era.
I remember a time when people were getting downvoted for suggesting that maybe, Airbnb and Uber should follow local laws, fast forward 5 years and it's a cultural battlefield...
I miss the time when we were just yelling at each other over the use of singletons, or whether POST or PUT were idempotent...
Try lobste.rs ( https://lobste.rs ) if you want "real" hacker news.
They punish non-technical submissions.
They punish non-technical submissions.
They also appear to have no comments (maybe it's a bad day for it, sunday?)
I'm here probably 20% for the link, 80% for the discussion
I'm here probably 20% for the link, 80% for the discussion
Looks cool! hmm would you invite me? :)
yea definitely would love an invite there too ^^
I never realized I wasn’t the only oddball who had so little connection with other computer people that they didn’t know anyone to let them into lobste.rs.
Ooh good recommendation, lobste.rs is cool. I've been looking for someone with a potential invite for a while too if anyone here is offering :).
I love lobste.rs too, an invite would also be appreciated!
I think people want to browse HN and not have to put much mental effort in, so more "news" articles are upvoted, commented on, etc.
I’m not interested in rust, or elixer, or Python or…the list keeps going and is much longer than the list of tech I am interested in. This means I’m unlikely to even grep the title of articles about some keyword specific to them let alone engage with them. I would assume a large number of if not a majority of tech readers are in the same boat. Better believe I’m clicking on any Ruby related articles and probably engaging further as well. Most people here are probably skipping over those same articles I’m engaging with.
An article about Iran or Google is probably going to pull a big audience simply because it’s relevant to a wide audience of the readers here.
An article about Iran or Google is probably going to pull a big audience simply because it’s relevant to a wide audience of the readers here.
Most people here don't read the articles, so there isn't much mental effort being put in either way.
I think people do read the articles.
For a while, I was adding a reply to most of my posts where I pulled in a key bit of the article and maybe made a brief comment. I thought this would be a good way to encourage discussion, but I was advised it could also steer the discussion, so probably better to keep it to a minimum.
This I did, and while fewer posts gain critical mass without that condensation nucleus, it’s clear my best posts usually do end up going somewhere really interesting, and that the articles are definitely being read.
For a while, I was adding a reply to most of my posts where I pulled in a key bit of the article and maybe made a brief comment. I thought this would be a good way to encourage discussion, but I was advised it could also steer the discussion, so probably better to keep it to a minimum.
This I did, and while fewer posts gain critical mass without that condensation nucleus, it’s clear my best posts usually do end up going somewhere really interesting, and that the articles are definitely being read.
Hacker News is essentially entertainment. Nothing here is accurate, most voices are not speaking from experience but a sort of caricature role-playing.
There are occasionally helpful resources, all the same. There was a thread a few months back maybe of a list of different blog authors in various tech fields. If you want high-quality, informed, well-written news, you gotta curate it yourself.
There are occasionally helpful resources, all the same. There was a thread a few months back maybe of a list of different blog authors in various tech fields. If you want high-quality, informed, well-written news, you gotta curate it yourself.
Business news is fine; as pg once wrote, “ But when you do something so clever that you somehow beat the system, that's also called a hack.”
Hacking doesn’t have to be breaking computer stuff, it can also be finding loopholes in business and everyday life and exploiting them.
http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html
Hacking doesn’t have to be breaking computer stuff, it can also be finding loopholes in business and everyday life and exploiting them.
http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html
I imagine HN simply sells the front page to PR firms.
There is no better ad that the one that seems to be organically showing up in your circle of interest.
There is no better ad that the one that seems to be organically showing up in your circle of interest.
I wouldn’t describe it as business news, more like mainstream news. Over the last six months or so, I have noticed a massive increase in the downvoting of unpopular opinions. Before you had to be deliberately belligerent to get flagged or downvoted. Now it’s more just saying something the slightest bit controversial.
This is how Reddit operates and I am sad to see it taking over Hn too.
This is how Reddit operates and I am sad to see it taking over Hn too.
Engineering especially software just like DJing used to be for geeks. That's no longer the case, now it's become hip. Thanks to how easy it is to pick up coding these days. Look at the founders background at YC companies shift over the years. The issue is when there is lack of forums for geeks, we as a society stop innovating.
50 years since building my first heathkit radio with Dad on the kitchen table and I still love reading about the bleeding edge of silicon, algorithms, philosophy, development ideas, and anything else we all churn up. I appreciate the group effort behind HN and rely on YOU for a focus on things that really matter.
Thank you for all the hard work
Thank you for all the hard work
Probably something to do with a lot of us becoming pawns in silicon valley's carefully orchestrated theater. Maybe combined with mass media grappling harder and harder for people's attention as their precious TV dies out. Looks like to be quite potent resulting in people posting a lot about politics and business.
I can tell you for sure that the moderators here don't give a shit about "silicon valley's carefully orchestrated theater" or any other orchestrated theater. The only orchestration is trying to have a site with the most (intellectually) interesting articles. People disagree a lot about what's intellectually interesting—that's all that's going on here.
If you or anyone finds other things more intellectually interesting, you're very welcome to post more of them, or look for them in /newest and upvote more of them.
If you or anyone finds other things more intellectually interesting, you're very welcome to post more of them, or look for them in /newest and upvote more of them.
I was mainly trying to explain why supply side there are a lot more politics/business submits on HN(go to the "new" section) than usual.
And I agree moderators are concerned with other things.
And I agree moderators are concerned with other things.
I can't say I agree...look at the top 60 links currently. How many would you say are "business news"?
Fair point, but it's always been this way. It's not new. FWIW, HN is my tech/business news source so I love it the way it is.
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09
HN was originally called Startup News, and was for startup founders. You might like lobsters, in addition to HN, which has more of a programming focus and overlaps with the community here a bit https://lobste.rs/
To be honest I think this happens naturally and it's fine. The median age in the community feels older and more folks are working in management and business roles. Interests in a community ebb and flow in relation to what folks are working on these days.
In the guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. "
Because technology is basically business automation. Much less of coding is hobby or science.
Maybe it's because you cannot separate things that neatly. I see people here complaining that it's not all about tech but what is tech without the world that we live in and our effect on that world?
Without context, tech alone is a very sterile discussion.
Without context, tech alone is a very sterile discussion.
I keep coming back to HN because of the informed commentary. I commonly see principal actors comment directly, as well as experts with direct relevant experience. I do think the worldview of commenters is a bit monolithic.
There's also the argument that business and technology is "the same thing" now. A majority of businesses cannot operate without technology. Technology often does not come to fruition without business.
I agree. At least 25% of topics are flame war political posts. If you have the wrong opinion you are downvoted. So it makes the community feel pretty bad. I would like to see a policy change. But I won't hold my breath.
I'm not sure if it's changed or not, but use this as an observation as a reminder that technology is more interesting when it does something for people, otherwise it's an academic exercise.
[deleted]
Commenters here seem to be taking OP's assertion as gospel, but right now the front page has maybe 3 items on it that I'd call "business news".
It’s the cycle of life. At one time slashdot was where all the technical people hung out. I’m sure a new place will replace HN at some future date.
Yes. Posts like "How to make $1 million with embarrassingly little work" are always going to make it to the HN frontpage.
Which makes me wonder. Are we here to discuss technology? Or are we here to daydream how we get rich while sleeping?
Also the "hackers" on HN are increasingly buying systems that are built to resist hacking and that have a target audience that can be described as "mom, dad and grandparents". Something feels not right.
Which makes me wonder. Are we here to discuss technology? Or are we here to daydream how we get rich while sleeping?
Also the "hackers" on HN are increasingly buying systems that are built to resist hacking and that have a target audience that can be described as "mom, dad and grandparents". Something feels not right.
HN has always had those sorts of articles, though you're caricaturing it a bit. More like "how I made $X in $Y months with my $(SaaS|eBook)".
[deleted]
This is a website run by a venture capitalist org, ycombinator.
Yes, and they called it "hacker news".
And it was almost called "Startup News".
Not just almost, it originally was called that https://web.archive.org/web/20070405175109/https://news.ycom...
Believe it or not, at the time, the term had a different connotation
I always thought is was about "growth hacking"? No?
Nope. I'm not sure that growth hacking was even a term then.
It refers to hacking as in messing about with technology to do exciting, fun, unexpected or novel things
It refers to hacking as in messing about with technology to do exciting, fun, unexpected or novel things
The other day I saw a post here asking people about how much they had saved and what their age was. A completely pointless dick-measuring thing, that I thought I wouldn’t find even in the likes of Reddit.
I follow HN on and off, usually just lurking, since 2017. But lately I’ve noticed a surprising amount of people humble bragging about their crypto wallets, their no-work-million-dollars startup, and how good their lives are since they left Facebook.
I follow HN on and off, usually just lurking, since 2017. But lately I’ve noticed a surprising amount of people humble bragging about their crypto wallets, their no-work-million-dollars startup, and how good their lives are since they left Facebook.
Those posts have also always been with us. We bury them when we see them, because the interest is not, as you point out, intellectual.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Currently, looking at the front page, there is 1 story in the top 20 that is about business - that's about Facebook's business model.
HN it seems to me is very targeted towards the things that hackers are interested in, which is of course technical content but not exclusively.
I do have a similar perception though I would add there is often political stuff that is not of particular interest to me as a hacker.
I strongly disagree.
Hacker news has strong measures to prevent it turning promotional, and it seems to be working
You have to know what the businesses are doing so you can emulate their success. Also adjust your stock portfolio.
Had the same thought when Rent the Runway's IPO was on the front page. They're not even a tech company.
I'd argue they're a tech company as much as Uber, WeWork, or Airbnb. Rent the runway uses a website and programming to monitor their logistics, inventory, implement designer looks each season and AI to learn user's preferences and suggest new looks to recommend to them for certain events. Their "stylists" are really just machine learning suggestions.
Would you disqualify Uber as a tech co, saying they're just a taxi co? Kinda same umbrella, imo.
Would you disqualify Uber as a tech co, saying they're just a taxi co? Kinda same umbrella, imo.
Business very much is part of hacker culture, and is Very different in tech versus many other industries.
I've seen a lot of posts analyzing HN content. This would be a very interesting topic.
It's possible to go back through history and look at the front page (30 top articals) for any day in the (as of today) past 15 years, beginning 9 October 2006, when Startup News, now Hacker News, first launched as a service to the tech startup sector. A business-oriented site, focusing on the (mostly) high-tech venture scene.
5 years ago today: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2016-10-09
10 years ago today: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2011-10-09
15 years ago today: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09
A simple shell script will automate URL generation:
2006: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1167523200&dateRange=custom&...
As 2006 is partial, here's 2007 as well:
2007: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1199059200&dateRange=custom&...
2011: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1325203200&dateRange=custom&...
2016: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1483142400&dateRange=custom&...
2021: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1640908800&dateRange=custom&...
As I read it, the top stories from 2007 were ... dominated by business / non-technical topics. Top 10 items:
5 years ago today: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2016-10-09
10 years ago today: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2011-10-09
15 years ago today: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09
A simple shell script will automate URL generation:
for i in {5..15..5} do
echo "https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=$( date -d "$i years ago" +%Y-%m-%d )"
done
2006: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1167523200&dateRange=custom&...
As 2006 is partial, here's 2007 as well:
2007: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1199059200&dateRange=custom&...
2011: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1325203200&dateRange=custom&...
2016: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1483142400&dateRange=custom&...
2021: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1640908800&dateRange=custom&...
As I read it, the top stories from 2007 were ... dominated by business / non-technical topics. Top 10 items:
Please tell us what features you'd like in news.ycombinator(http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363)
262 points|pg|15 years ago|1566 comments
Finally, voting without refresh(http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html#12jun07)
176 points|pg|14 years ago|42 comments
How Not to Die(http://paulgraham.com/die.html)
168 points|subhash|14 years ago|143 comments
Why we made this site(http://ycombinator.com/announcingnews.html)
165 points|pg|15 years ago|57 comments
Hacker News(http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html)
150 points|pg|14 years ago|76 comments
Holding a program in one's head(http://www.paulgraham.com/head.html)
142 points|eposts|14 years ago|131 comments
Code's Worst Enemy(http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/12/codes-worst-enemy.html)
125 points|mqt|14 years ago|41 comments
CMU professor gives his last lesson on life(http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07262/818671-85.stm)
121 points|amichail|14 years ago|33 comments
Why to Apply to YCombinator
113 points|palish|14 years ago|36 comments
Absolutely, DO NOT, get a co-founder!
112 points|BitGeek|14 years ago|86 comments"Hacker" "News"
(It's a somewhat obscure reference)
(It's a somewhat obscure reference)
to be honest, it seems more dominated by retro-computing and various tech related nostalgia for the over 40 set at the moment.
not complaining at all about this, of course.
not complaining at all about this, of course.
You might enjoy lobste.rs more for straight tech content.
you don't happen to have a spare invite? it still works on invite right?
Anyone can view. Need an invite to post. I just lurk.
funny how you see "How Google is protecting our privacy" posts eveyr now and then that makes it to the front page
[deleted]
"Hipster News"
its "hacker" as in "hacker is a cool word"
Hackernews hasn't been hacker news since 2015, when it started being about the books bill gates is reading, or what Elon Musk had for breakfast. It's vanity fair for nerds.
It is a stark contrast to 5 years ago.
Agreed. I think it's probably helped the lobste.rs community.
Didn’t this site start as a jobs and PR board for investment properties owned by venture capitalists?
It's dominated by mainstream, intelligentsia-approved narratives.
It has homogenized a bit, but perhaps this is why more contrary opinions need to speak up. I find myself often reading an interesting exchange that ends in a squinty grey section of text, and I sit there for a moment, frustrated, and trying to figure out what the dissenters downvoting see that I don't. Perhaps more well-reasoned rebuttals would be what HN needs to bring some of the old flavor back.
Before you ignore me and pass on, I've been active here for enough years to remember when you could discuss just about anything and people almost gravitated to a contrarian opinion to figure out how someone could get such a different view. People now seem too quick to downvote with no comment, which in my opinion is a loss for anybody following up after that who is missing that context.
It is the conversational equivalent of the person who makes a forum question about an obscure bug that goes on for about 30 replies or so, and then at the end its just the intrepid OP showing up to say "thanks guys its fixed" and nobody has a clue what got fixed or how. To me, this is the laziest form of discourse, and I think it is worsened by people being too comfy in their peer groups and despite advocating for diversity, not valuing diversity of concepts and viewpoints.
Before you ignore me and pass on, I've been active here for enough years to remember when you could discuss just about anything and people almost gravitated to a contrarian opinion to figure out how someone could get such a different view. People now seem too quick to downvote with no comment, which in my opinion is a loss for anybody following up after that who is missing that context.
It is the conversational equivalent of the person who makes a forum question about an obscure bug that goes on for about 30 replies or so, and then at the end its just the intrepid OP showing up to say "thanks guys its fixed" and nobody has a clue what got fixed or how. To me, this is the laziest form of discourse, and I think it is worsened by people being too comfy in their peer groups and despite advocating for diversity, not valuing diversity of concepts and viewpoints.
It's PG's toy forum for the CEOs he's investing in. Of course it's dominated by business news.
It's the brogrammer echo chamber. They discuss everything and anything the people of silicon valley are interested in.
I’d say the opposite is true. Additionally, it is much MUCH easier to find tech communities to have a discussion as compared to business-oriented communities.
Look at the url 'ycombinator'. It's some kind of silicon valley tech-bro MLM I think.
Of course HN is run by YC so there will always be the mod posts about startups and jobs, but it seems the community here sometimes tilts more towards business than technology.
Just a personal thought, would like to hear if others also have a similar perception.