Marking items you already read would only get rid of about 10% at most of Google Reader's unread count. This is why I like the Hacker News format of up voting.

Marking items you already read would only get rid of about 10% at most of Google Reader's unread count. This is why I like the Hacker News format of up voting. Killer app: hacker news style up-voting across any news topic (aka...reddit?)