Ask HN: What’s Your ROI in Browsing Hacker News?

I really like how critical HN can be sometimes. It makes you reflect on what you're writing very carefully.

There's also a bunch of subject matter experts lurking here. There's nothing better than when you have lay people discussing say, nuclear reactors and an actual nuclear physicist or engineer chimes in.

As far as content, I really read it more for the weird little obscure articles that are terribly interesting, more than I do for keeping up on tech. However, it is interesting to skim the comments of a submission for a particular technology stack: it really helps give insight into where that particular tech is going and how it's actually used in the real world.

There's also a lot of deeply personal, candid stories on here that I enjoy reading. HN is a forum run by a startup accelerator after all, so there's no shortage of people who have tried and failed repeatedly here. It's a wealth of knowledge and experience I'm very thankful to have.

Mostly, it keeps me thinking. I see what people are doing, what they have to say about the latest news, what the latest startups are trying to accomplish. Whatever I think of it all, it invokes some critical thought on the bigger picture of this industry. And I thereby avoid getting caught up in the details of my own work and stagnating.

I stick with a saying I came up with: “Make Knowledge Actionable”

I gain the most value from Ask HN posts. I used hckrnews.com to identify the top ones. I look at the top comments on these posts. If there are any good insights, I note them and favorite the post.

It's the only place I ever manage to have substantive discussions of medical science. Given my diagnosis, this positively contributes to my failure to be dead yet.

I have a genetic disorder.