
Hacker News is 2 - pg
http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html#19feb09
======
lyime
Wow. It feels like just yesterday I signed up for HN. YC:HN is priceless for
me. Thank you YC and thanks to this community.

~~~
unalone
Seconding this. HN community, you rock. All of you. Even the people that start
heated debates. (Hell, _especially_ the people who start heated debates.)

Happy birthday!

~~~
axod
Agreed. It's a lovely little oasis of healthy conversation, and friendly
help/advice.

Long may it continue :)

------
run4yourlives
Since nobody seems to really be saying it I will:

Paul, thanks for taking the time and putting in the effort to create a website
I really value. I've learned a lot over the last little bit and continue to do
so.

Job well done.

------
vaksel
How about a hand for the moderators? They are the guys who keep the quality of
this site up. Without them, this would soon just be another clone of reddit

~~~
alecco
Was it necessary to bash Reddit?

~~~
falsestprophet
No, but I would like to take this opportunity to do it anyway. Reddit has
become a den of melodramatic ideologues and thoughtless iconoclasts. I'm no
longer a supporter.

Here are some intellectually unflattering sample headlines from the front page
right now:

4\. Like NASCAR Drivers, Our Politicians Should Wear Uniforms Clearly Stating
Their Sponsors

5\. Oh, Canada. “When statements are said that God probably does not exist,
this is an implied statement of hatred towards all those who do believe that
God exists.”

13\. The head of the DEA spent more than $123,000 to charter a private jet to
fly to Bogota, Colombia, last fall instead of taking one of the agency's 106
planes.

15\. PWNED!!!

19\. Citigroup, which lost $18 Billion Last year, laid off 39,000 and got a
$52 Billion Govt Bailout still provides perks to directors and former CEOs
such as airplanes, helicopters, and drivers costing millions of dollars per
year.

20\. Cousin of 9/11 Hijacker Arrested as Israeli Spy

21\. Fuck the media. CBS Evening News only points to $4600 from Stanford to
Obama as well as showing Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. No mention of McCain's
$28K or any other Republican. (1:55 video)

22\. Ten years. Ten FUCKING years you've been following me. And for what?
PIKACHU?

23\. Woman Blinded By Acid Requests That Her Attacker Be Blinded With Drops Of
Acid In Each Eye. Iranian Court Accomodates Her.

25\. Giant rat caught in China

~~~
Herring
Have you looked at the subreddits? I spend a lot of time in /programming/ & I
find that it has much better articles than HN. Or maybe it's just me, I'm more
interested in code than startups.

<http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/>

The reddit RSS feed is also considerably better & I find that invaluable.

~~~
jon_dahl
I used to swear by programming.reddit.com, until the discussions went the way
of reddit.com. Whatever can be said for link quality, I find the discussions
here 100x better.

------
c1sc0
714 days here, karma 117 and I couldn't be happier: this place is special,
let's keep it that way, happy birthday to us! wiiiii ! what kind of birthday
gift do you give to a website?

~~~
brandonkm
> what kind of birthday gift do you give to a website?

Probably a really sweet submission. Like "new web framework lightspeed lisp
screencast by Paul Graham on Justin.tv".

------
rokhayakebe
689 days for a non-techie hanging with geeks. What is it like?

Well, participating (silently) in conversations between the advantages of one
programming language/tool over another.

Reading some of the most thoughtful comments from users who clearly seem to
know what they are talking about.

Experimenting with new web startups that launched here for the first time that
are eager to get feedback.

Getting/giving advices on what to do and what not to do to achieve success in
different fields.

Being constantly reminded that smart people who want to impact are everywhere.

Still don't know how to program, but I am loving HN. If I had to have one
digital home HN would be the IT.

Thanks to every user, moderator, to the founder and to myself for mingling
with smarter individuals.

HBHN

------
wheels
There was so a missed opportunity for a nerd joke here:

 _Hacker News is 10!_

------
kqr2
Here's a link to the oldest page I could find on the wayback machine:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

~~~
mseebach
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1>

~~~
bd
_22 points by pg 864 days ago | 16 comments | flag_

Wait, I sense a disturbance in the Force:

    
    
      2x365+1=731 < 864
    

What was HN doing 133 days before being born? And who are those mysterious
elders with accounts " _created:864 days ago_ "?

------
bayareaguy
_Despite 14x growth, the character of the site has remained intact. So far
this experiment seems to be working._

I'm not sure what counts as character and this is obviously subjective but my
personal feeling is that HN's quality has taken a slight hit in the past year.
It doesn't seem as unique as it once was and many of the topics that make it
to the front page seem to be more formulaic. Furthermore many newcomers seem
to post the same things that were raised here previously. I've lost track of
the number of topics about hosting providers, credit card processing and the
like. Also with the increased volume it's been hard to make effective use of
the "new" page. Odd things that may interest me that don't quickly get enough
attention are lost faster.

Unfortunately I predict growth and network effects will speed up this trend
and 2 years from now HN will likely be much less interesting as the HN of a
year or two ago.

------
herval
2 years and I'm still so far from 100 points of 'karma'... What a shame!

Happy birthday, Hax0rs!

------
rms
Happy birthday.

~~~
critic
RMS, is that you?

I came here to say that I really like the design of this web site (despite of
what some others say), but the stability seems lacking sometimes. The site is
often inaccessible. I was going to suggest reimplementing everything in
ASP.NET and VB.NET, but in RMS's presence, I don't dare.

~~~
patio11
As a very helpful comment once put it:

On HN, dhh is DHH but rms is not RMS.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=412440>

~~~
critic
OK then, reimplement everything in ASP.NET!

DHH, the Ruby guy? Sorry about posting that Lua vs Ruby benchmark link.

~~~
icey
I can't tell if you're trolling or serious.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. It won't be rewritten in ASP.Net
because of this: <http://arclanguage.org/>

~~~
critic
I know about Arc. I'm half-joking about .NET, and I'm serious about the rest.

------
CalmQuiet
Congratulations. It was just this new year that I lucked into HN - and it has
made a huge difference to this tech-retread (me) as I seek to play catch-up in
my hacking education. A great community you've catalyzed!

------
kamme
Happy birthday!

I'm happy to see that you didn't do any major changes to the look and feel of
this website, most sites tend to change for the worse after receiving more and
more hits. Good job!

------
gcheong
Wow 2 years. It's strange, but I can't really remember how I came to start
reading HN. I know I had been reading PG's essays for a while, but there seems
to be a gap I can't recall. It's kinda like the way I can't really remember
when I started using Google for all my searches, I just kinda naturally
assimilated it into my life.

------
yan
Joining the throng of people congratulating HN and noting how big a part of my
technical life it has become.

------
jodrellblank
HN has completely dominated all other forums I used to read frequently, even
the one I pay for membership at and have been hanging around for a decade.
Thank you. (I think it's a _good_ addiction).

So, what are your plans for the next year at HN and how can we help with them?

------
rodrigo
Thanks pg, cheers to us! This place has grown to be such a great one. Thank
you all.

------
tomh
Happy Birthday! What, only 2?

------
muon
Oh Time flies! Never noticed that two years have elapsed. Happy Birthday.

------
whalesalad
Am I the only one here who first read this as "Hacker News 2" and got all
excited for a nanosecond imagining something like beta.news.yc.com with a new
design and added features???

------
medianama
Why is the Alexa rank so low with 22k unique users everyday?

~~~
TomOfTTB
Honestly, there's still an argument to be made that compete.com is at least
semi accurate. But Alexa is just a lost cause. It simply doesn't even resemble
anything accurate anymore.

P.S. Happy Birthday HN

------
omnivore
It's a useful place to get news, but also to get insight from folks who do
what I do and it's invaluable in a world filled with noise and static.

------
mshafrir
HN is my homepage on my desktop, and the first bookmark on my Blackberry. It's
really all I need for news that's relevant to me.

------
edw519
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, and Hacker News Beside me singing in the
Internet Wilderness

Oh, Internet Wilderness were Paradise enow!

(apologies to Omar Khayyam)

------
lazyant
491 days here and I still haven't figured out what the user params (like
"noprocrast" or "showdead") do, what a noob

~~~
pg
<http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html>

~~~
lazyant
I can't see the link to this anywhere, must be the age

~~~
johngunderman
very bottom of the main page. I have to admit, it wasn't obvious to me either
when I first went looking for it.

~~~
lazyant
thanks. The FAQ link should be where the question arises (in the user's
profile page).

------
andrewljohnson
HN made me quit reading Reddit. Thanks HN!

------
atog
Happy birthday! HN is a great resource.

------
rbitar
Happy birthday. What, no champagne?

------
dualogy
zomg, never realized news was born on my birthday! Best gift I got today!
(Well, almost :)

"This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius ♫ Golden living dreams of visions
♪ And the mind's true liberation"... well I'm no mystic but I just love us
aquariuses!

------
daveambrose
Happy Birthday! My favorite community here. Great people, great ideas, great
service!

------
dmose
Happy birthday! The only site on the net worth checking multiple times a
dayIMO.

------
paul7986
Anyone know who are the HN moderators? Are there any these days?

------
froo
Happy Birthday to the HN crew. Heres hoping for many many more!

------
shailesh
Happy birthday HN and thanks to the HNers; you are wonderful.

------
DanielBMarkham
What? No cake?

Congrats on a fun site so far, Paul. Hope it continues.

------
pibefision
Congrat's! this is a great resource for all of us

------
releasedatez
Happy Birthday!

------
cdr
Intact? Don't kid yourself.

------
thepanister
hmmmmmmmmm

I think that the 14x growth happened because there is a nice atmosphere here
that you won't find anywhere...

