A couple of years ago I went to a party at a neighbour's house. We ate pancakes and drank beer. Unlike me, most of the other people there were physicists or sim

A couple of years ago I went to a party at a neighbour's house. We ate pancakes and drank beer. Unlike me, most of the other people there were physicists or similar academics, so there was a lot of interesting talk going on. I'm not a particularly gregarious person - certainly not in a large group of people - so I mainly listened. One of the people there was a Nobel Laureate. A cool, very down-to-earth guy - but there's not really much I can say thats going to be useful in the conversations he was having. But just being in the same room probably made me (temporarily) smarter. And I found some people who I could talk with about things like 3D printing, which I kind of get. And thats kind of how I think of HN. Most people here may be cleverer than me, some enormously so, but I can still listen and learn and occasionally contribute something useful.