6 ms·

Show HN: Timeless articles posted on Hacker News, written 1321 to 2021

221 points by phgn 5y ago

stagas 5y ago
This is beautiful. Nice idea and well executed. Congrats!
gen_greyface 5y ago
Something similar http://jsomers.net/hn/ http://jsomers.net/hn/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442888
- phgn 5y ago
  A few people must have had this idea over the years. HN is the only website I know where old articles get regularly reposted. I actually discovered http://jsomers.net/hn/ http://jsomers.net/hn/ while building this site, as it turns up when you search for "hacker news". It's a bit different so I think both tools are useful.
  - j4hdufd8 5y ago
    > HN is the only website I know where old articles get regularly reposted. I digress, but have you opened your Facebook feed recently? :-)
    - phgn 5y ago
      I have not, but I would imagine it to be full of news? That's not the case for you?
      - j4hdufd8 5y ago
        My point was that I often see "the algorithm" recommending me many-years old videos out of nowhere. Anyway!
        phgn 5y ago
        Ah, I see what you mean (at least in the case of YouTube). I'd actually like that behaviour weren't it so addictive.
phgn 5y ago
Hey everyone! I love how we often talk about older classic articles here (posts with the year in the title like [0]). I haven't seen that practice on other sites, which is a shame. For me these posts often lead to the most valuable discussions. So I built this small website [1] to browse and search across all timeless HN posts [2]. The idea is to make use of the immense library we're all curating by posting and commenting here. What you can do with the site: • Browse the best links of all time, according to HN: https://hn.lindylearn.io/best https://hn.lindylearn.io/best • Search for resources for example on "career advice" (prioritising old content that's still reposted frequently): https://hn.lindylearn.io/search?q=career%20advice https://hn.lindylearn.io/search?q=career%20advice • See the best links per publishing year. For example, which articles from 1995 do we still talk about? https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1995 https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1995 • What are the best posts on any website? https://hn.lindylearn.io/from?site=paulgraham.com https://hn.lindylearn.io/from?site=paulgraham.com It was a quick project to put together, but I hope it's somewhat useful not just for myself. Halfway through I realised there's some prior art for it [3], but I think this site adds enough to make it worthwhile. I'm curious to hear what you think. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29590667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29590667 [1] Named "Lindy Hacker News" after the Lindy Effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect [2] It indexes all HN posts with a year in the title that have more than 40 upvotes, where the article publish date is >= 2 years before the post date (results in about 10k posts). Articles are ranked by the summed score across all posts for the url. [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442888
camdv 5y ago
Aren't these really "timed"?
- phgn 5y ago
  What do you mean? Yes the articles itself are old, but the discussions around them are new. Which is the interesting part -- "timeless" content that's relevant not just the week it is published.
  - camdv 5y ago
    I was just making the joke that these "timeless" articles all have times.
    - phgn 5y ago
      That is true ;)
nothrowaways 5y ago
A computer scientist might find it confusing, 1321-2021 is not the date range on HN :)
- phgn 5y ago
  Yes, to be precise the year refers to the original date the text was written. Hopefully it has not totally changed its meaning since then.
- jareklupinski 5y ago
  https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1321 https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1321 for anyone else hunting for some reason it doesnt show up in the decade view https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1320 https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1320
  - phgn 5y ago
    Oh, https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1320 https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1320 only shows things written exactly 1320, there is no "decade view" right now. That's an interesting idea though, maybe I can put it at https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/132X https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/132X. Edit: Done now, for example visit https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/198x https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/198x for the best links of 1980 - 1989. Only works with one X for performance.
    - jareklupinski 5y ago
      ah thank you! i misunderstood the 'go back a decade' and 'go forward a decade' links to mean the destination lists the decade's links :) this is very welcome! https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/194x https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/194x is terrifying! and makes me feel better about living in 202x...
thunderbong 5y ago
Hey! This is really well made. May I ask what the tech stack is?
- phgn 5y ago
  Thank you! Most of the data can be queried and aggregated through the HN BigQuery dataset [0], and I run a periodic Node.js function to poll more recent posts from the API. The filtered posts are hosted in Firestore for most of the pages + Relevance.ai for the search. The frontend uses Next.js and the original HN CSS + small tweaks like the year display. [0] https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/y-combinator/hacker-news https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/y-combi...
1123581321 5y ago
Interesting project. 1864 seems to be the first year that has two completely different items meaningfully discussed.
mysterydip 5y ago
One request would be if possible to link to the web archive of the link rather than the original. I just ran across one that no longer works because their wordpress site was made private, for example.
- phgn 5y ago
  I have thought about this, but not am not sure how to automatically detect if a site is dead. Sometimes it still returns HTML but with permission errors, redirects etc. I don't want to redirect every link to archive.org. Do you have an idea? What's the link that is broken for you, so I can manually fix it?
  - mysterydip 5y ago
    Not sure beyond sending them all to the archive. Unless you check periodically or something? This is the one: https://rumorsontheinternets.org/2010/10/14/magnasanti-the-largest-and-most-terrifying-simcity/ https://rumorsontheinternets.org/2010/10/14/magnasanti-the-l...
    - phgn 5y ago
      Mhh, maybe I'll add an "archive" button you can click to see the cached page easily - though the challenge with that is explaining the feature... I fixed the simcity link, thanks for reporting!
vmception 5y ago
You’re missing the Last Trial By Combat in France, 1386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22709166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22709166
- phgn 5y ago
  Mhh, it looks like that article was written in 2020 not 1386 though? The site only includes posts that were at least supposedly written further back in the past.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Then I’ll have to find some posts from the lawyers and articles leading up to the trial in 1386
    - phgn 5y ago
      That would be interesting, as an unbiased window into life back then (if any text still exist). If the post gets 10 upvotes on HN it will automatically turn up on hn.lindylearn.io/years. It's like our collective library.
kingcharles 5y ago
Oh god. What did you do? Now I have 500 more HN stories to read through tonight. And I was just about to go to bed. Obligatory Ian Malcolm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3j9muCo4o0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3j9muCo4o0
- phgn 5y ago
  Well, you don't have to read through all stories now - just check back later when you're curious again ;) But I know what you mean.
faizshah 5y ago
This is awesome but this is also my worst nightmare. I now have even more links to read and threads to click on… this is like bringing back the whole bag of chips instead of putting a reasonable portion into a bowl Also the website design is really elegant and well done.
- phgn 5y ago
  Haha I am sorry. The idea is to come back to the site when you're curious about something, and be ok with not knowing everything (like with a library). That's different to how we consume a lot of our news, so just an experiment. At least the recent "timeless" posts view on hn.lindylearn.io/ brings down the daily HN posts to ~4.

221 points by phgn 5y ago

This is beautiful. Nice idea and well executed. Congrats!

Something similar http://jsomers.net/hn/ http://jsomers.net/hn/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442888

phgn 5y ago
A few people must have had this idea over the years. HN is the only website I know where old articles get regularly reposted. I actually discovered http://jsomers.net/hn/ http://jsomers.net/hn/ while building this site, as it turns up when you search for "hacker news". It's a bit different so I think both tools are useful.
- j4hdufd8 5y ago
  > HN is the only website I know where old articles get regularly reposted. I digress, but have you opened your Facebook feed recently? :-)
  - phgn 5y ago
    I have not, but I would imagine it to be full of news? That's not the case for you?
    - j4hdufd8 5y ago
      My point was that I often see "the algorithm" recommending me many-years old videos out of nowhere. Anyway!
      - phgn 5y ago
        Ah, I see what you mean (at least in the case of YouTube). I'd actually like that behaviour weren't it so addictive.

phgn 5y ago

Hey everyone! I love how we often talk about older classic articles here (posts with the year in the title like [0]). I haven't seen that practice on other sites, which is a shame. For me these posts often lead to the most valuable discussions. So I built this small website [1] to browse and search across all timeless HN posts [2]. The idea is to make use of the immense library we're all curating by posting and commenting here. What you can do with the site: • Browse the best links of all time, according to HN: https://hn.lindylearn.io/best https://hn.lindylearn.io/best • Search for resources for example on "career advice" (prioritising old content that's still reposted frequently): https://hn.lindylearn.io/search?q=career%20advice https://hn.lindylearn.io/search?q=career%20advice • See the best links per publishing year. For example, which articles from 1995 do we still talk about? https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1995 https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1995 • What are the best posts on any website? https://hn.lindylearn.io/from?site=paulgraham.com https://hn.lindylearn.io/from?site=paulgraham.com It was a quick project to put together, but I hope it's somewhat useful not just for myself. Halfway through I realised there's some prior art for it [3], but I think this site adds enough to make it worthwhile. I'm curious to hear what you think. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29590667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29590667 [1] Named "Lindy Hacker News" after the Lindy Effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect [2] It indexes all HN posts with a year in the title that have more than 40 upvotes, where the article publish date is >= 2 years before the post date (results in about 10k posts). Articles are ranked by the summed score across all posts for the url. [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442888

camdv 5y ago

Aren't these really "timed"?

phgn 5y ago
What do you mean? Yes the articles itself are old, but the discussions around them are new. Which is the interesting part -- "timeless" content that's relevant not just the week it is published.
- camdv 5y ago
  I was just making the joke that these "timeless" articles all have times.
  - phgn 5y ago
    That is true ;)

nothrowaways 5y ago

A computer scientist might find it confusing, 1321-2021 is not the date range on HN :)

phgn 5y ago
Yes, to be precise the year refers to the original date the text was written. Hopefully it has not totally changed its meaning since then.
jareklupinski 5y ago
https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1321 https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1321 for anyone else hunting for some reason it doesnt show up in the decade view https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1320 https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1320
- phgn 5y ago
  Oh, https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1320 https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/1320 only shows things written exactly 1320, there is no "decade view" right now. That's an interesting idea though, maybe I can put it at https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/132X https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/132X. Edit: Done now, for example visit https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/198x https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/198x for the best links of 1980 - 1989. Only works with one X for performance.
  - jareklupinski 5y ago
    ah thank you! i misunderstood the 'go back a decade' and 'go forward a decade' links to mean the destination lists the decade's links :) this is very welcome! https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/194x https://hn.lindylearn.io/years/194x is terrifying! and makes me feel better about living in 202x...

thunderbong 5y ago

Hey! This is really well made. May I ask what the tech stack is?

phgn 5y ago
Thank you! Most of the data can be queried and aggregated through the HN BigQuery dataset [0], and I run a periodic Node.js function to poll more recent posts from the API. The filtered posts are hosted in Firestore for most of the pages + Relevance.ai for the search. The frontend uses Next.js and the original HN CSS + small tweaks like the year display. [0] https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/y-combinator/hacker-news https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/y-combi...

1123581321 5y ago

Interesting project. 1864 seems to be the first year that has two completely different items meaningfully discussed.

mysterydip 5y ago

One request would be if possible to link to the web archive of the link rather than the original. I just ran across one that no longer works because their wordpress site was made private, for example.

phgn 5y ago
I have thought about this, but not am not sure how to automatically detect if a site is dead. Sometimes it still returns HTML but with permission errors, redirects etc. I don't want to redirect every link to archive.org. Do you have an idea? What's the link that is broken for you, so I can manually fix it?
- mysterydip 5y ago
  Not sure beyond sending them all to the archive. Unless you check periodically or something? This is the one: https://rumorsontheinternets.org/2010/10/14/magnasanti-the-largest-and-most-terrifying-simcity/ https://rumorsontheinternets.org/2010/10/14/magnasanti-the-l...
  - phgn 5y ago
    Mhh, maybe I'll add an "archive" button you can click to see the cached page easily - though the challenge with that is explaining the feature... I fixed the simcity link, thanks for reporting!

vmception 5y ago

You’re missing the Last Trial By Combat in France, 1386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22709166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22709166

phgn 5y ago
Mhh, it looks like that article was written in 2020 not 1386 though? The site only includes posts that were at least supposedly written further back in the past.
- vmception 5y ago
  Then I’ll have to find some posts from the lawyers and articles leading up to the trial in 1386
  - phgn 5y ago
    That would be interesting, as an unbiased window into life back then (if any text still exist). If the post gets 10 upvotes on HN it will automatically turn up on hn.lindylearn.io/years. It's like our collective library.

kingcharles 5y ago

Oh god. What did you do? Now I have 500 more HN stories to read through tonight. And I was just about to go to bed. Obligatory Ian Malcolm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3j9muCo4o0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3j9muCo4o0

phgn 5y ago
Well, you don't have to read through all stories now - just check back later when you're curious again ;) But I know what you mean.

faizshah 5y ago

This is awesome but this is also my worst nightmare. I now have even more links to read and threads to click on… this is like bringing back the whole bag of chips instead of putting a reasonable portion into a bowl Also the website design is really elegant and well done.

phgn 5y ago
Haha I am sorry. The idea is to come back to the site when you're curious about something, and be ok with not knowing everything (like with a library). That's different to how we consume a lot of our news, so just an experiment. At least the recent "timeless" posts view on hn.lindylearn.io/ brings down the daily HN posts to ~4.