
Read less HN - johnmurray_io
http://johnmurray.io/log/2013/11/17/Read-Less-HN.md
======
fhd2
I can see how HN is bad for the author's well being, but certainly not for
mine. I don't feel bad about reading other people's success stories. I don't
feel any need to switch languages/frameworks when reading about new/hyped
stuff.

It's all just information, what you do with that is up to you.

~~~
johnmurray_io
Sure, but what is the opportunity cost of reading all of those posts and what
are you really gaining from reading all of those "new technology of the month"
postings?

~~~
acjohnson55
Less time being a mindless drone, never leaving your lane? ;)

I personally have learned quite a bit on HN that has led me to being a better
programmer. A discovered Two Scoops of Django
([https://django.2scoops.org/](https://django.2scoops.org/)), Javascript
Allongé ([https://leanpub.com/javascript-
allonge](https://leanpub.com/javascript-allonge)), and plenty of other things
that have expanded my mind. The debate between promises, callbacks, and
generators made me think critically about how I do asynchronous JS. The local
love of functional programming has inspired me to dive in, and ultimately made
me a better imperative programmer as well. And overhype of Edward Snowden's
every movement aside, HN does a great job of surfacing stories about the
intersection of policy and tech.

I also value a lot of the discourse that happens here. I think HN, even with
its flaws, is a better community for discussion than Slashdot, Ars, or most of
the rest of the sites covering tech.

~~~
joshjmb
I definitely see the benefits here. But whenever I see a point like this I
wonder: if you had replaced hacker news with a different activity, could you
have formed a similar list of things you learned? Perhaps a longer list, or
one of higher quality? Not trying to criticize you, just something I think
about in these cases.

~~~
acjohnson55
Yeah, absolutely. I'm not arguing that HN is somehow optimal. I'm just saying
that as a continual time investment, it's provided greater returns than the
alternatives I've used in the past, with regards to staying on top of the
scene in tech, startups, and tech-related policy.

------
michaelwww
I've noticed that a lot of writers in tech generalize their experience to
everyone in the community. Several times a day I'm struck by someone who talks
about his/her experience like it's a common experience, when it may or may not
be. I think it would be safer and more relatable if the author had said "HN -
Bad for My Well Being," but of course that doesn't sound as portentous.

~~~
mercer
I get the impression this is a trait that seems more present in programmer
types than many other people, and this fascinates me. I notice this in myself
too. I almost always try to reduce/abstract my own problems or issues to
'general principles', and I tend to want to get to the root of things.

There are many plausible explanations for this (and obviously I've tried to
get to the root of this phenomenon too), but at some point I started
reflecting on whether this behavior is a good or bad thing.

I think it's both good and bad. It's good primarily because a lot of people
look at their own problem in isolation, and share/address them as 'their
unique problem', which keeps them from seeing underlying patterns or
principles and from tapping into the experiences and observations of the
countless others that have had pretty much the exact same problem. But it can
also be bad, because not everyone likes being subjected or presented with this
kind of generalization, and attempting to think about a problem in a general
sense while you are suffering from it yourself complicates the search for
solutions immensely (especially practical, direct solutions to implement).

Does anyone know if there has been research into this? I never really thought
of diving in the the 'psychology' of programmers...

~~~
michaelwww
By following startswithaj's excellent lesswrong link, I found an interesting
doc about the subject :
[http://www.academia.edu/4589611/Dennett_and_The_Typical_Mind...](http://www.academia.edu/4589611/Dennett_and_The_Typical_Mind_Fallacy)

I noticed it in action recently when watching a David Lynch documentary about
Transcendental Meditation where he describes his experience of meditation as
"the cables of and elevator being cut and falling into oneness." My first
thought was that Lynch has a very unique mind and probably doesn't realize
that is not a very typical experience during meditation, but bless his heart,
he wants everyone to have it.

Edit: David Wants to Fly [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0payvR--
nM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0payvR--nM)

------
peteforde
Some might find it interesting that I consider part of my job as a tech
strategy consultant is to keep up with what's happening on HN.

I try not to open every link or anything, because I procrastinate just like
everyone else. However, some of the value that I provide my clients is knowing
about changes to their competitive landscape before they do.

Tightly coupled with both experience and a willingness to offer strong,
thoughtful opinions on the day's tech news, I am often able to be the most
honest and disconcertingly knowledgeable person at the table... all thanks to
scanning HN a few times a day.

I owe much of my livelihood to your often link-bait posts, so thanks. :)

------
Segmentation
Still not nearly as bad as Reddit. Subreddits have value, but look at the
front page of Reddit. Zero value. On any given day, of any week, month, or
year. Reddit's front page is 100% wasted time. I demonstrate this by asking to
myself: Ten years from now what will Reddit's front page look like? Answer:
The exact nonsense memes and image macros posted today.

~~~
minimaxir
This is mostly because Reddit's choice of default subreddits are poor (and
cater to the lowest common denominator):
[http://i.imgur.com/9FLPgsW.png](http://i.imgur.com/9FLPgsW.png)

You have manually curate the subreddits you want, unfortunately.

~~~
philh
> This is mostly because Reddit's choice of default subreddits are poor

Presumably this isn't entirely a choice: I would expect a good subreddit to
get worse if it was made default. (And I've heard that /r/atheism got better
when it was made undefault, but I haven't actually looked.)

~~~
mitchty
Thing is, those default subreddits were actually good before Reddit got too
mainstream.

What we're seeing right now is the after effects of popularity.

~~~
kenbellows
Ah, the Catch 22 of popular discussion based websites. You want to be popular,
but you want to remain high in quality. It's shockingly difficult to do both.

~~~
mitchty
Yep, /r/science is about the only default that is ok. And if you've seen a
climate change discussion there, you'll realize how painful it is to keep
discussion on topic on reddit.

I remember going to reddit and thinking, damn these comments are loads better
than slashdot. I don't think I can contribute anything interesting, these
people are sharp so I won't post at all.

Might have just been me but there is a marked difference in tone on the site.

------
k-mcgrady
I've noticed a different bad thing that happens to me when I am active on HN.
I become very argumentative IRL. On HN it's fun to engage other people,
debating, disagreeing and arguing your point. It's constructive and usually we
all get something from it.

I noticed that the more time I spend active on HN (in comments) the more I
tend to correct friends when they make a mistake or vigorously argue a point
of view on something not that important (these aren't bad things the but the
frequency with which I was doing them annoyed me and my friends and it wasn't
just the important stuff I was arguing, it was stupid things).

When I logged out of HN for a while this behaviour slowly started to improve.
I couldn't stay away for ever though but I am much more aware of the effect
and try to stop myself before I get too deep into a stupid debate/argument
both on HN and IRL.

~~~
nisa
Yes! This and the need to explain things always in an exact and neutral way
without actually knowing all to much about the issue at hand and thereby
blatantly ignoring the reality and the knowledge and interest of the persons
around you.

I don't blame HN. I've learned and still learn a lot of cool stuff here. It's
the best source to stay up to date on internet drama and timely background
information for security and hacking related incidents. Also a lot of
programming and Unix related ideas I would hardly find anywhere else. But it's
of little use to me. I'm not the security engineer of a start up. I'm not even
really coding at the moment.

My reality is different. I should leave my room, work on my bicycle, solve the
real and urgent issues around my life and sit in the library or hanging around
with friends doing real stuff. Connecting with real people and learning
something about other aspects of life. This may be different for others here.

Instead I'm here trapped in a strange click loop. I would do probably
something similar without HN or even without internet. It's sad but the OPs
post about is a good reminder to cut it down... it's irrational for me and I'm
sure I'm not the only one.

------
Sakes
It depends on how long you've had an HN account. At some point the content
seems to get repetitive. It's pretty easy to ignore the content that you've
seen before.

But in the beginning it is a wealth of information, giving you insight into
what should be expected when trying to start a barebones new company.

So you gorge on the articles until you rarely get new insights from them.
Then, naturally, your addiction to HN ends. (Typically this starts the
"remember when HN was good?" comments)

Now if you are addicted for other reasons, like you feel socially involved
here, that I can not speak to. But if your addiction is content, that will
fade once you've had your fill.

------
zmmmmm
I have a different problem with it, which is that it invariably makes me feel
pretty incompetent, because no matter what subject comes up, people with 10
times my level of skill in fields that I consider myself relatively competent
in start discussing things and I suddenly feel quite completely devoid of any
skill at all. Even on a simple thing like posts about typing I find people
lamenting how they are only able to output 60wpm while I measure myself at
48wpm. Part of my problem is that I tend to be a generalist and know a lot of
things quite well rather than single specialist topic at extreme depth.

How this all plays out in my head is a complex thing, but overall I feel like
it is bad for my self-image. It is just very hard to keep the perspective in
mind that I might be in the top 20% of people in a field but the top 1% will
be the ones who start commenting on a specialised topic on HN. Add to that the
different personality types hiding behind people's pseudonymous identities and
you are getting a super distorted picture of the world.

~~~
danenania
My advice would be to embrace your generalist nature.

There are certainly roles fit for specialists, but generalists with rare
blends of difficult and useful skills are a lot more valuable in most
situations. Specialization in any one area tends to have rapidly diminishing
returns.

I think any above average developer can make themselves more valuable at a
_much_ faster rate by becoming decent at complementary disciplines like
design, user experience, conversion optimization, writing, etc. than by
continuing to hone their development skills.

Even within development, becoming decent at every level of the stack, from dev
ops and databases to front end, is usually going to add a lot more value than
becoming slightly stronger at your specialty.

------
jonathanjaeger
While I think all of OP's points are valid (loss of productivity, focus on
things that are too positive or negative, unactionable items, etc.), I think
there is a flipside. I'm not saying you should spend an exorbitant amount of
time on HN, but I think many come for the community and shared purpose. It's
like getting your Reddit fix without having to worry about cat photos and
memes. There are many tech-related articles here that aren't about frameworks
or success/failure.

~~~
Stealth-
Honestly, most of my HN reading is because I need a mind-break from whatever
I'm focusing on. I find it's a great way to take a break, and still learn a
few things while I'm at it.

~~~
brokentone
I was working on such a reply, but you said it better. The only thing I would
add is that it's up to you to be disciplined, and not run from work,
procrastinating on HN. But this is not an issue inherent to HN.

------
themodelplumber
>> _The solution is not to read absolutely no news at all._

A question: What makes you think so? I've gone months and years at a time
without reading any news; it's a fantastic feeling, and if something is really
important you'll hear about it from a friend.

Just as "read less HN" may not be applicable to everyone, "you should probably
keep reading the news" may not apply to others, or at least others may have
had positive experiences quitting the consumption of news media.

Scary, I know ;-)

------
sean-duffy
There is definitely a flipside. I wouldn't be nearly as up to date with tech
if it wasn't for HN, and last summer I managed to get an internship at a
startup that I would have had zero chance of finding had I not seen them in a
"Who's Hiring?" post on here.

~~~
johnmurray_io
Oh definitely. I would just argue that you had to dig through a lot of posts
that were less-than-beneficial and that a filter for an "Ask HN" would have
been more worth your time. And that is just one form of curated content that I
was mentioning.

------
conanite
> Something that can curate the top posts and send them to you on a schedule.

When you read a bunch of articles and upvote interesting ones (for whatever
your value of "interesting" is), you contribute to the community by making a
distinction between articles.

The problem with reading from a curated feed is that you're most likely no
longer participating (because it's too late to meaningfully upvote), and hence
delegating curation to all the other users. When a majority of all the other
users are doing the same, then the power of curation becomes concentrated in
fewer voters.

I suspect the value of HN is amplified by the meaningful participation of its
users. There are many other ways to be a passive consumer of news.

------
danso
I actually think the discussions on HN are pretty good, even the political
ones. There are some well thought out people here, and then people who I
would've empathized with years ago when I was younger and not more exposed to
the way the world works. Both sides are helpful to read and be aware of.

But I mainly read HN for the tech news. I'm one of those people who will learn
about Github/Twitter/Heroku being down from here. All the big hacks are posted
here and thoroughly discussed. I probably would've never played around with
CoffeeScript, Angular, Go, and Dart without them being endlessly discussed
around here. I wish I had something like HN when I was in college.

------
VMG
Just looking at the current headlines, your characterization is completely
off.

But I agree with the larger point -- HN is addictive and biased. Moderation is
key.

------
peterashford
It seems to me that often HN is an echo chamber for people who want to feel
superior about their tech choices - an attitude that's inherited from it's
creator PG. I mean, "Blub programmers"? Can you get any more elitist?

I view HG as a boy's club for programming fashionistas. It just happens that
sometimes amongst all the posturing there's something genuinely valuable.

Regarding the OP - I think that HN is fine as long as you learn to skim and
filter.

------
hgezim
The loss of productivity and loss of focus in my work is exactly why I created
[http://HNdigest.com](http://HNdigest.com) .

However, the content that I get from HackerNews is priceless, so quitting
makes no sense.

------
james33
I actually took around 2 months off of Hacker News over the summer when we
were coming up on a big deadline with the beta launch or our new game, and I
must say I noticed a significant uptick in productivity over this period.
Completely fasting; however, hasn't turned out to be the best idea since I'm
now more addicted than I was previously. The newsletter idea is probably the
best of both worlds.

------
GuiA
HN is an online community, where people go because they feel that it fulfills
them in some way (maybe because they plan to do a startup of their own one day
and reading about other startups makes them dream, because they like debating
with others, etc.).

I suggest the ridiculous notion that you should do what makes you happy, and
if going on HN fulfills some part of your being - no matter how irrationally -
then go for it.

------
nettletea
Time is precious.

The issue I have with HN (and other Forums), is that there is a lot of
repetition in the comments. In part on HN this is probably not helped as it's
difficult to overview and digest threads, especially if the comment trees are
large. Comment verbosity and positional changes also make it difficult.

I think that is why in part people come, post, then move on. Necro-posting,
even a day late is pretty pointless if you want to add to the general
discussion.

I think I'd rather comments have a character limit. Or to get people to post
summaries of their posts as titles. And/or some tl;dr; post mortems on comment
threads.

------
johnjourney
in a couple of hours we'll see

HN - Why It's Actually Good For Your Well Being (medium.com)

------
pcmonk
Regarding the curated content option, I don't think that would be a good
option for me. I come here to learn about the unusual and non-mainstream tech
stuff. Of the 20 frameworks, it's true that I can only really learn one, but I
probably am not going to want to learn whatever one the curator decided was
best, because the curator is going to choose the most popular/hip/mainstream
one, since that's the one that would be of interest to the most readers. I
come here not to learn what's popular, but rather to learn about the things
that aren't popular.

------
jheriko
actually i love all of this stuff on HN. i really don't agree with the
argument presented here - as well presented as it is.

hn is a resource where the stories of the kind listed in this article are
available at all. for me this is important because i want to read those
stories, i want to learn from the mistakes of others and see what other people
/think/ worked well for them. sure it hurts my productivity, but so does the
beer i would drink, the movie i would watch or whatever else that i would do
in my down time because that is when i read HN for the most part.

what is bad for my well being here is all the 'self-entitled prick with first
world problem' stories. i have no respect for them and it saddens me that the
community as a whole seems naive enough on average that this stuff is
considered news and not just 'smart' people embarrassing themselves with an
utter lack of common sense or life experience. it makes me genuinely angry.
the worst part of it all is that these stories and promoting them feed the
very cause you fight against... see just thinking about draws me into wanting
to collectively slap the majority of the community around the face and tell
them how it is, you know the good ol' sciency way by pointing at data and
examples littered throughout history instead of jumping on some crazy
emotional bandwagon.

enough.

------
barbs
Is it weird that I read Hacker News for none of the reasons he lists? I'm
rarely interested in reading about startups succeeding or failing, or new
frameworks or languages, but I am interested in reading about cool things
people have done with technology, or even non-tech related news. I guess I'd
probably be more suited to slashdot's content, but I prefer Hacker News'
format so much more.

------
S4M
Someone needs to add on the 4chan thread: "HN: why HN is bad for you".

------
nilkn
This is one of the few technical communities online where I post comments. The
problem I have with reddit is that downvoting is too rampant. I also enjoy the
focus here on startup companies, even though I'm not a founder. reddit seems
to have this bias against startups which is overly cynical and even
demoralizing. To me, the startup scene is (part of) what makes the software
industry interesting and distinguishes it from, say, chemical engineering. If
I ever do decide to become a founder, the information I've picked up here,
almost by osmosis, will undoubtedly be invaluable.

Regarding posts about new languages or frameworks, I really don't think
anybody is seriously suggesting you go rewrite your production codebase.
That's silly hyperbole. Lots of people here actively work on side projects or
they may be in the planning phase for a new startup with no code written yet--
situations where they can legitimately consider using a newer framework or
language.

------
dredwerker
I shall invoke Sturgeon's Law: ("ninety percent of everything is crap." )

Sturgeon's revelation, commonly referred to as Sturgeon's law, is an adage
commonly cited as "ninety percent of everything is crap." It is derived from
quotations by Theodore Sturgeon, an American science fiction author and
critic: while Sturgeon coined another adage that he termed "Sturgeon's law",
it is his "revelation" that is usually referred to by that term.

The phrase was derived from Sturgeon's observation that while science fiction
was often derided for its low quality by critics, it could be noted that the
majority of examples of works in other fields could equally be seen to be of
low quality and that science fiction was thus no different in that regard to
other art forms.

------
iguana
TL;DR don't read HN if you're easily influenced.

------
ktran03
HN has been a blessing for me. It has taught me so much about
startups/consulting and everything related. And the comments section is
tremendously valuable. As an avid forum reader (self-proclaimed) I have the
experience of knowing how to comb through the comments and be able to quickly
extract what's important. Only a fool reads everything and interprets it on
face value.

Sometimes in the comments what's written isn't important, but the thought
process behind that writing could really help excel one's career (if one's
able to discern it). I have to pay homage to the tremendously experienced
consultants here, in which I've learned so much from, and has helped my career
unequivocally.

~~~
agrias
This is such an outstanding point, like all internet resources there is a
wealth of knowledge you can obtain from HN. But you have to condition yourself
to differentiate between what is sensational and what is actual fact.

I might get burned for this, but I don't know why people even evangelize posts
of this kind. For starters they are off topic. And what is the end goal? At
one extreme are you trying to lead an exodus? Do you feel like you're helping
people because you're telling people how to effectively use their time? There
is such a wide range of types here I don't know how this advice can be applied
ubiquitously.

I love HN because I get to see so many great early stage products. I get to
hear opinions from all ages that reveal the environment we are in (Young and
old developers trying to mesh together, new techniques meet old). I don't
really know too many other communities that have what HN has.

------
lazyjones
I do not feel qualified to determine the psychological effects of HN on
readers, but the author has some valid points. HN does leave one with the
impression that there's this "get rich fast" club of 20-something
entrepreneurs who are getting huge valuations and 8-figure cash investments
for unfinished and seemingly unimportant niche products and unfortunately,
you, the reader, cannot be part of it. This might be frustrating for people
who work hard on their own startups and cannot get anywhere near this VC craze
because they live on some other continent. Then again, it has no real impact
on their own efforts, success is not made by VC or hype, it's the product that
counts.

------
mcphilip
HN, like all news sources, is a mixed bag of content that has varying degrees
of relevancy to its readers. Very few people have time to read all of the Wall
Street Journal on a daily basis, much less benefit from absorbing that much
information, and the same thing applies to HN. However, HN still provides a
great source of current and emergent trends in the startup world. If one isn't
able to consume this site's content in a way that's beneficial to them then
the blame is squarely on their own lack of discipline. Writing blog posts
extrapolating one's personal tendency to misuse this news source to some
general rule of thumb is pointless.

~~~
johnmurray_io
I agree. However, I wouldn't say that this is entirely useless as it does
offer some suggested alternatives to help build better habits. What I discuss
in my post is something that I've seen friends and co-workers struggle with
and the newsletters were something largely unknown to some.

------
tzury
I live in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Some of the stories I read at HN appears on "mainstream-media" a day or three
later. In most cases, Hacker News makes the local technology news "no-news".

As for the author's opinion, media, by definition, usually cover the
exceptional stories, great success or failures, but not the daily challenges
each of us is coping with, while struggling to generate more leads or turn a
lead into a deal (yep, same letters, reads backwards).

I love stay in sync with the remote Silicon Valley and HN, the stories and the
comments help me get that.

Thanks PG and the other guys for putting this site together and maintaining
this site for us, entrepreneurs all over the world!

------
imns
I'd also add [http://web-design-weekly.com](http://web-design-weekly.com) and
(my newsletter) [http://jobety.com](http://jobety.com) to the list.

Web design weekly definitely provides quality web design related content. I've
also talked to the curator and he's a very nice guy which doesn't change the
quality of the content, but does let you know your supporting a decent person.

My newsletter Jobety provides web design and dev related jobs once a week. I
sort through a lot of different job boards and pick out what I consider to be
the best ones.

------
duck
John, thanks for the Hacker Newsletter mention!

Of course I'm a bit biased, but I think curated newsletters provide a lot of
advantages, several of which are listed in the post. Another one that I would
add is the ability to focus on a particular topic or area that you find
useful. I created a (curated) list of a lot of them recently -
[http://www.kaledavis.com/2013/09/06/newsletters-
newsletters-...](http://www.kaledavis.com/2013/09/06/newsletters-newsletters-
newsletters.html).

------
alaskamiller
I started reading Hacker News back in 2007. I got busy, really busy around
2010. I came back in 2013.

Nothing's changed. Still the same type of talk, same type of links, same type
of mentality.

------
D9u
I rarely read every article on page one, and many of those that I do look at I
only read a couple of paragraphs, as was the case with this article.

Ergo, I disagree with the premise of this article.

------
vojant
Is it "complain about HN week" ? If you got problem with HN stop reading it,
simple as that. We don't need your "awesome" advices how to read stories on
HN, we don't need to hear that HN sux. I dont think anyone here got problem
with filtering the content, if you dont want to read another startup stories
you just don't. I do not see any problem here.

Hacker News is still awesome community, people here usually have awesome
attitude. It keeps me motivated.

------
ludzone
I'm not sure how many of you do this, but I often find myself looking
something up on HN, just out of curiosity of what was discussed and what
people thought about it.

------
tajddin
I think it goes without saying that it's all about your objectives and
perceptions. Objectively, HN is a valuable resource to stay informed of micro-
innovations in the tech industry.

I'm not someone that's insecure about what I don't know or how smart I am, as
I'm constantly trying to improve all areas of my life; as a result, many of
the posts here are inspiring and help set a fire under my ass to get out there
start _doing_.

------
mikesickler
This is the difference between consuming content and letting the content
consume you. HN can't harm you unless you allow it to. Don't blame the
content.

Sometimes there's no excuse for self-discipline, critical thinking, a healthy
perspective on life, and self-esteem. I don't say this flippantly. All of the
above are lifelong challenges for most people (myself included).

------
Houshalter
Something I've considered doing is taking HN and/or reddit posts and then
applying a machine learning algorithm to figure out what kinds of articles I
like/dislike and automatically filter out the ones that are likely to waste my
time, or at least improve upon the existing sorting system and make it more
personalized.

------
sarafiq
HN and proggit are two great sources of consuming technology related
information. I usually spent 20 mins in morning and add the interesting
looking articles on instapaper for reading in free time. I don't think it's
making me less productive at all and HN comments are great at deciding what to
read.

------
cjfont
I must have missed all those articles about languages/frameworks you need to
learn immediately. Generally I feel pretty comfortable with the tools I have
now and don't feel threatened if I see some new cool tech everyone's excited
about, but it does make interesting reading.

------
Surio
Your article did strike a chord with me, simply because I had the exact same
epiphany that you write of, a few months ago, and have been spending less time
on HN since.

So, point of my commment is, add me to your anecdata count, of another one
that thought in the same way and arrived to the same conclusion.

------
webhat
I don't know, this looks like a thinly veiled ad for one of the newsletter
published by Peter Cooper.

------
jpatte
I use HN as a kick in the butt. Whenever I feel down or demotivated I just
browse to HN's home page, see what amazing work is being done in the tech
world while I'm just sitting there, remember that I want to be a part of it,
and go back to work with my motivation restored.

------
asmman1
[http://johnmurray.io/log/2013/03/13/Nothing-is-
Interesting.m...](http://johnmurray.io/log/2013/03/13/Nothing-is-
Interesting.md) How can someone answer any question in there if there's no any
comments area?

~~~
sengstrom
Author tired of the project before he got to that part :)

------
apierre
My girlfriend is reading the Daily Mail like I read Hacker News. I don't know
which website is worse for our well being but I try to read the day best voted
submissions and it is enough to keep me updated with everything else.

------
d0m
I use HN to test if internet is working. Don't do this, worst idea ever, but
it's built in my muscle memory. It also happens that I read HN in a tab, and
then open a new tab and get on HN again. Muscle memory.

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mbloom1915
I think most people visiting HN choose to read what is relevant to their
interests and goals, as well as submitting similar content or submitting
something perhaps breaking news in the tech industry for the day

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weisser
HN can be like FB - highlight reels that people sometimes compare to the full
view of what they are experiencing.

There are also posts about failure but I'd say they are a bit less common than
the ones about success.

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ekianjo
Another post in the _do this, do that, because it 's better for you_ fashion.
Since when people are going to stop writing with so much entitlement ? What do
they know what works for me anyway ?

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codecrusade
Technology ADD is a issue I have been struggling with for some time. The
compulsive urge to chase every new framework is real and I do not know how
manage it as it eats through my productive time.

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return0
I _want_ to read less HN, but i can't find something better.

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ninetax
Those are some great newsletter recommendations!

Anyone have any more?

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mgrouchy
Thanks for the Pycoders Weekly mention John!

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digitalpacman
You forgot "I want something to read while building, so hey what does hacker
have to say."

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stephenaturner
This could be said about nearly all tech news sites. At least HN is a cross-
section of sources...

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newbrict
I think we all read the 4chan post yesterday, this is just a reiteration of
that

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shocks
noprocrast! :)

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KamiCrit
Really i'm just here for the hardware and debugging stories.

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thangh9
I just check HN twice each day to find some news for my blog

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frank_boyd
In other words:

"Why I read less HN and you should, too!"

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Al-Khwarizmi
Too much of something is bad for you. News at 11.

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felipelalli
I read this on HN, so I'll keep reading.

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jpmec
So your saying read more stackoverflow? :-)

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xdocommer
[http://troll.me/images/obama-meh/y-u-mad-
bro.jpg](http://troll.me/images/obama-meh/y-u-mad-bro.jpg)

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clamprecht
You may be right. (hits refresh)

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tux
Very good article thank you :-) I'm surprised HN haven't removed it.

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dblacc
Is it ironic this is posted on HN ?

~~~
lignuist
I don't think so. Best place to target the relevant audience.

~~~
dblacc
Thats true, but personally I don't see many being swayed by the argument.

Though perhaps the authors intention is simply to raise a couple points,
rather than actually get folks to visit less.

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michaelochurch
Out of 250 Hacker News posts that cross my transom in a given week, I might
open 30 links, decide to actually read 6 of those thirty tabs, and learn
something from three of them.

This is still a better ratio than most websites. Sturgeon's Law applies. 90%
of everything is crap, another 9% is of decent quality but not relevant to
anything I need to do-- leaving 1% that is worth it for me to read. So I'd say
that HN's numbers are on par, if not slightly above it.

See, I'd really like to dislike HN. Paul Graham used to be an iconoclast (with
some serious technical chops-- go read _On Lisp_ \-- deserving of much
respect) fighting the stodgy establishment of VC-istan. Having seen the
failings of investors nearly destroy his business on several occasions, he
tried to build something new and different: a fast path to funding and access
so startups could focus on building instead of bullshit. But now that he is
the establishment, he's not fighting hard enough. Then there is the issue of
HN's abysmal quality of moderation, for which he must accept responsibility.
So I really _want_ to dislike HN and tell it to fuck off wholesale...

... but, the problem is that, in spite of these negatives, there's just a lot
of really good stuff that ends up here. Reading _less_ HN is good advice, but
there's enough high-quality stuff here (in submissions and comments) to make
it worthwhile.

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rfnslyr
If you're that weak that you can't even read HN without properly filtering
shit in your head, you shouldn't use the internet. What a terrible and
pointless article.

Very thin blogspam at the very least.

