How do you deal with it? Besides the simple solution of simply ignoring interesting stuff more and more.
But I'm guessing you have more of a FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) kind of problem, which admittedly I don't have. However, you could look at something using RSS, maybe in combination with an agent told to find and show articles based on some heuristics.
Personally, I'm OK with missing something. If it's good, I figure it'll surface somewhere else and impinge on my notice sooner or later.
There's also the "hidden" https://news.ycombinator.com/best which is a bit the same, but not per day
I call it "Seeking Orange" because interesting posts are highlighted. Features include:
- Point/comment counts become increasingly more orange with higher counts (50+, 100+)
- Orange accent bar on left indicates new items since last visit
- Support for several different feeds including: HckrNews (chronological front page appearance time), Classic Stories, Best Stories, Active Stories
- Thresholds to de-emphasize posts from users with low karma/recent creation dates: https://hn.leftium.com/newest?min_karma=500&min_age_years=5
A few weeks ago several HN users presented solutions for filtering out AI results, but I haven't used any of those solutions much.
or hit "v" to change views
> ignore all posts about MCP
> ignore all posts containing "agent"
> also ignore everything frontier labs bragged about hacking this week
> ignore AI psychosis posts praised as being the future
> check out everything else
> close HN
If I tried to keep up, I'd be run over. It's too much input for the normal individual I am.
At any rate, I find AI interesting, but have a similar opinion that most of the HN discourse has become low quality. My solution is to follow individual users I know are high quality with similar interests.
I'm curious to hear why AI made it harder to read HN. Is it because there's lots of it and you don't like it?
I've always used the comments to upvotes ratio to workout if an article is worth reading. If the comments are higher than the upvotes, it's poor. Vice versa it's worth looking into. I skip all AI posts.
But be careful, compulsively bookmarking isn't a good idea either. I see my AI bookmarks from 2023, most are irrelevant now. Same for a ton of new releases at that time, whatever homelab config, rumors around silicon architecture, geopolitical events, retrocomputing, etc.
So what actually helped me was realizing that after any ramp up period there's stabilization: you let the world figure out what works, then eventually you will see what sticks mentioned everywhere when going back to that topic.
There are also some evergreen discussions here. Those get more than a thread a year, like the tinnitus stuff, and they tend to stay up for a good part of the week.
I then miss a few days and get overwhelmed with the backlog.
What I’ve been doing for several years is to use hckrnews.com as my default first level filter. I rarely go to the HN front page directly. I never visit the New or other pages either.
Sometimes I notice, after weeks or months or years, that there was a very interesting topic I missed out on. But such is life. It’s ok not to keep up with anything.
Or is it because of AI-generated posts ? (I have to admit I'm not good yet at "guessing" when a post is slop...)
Browsing by time is easier rather than popularity. There's no FOMO if you can't keep up, just scan the latest headlines and if it catches your eye click it.
I suspect that when you think about those questions, you'll realize that it really doesn't matter if you keep up or not. If something comes to this industry that is big enough to impact your actual life, you'll hear about it regardless of how often you read HN.
Odds are, there is no problem you need to deal with. HN is here when you have time for it, but your life is there all the time. Focus on the right one.
https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts?by=1628132
With Hackerbrain, I can easily skim top comments of stories with minimal mouse and eye movement. (using orange, green and red buttons next to each story after pressing -- )
As a script, almost no latency. Keeps track of what I've already seen too. Can also completely ignore it and HN appears and functions virtually unchanged.
Like the news, you'll find out; except it'll be through Slack channels or co-workers or maybe even IRC channels, as opposed to HN.
> Oh, X company got hacked and you are in the cybersecurity circle?
> You'll find out.
> Oh, AI is the new thing?
> You'd be better without that.
> B-but what if I want to understand topic T?
> Then I'd tell you that HN offers free fast search and you can just type topic T and do your own research and hey you may just learn something!
Don't worry, you will be fine.
Happy HN'ing!
EDIT: Formatting.
Here's the screenshot for inspiration: https://imgur.com/a/TszTHQb
It jumps to the newest story on the frontpage. And when I click the bookmarklet again (or press "n") it jumps to the next. So I just click it until I land on a story I have already seen and know I have seen them all.
If you want to use it, you can convert the code into a bookmarklet with my bookmarklet editor:
https://www.gibney.org/bookmarklet_editor
The bookmarklet:
if (!location.href.match('ycom'))
location.href='https://news.ycombinator.com';
doTheMagic = function() {
if (typeof e!=='undefined')
e.style.background='#c0c0c0';
e=Array.from(
document.querySelectorAll(
'.age a:not(.seen)')
).sort().at(-1);
e.style.background='#ff0';
e.classList.add('seen');
e.scrollIntoView({
behavior:"smooth",
block:"center",
inline:"nearest"
});
}
function addShortcuts() {
document.addEventListener("keydown", function(evnt) {
if (evnt.key === "n") doTheMagic();
});
}
function addStyle() {
let style = document.createElement('style');
style.type = 'text/css';
style.textContent = `
.noshow {
display: initial;
}
`;
document.head.appendChild(style);
}
if (typeof theMagicIsActive=='undefined') {
addShortcuts();
addStyle();
theMagicIsActive = true;
}
doTheMagic(); https://hnrss.org/frontpage
I also see the dead comments. Often there are good comments.. which I sadly can't upvote, but there's been a big uptick of the abrasive or nauseating kind. That used to be very rare!
So yeah, I worry about the future of HN.