Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

#1

Post by vercantez » Sun, May 18, 2025, 3:52 AM UTC

Hey HN

We loaded a BigQuery dataset of all of Hacker News, every comment, story and user, into camelAI.

You can ask questions like:

• “When does dang tend to comment during the day?”

• “Which domains have gained the most submissions since 2015, year-over-year?”

• “How has average comment length changed each January since 2007?”

• “Top five users who link to arXiv papers the most.”

It's behind a log-in to prevent abuse but free to use for 10 messages. No payment info required. We use OpenAI o3 or Claude sonnet 3.7 for the agent which can be really expensive.

Would love feedback especially around graph/chart quality and o3 vs sonnet.

Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN
app.camelai.com

Re: Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

#2

Post by xwowsersx » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:35 AM UTC

Should anyone from camelAI be present, a quick note: the page at https://camelai.com/data-sources currently renders blank—none of the data sources appear.

EDIT: oh, I guess that'd be you, vercantez :)

Re: Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

#3

Post by gloyoyo » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:36 AM UTC

Nice.

Ask it about the estimated capabilities of the NSA according to all posts/comments.

Very enjoyable discussion history graph.

Re: Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

#4

Post by vercantez » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:56 AM UTC

xwowsersx wrote: post #2

Should anyone from camelAI be present, a quick note: the page at https://camelai.com/data-sources currently renders blank—none of the data sources appear. EDIT: oh, I guess that'd be you, vercantez :)

Thanks for catching that! Should be fixed once the cache invalidates

Re: Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

#5

Post by MilnerRoute » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:59 AM UTC

I've always wondered what the copyright status is for comments on Hacker News.

Re: Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

#6

Post by echelon » Sun, May 18, 2025, 5:05 AM UTC

MilnerRoute wrote: post #5

I've always wondered what the copyright status is for comments on Hacker News.

My comments are under CC-BY-SA for humans, but any incorporation of my comments into an AI model entitles me to 5% of your company's common stock.

Re: Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

#7

Post by CityOfThrowaway » Sun, May 18, 2025, 5:16 AM UTC

You should make a page with some browsable pre-generated pages and post again to spark interest

Re: Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

#8

Post by MichaelMoser123 » Sun, May 18, 2025, 5:25 AM UTC

"What do you think about user XYZ?" or "What do you think about the comments of user XYZ?"

It starts a whole lot of SQL queries that find and aggregate data & statistics

It must have a very interesting and well written system prompt for this type of questions.

(gives me second thoughts about my personal approach to privacy)

Re: Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

#9

Post by Brajeshwar » Sun, May 18, 2025, 6:46 AM UTC

I hit my free limit. It was fun while it lasted.

  Error: You have reached your free message limit.

Re: Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

#10

Post by labe-me » Sun, May 18, 2025, 9:13 AM UTC

MilnerRoute wrote: post #5

I've always wondered what the copyright status is for comments on Hacker News.

They say this:

Commercial Use: Unless otherwise expressly authorized herein or in the Site, you agree not to display, distribute, license, perform, publish, reproduce, duplicate, copy, create derivative works from, modify, sell, resell, exploit, transfer or upload for any commercial purposes, any portion of the Site, use of the Site, or access to the Site. The buying, exchanging, selling and/or promotion (commercial or otherwise) of upvotes, comments, submissions, accounts (or any aspect of your account or any other account), karma, and/or content is strictly prohibited, constitutes a material breach of these Terms of Use, and could result in legal liability.