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Created this account around 9 years ago (I've been in tech for 20 years or so). Never really used the site up until the past couple of years though, when I got
by neversaydie 6y ago
Created this account around 9 years ago (I've been in tech for 20 years or so). Never really used the site up until the past couple of years though, when I got in the habit of browsing it regularly (along with Reddit and a few other venues I'd ignored - went on a mini-binge of expanding my tech/social news sources).
Don't know that I've gained a lot of hard/useful knowledge necessarily, it's more an occasional source of interesting news and informed commentary, within the subset of interests HN revolves around. Have gathered some background material on specific topics of interest to me (HCI, workspaces, personal knowledge management).
I don't submit much or engage in discussion very often (this post being an exception, trying to move the consumption/creation needle a bit), but HN is an excellent resource. The simplicity of its UI and general model is refreshing, and the signal-to-noise ratio and quality of both contributors and moderation is very high.
There's also a zeitgeist aspect; I know if anything of significance happens within a range of interests, I'll likely hear about it here.
Overall though, HN is more a source of news and intellectual stimulation for me than a learning resource. It's an excellent and pretty unique one though, would miss it if it was gone.