> I guess a good option is to pick "reference topics" as measuring sticks For me this is the beauty of HN. I have a good familiarity with a lot of the topics d

> I guess a good option is to pick "reference topics" as measuring sticks For me this is the beauty of HN. I have a good familiarity with a lot of the topics discussed so I can generally tell who knows what they're talking about and who isn't. When the discussion veers into more general topics I can feel mostly confident (relatively speaking anyway) of the information I'm getting that's "on the level".