I, too, have become addicted to HN.
Here are some things I like which some may not: I really like the "general geek interest" articles that usually make their way to the front page on weekends. I like political threads (that mostly concern directly or indirectly big government vs. free market). I like those threads not because they're constructive in any way, but because they provide an insight into the psyche of Silicon Valley. As an amateur historian I think some of those articles and discussions are bona fide historical texts (like that video from Startup School of the guy who suggested Silicon Valley should secede from the US). I also post on these threads occasionally – not because I think I might convince anyone, but because I think many of the readers here are very young, or unfamiliar with non-American culture, and it would do them good to hear other opinions. I also like heated arguments over programming languages. I know they inevitably turn religious, but I don't mind; they're fun if you're in the right mood, and I figure that anyone not in the mood for religious language wars won't read the thread anyway.
This is something I don't like, which some probably do: I wish HN were less biased towards web technologies and tools that are mostly applicable to fast-moving startups. Of course, this is the nature of the community and is to be expected. But I do wish there was more on embedded, enterprise, real time and game development. The problem with this bias is that I am sometimes swayed and mistakingly think that HN represents the "software development community", which, of course, it doesn't in the least. I need to remind myself that web companies are a small minority of software developers, and that IBM, Oracle and SAP employ more people than Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Netflix combined, ten times over. And that's not even counting large organization IT departments and defense. So whenever I get a sense of "so that's what's everyone is doing" on HN, I need to remind myself that the community is far from representative (although it does tend to be composed of early adopters).