Next to nothing. I scan for links and sometimes find one or two to my interest. I might scan the comments to see if the link is being revered or dissed before I visit. If I'm bored, I've made a few comments. Otherwise HN is nothing more than a link list to me.
Same here. The discussion rarely add something really useful to the topic compared to what you would find by skimming through a book, an article, or by doing your own investigation. But it gave me a good, if sad, insight about crowd behavior. Write something that people want to hear and you get upvotes regardless on how true or insightful it is. Write something people don't want to hear and you get downvotes.
Ask HN: What has HN given you?
531–540 of 602 posts
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#532Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#533A place to hang out (as it were) on the internet that is... ...connected to the tech scene ...ad-free ...not a "social network" in the usual data-harvesting sense ...slim, fast-loading, not riddled with bloat and bullshit ...not plagued quite so badly as the rest of the society "out there" by certain degenerate tendencies in what passes for discourse ...more interested in ideas and substance than in what color car th…
There’s a lot to be said for the “slim, fast-loading” bit! HN is my go-to “is my internet connection at all functional?” web page. And when T-Mobile cuts me off when I run over my data allotment each month, at least I can read the comments.
1. Open Chrome
2. Type "sdjkgfhsjkfahfd" into the URL bar
3. Hit enter
I have been using this method since I was 9, has been nothing but useful for me.
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#534Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#535The bad things include FOMO, addiction to HN, anxiety, low self-confidence.
The key is balance.
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#536Nearly 5 years ago, a few months after being rejected from YC and a few weeks from being essentially bankrupt (my daughter had an unexpected surgery while we had only catastrophic health insurance), my brother and I posted a Show HN about Webflow ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407499 ). It was our last-ditch attempt to show a proof-of-concept to the world before going back to our old bosses to ask for our jo…
Nearly 5 years ago, a few months after being rejected from YC for the first time, I came across your Show HN and started using Webflow to build a mockup of my product's sign-up page (I did not know how to code at that time). Over the next 2.5 years, I reapplied to YC five more times. I interviewed twice in the second round. I eventually got rejected every time. From the ideation stage, to $1M in revenue, YC has an ap…
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#537Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great to see you here again and particularly great to hear these news! I was already relieved to see your HN submission in May and now I see that was the time when the first public contributions after your AskHN appeared on the GH profile you used here (What I didn't see is that you already used reddit again only some 3 weeks later) The reason I contacted the police was that I wanted to delegate taking care of this t…
hi TAAndreas you are right, the police was not very professional and it might have ended badly. Luckily it didn't. First i was scared that my ex send them to me and i was in trouble (althoug i did nothing illegal). Then i was relieved that it was about my post on HN. Reading this made me uncomfortable, but also happy. A Stranger from the internet cared (about my life) and took action. I got 80 messages on that thread…
Due to an online misunderstanding, a person with good intentions reported to the police that I was a danger to myself. What followed was one of the worst experiences of my life.
What seemed almost like a SWAT team appeared at my house. I was pulled out of my home in handcuffs in front of my neighbors. I begged and tried to explain the misunderstanding but no one would listen. The police said it was the responsibility of a psychiatrist to decide whether I needed to be hospitalized and that I seemed fine but they couldn't make that decision. After spending hours alone in a concrete cell, when the psychiatrist finally came to talk to me, she assumed I must be dangerous because the police had taken me away from my home.
While I was handcuffed and sobbing, she told me that "just to be careful" and for my "own good" I was being forcibly put into a mental hospital for observation. I spent a night locked in a ward full of psychotic people and drug addicts.
Thank God one of my relatives was able to contact the hospital and convince them it was all a misunderstanding. A different psychiatrist evaluated me and I was immediately released.
I still have PTSD about the incident. When I hear a knock on the door, sometimes my heart races because I am scared it is men with gun who will take me away. I have had many, many nightmares about being locked inside the mental ward. I thought my life was over.
When I got home, my life was not ok. My neighbors saw the police response to my house and all stopped smiling or talking to me. I was so ashamed. This incident is still on my record and it makes it impossible for me to pursue certain jobs.
I am not saying you should never send the police to the home of someone you are worried about. However, you should only do it if there are NO OTHER OPTIONS for expressing concern. Stories like what happened to u/ tevlon are the exception not the rule.
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#539Apart from the learning related to startups/tech, reading the views of all the smart people here on a variety of other topics has made me a better person. It has also given me insights on different cultures & people from different backgrounds.
A big thanks to everyone who contributes here. Your words/submissions silently might be having a great positive impact in some corner of the world. Please keep sharing your knowledge & experience.
p.s. Also met my Co-Founder through HN when he did a 'Show HN' for Resumonk!