What makes HN interesting is that there are a lot of stories on topics with which I am unfamiliar. Odds are that a lot of them will be uninteresting when I read or more likely skim the first article or two. Often this is because I don't have the contextual hooks to make it interesting - Clojure and closures are but two examples of topics that have become interesting from reading HN articles.
But, that's just reading the articles. Much of the value of reading HN is reading the discussions, and for myself, even more of the value I find in HN is participating in those discussions.
As a Liberal Arts graduate, I use HN to improve my writing. The constraints imposed by the topic and the feedback provided by the karma system help. Interaction with some really fucking smart people who write well helps even more.
Which reminds me that as parody the article falls flat - no article about Apple's latest at the top of the HN front page.
But, that's just reading the articles. Much of the value of reading HN is reading the discussions, and for myself, even more of the value I find in HN is participating in those discussions.
As a Liberal Arts graduate, I use HN to improve my writing. The constraints imposed by the topic and the feedback provided by the karma system help. Interaction with some really fucking smart people who write well helps even more.
Which reminds me that as parody the article falls flat - no article about Apple's latest at the top of the HN front page.