6 ms·

See what Hacker News looked like on the day you joined

237 points by bemmu 11y ago

rossriley 11y ago
Plus ça change. This was top story for me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211630
jozan 11y ago
This is cool and simple. :)
bootload 11y ago
"The reason I chose today to drop out was because of a conversation I had with pg last week. He said bluntly that Octopart's chances of getting funding were worse if I stayed in grad school." Classic. Top story the day I started, "I Dropped Out of Grad School Today" @sam (octopart) [0],[1] [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sam https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20070223035643/http://octopart.com/html/blog.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070223035643/http://octopart.c...
- vlad 11y ago
  You started Feb 22, technically that's a different date. :) The Archive.org page nearest my join date leads with the "Show HN" post for Dropbox, though I actually joined a month earlier in March 2007. Another top story from that day asks if people realized the up and down arrows were clickable and used for voting purposes.
  - bootload 11y ago
    "You started Feb 22, technically that's a different date. :)" correct @vlad, though the Archive.org capture isn't hi-rez enough, I'm only reading what the app shows. Great idea.
tomkwok 11y ago
View page source. <script> $(function () { var 火 = new Firebase("https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/"); var ໆ = "http://news.ycombinator.com/"; $("#誤").hide(); $("form").submit(function () { 火.child("v0/user/" + $("#username").val()).on("value", function(結果) { var 人 = 結果.val(); if (人 && 人.created) { var 時 = new Date(人.created * 1e3); var YYYYMMDDhhmmss = 時.toISOString().slice(0,19).replace(/[-T:]/g,""); var ꜛ = "https://web.archive.org/web/".concat(YYYYMMDDhhmmss, "/", ໆ); $('body').fadeOut(); location = ꜛ; } else { $("#誤").show(); } }); return false; }); }); /* ASCII art omitted to save space */ </script> Wow, non-latin characters for variable names. And if you'd like to learn some Chinese, here is the definition of all Chinese characters appeared above. 火 = fire 誤 = error / mistake 時 = time 結果 = result (a term / expression with figurative meaning) 果 = fruit 人 = human / person --- My pick: 'HNSearch – old HN search engine – will be shut down later today'. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404972
- coolandsmartrr 11y ago
  Neato! Given that Bemmu live in Japan, I think he intended using the Kanji characters as Japanese characters, although they were originally derived from traditional Chinese (still used in Taiwan).
  - tomkwok 11y ago
    > I think he intended using the Kanji characters as Japanese characters, although they were originally derived from traditional Chinese (still used in Taiwan). And in Hong Kong where I live. I can't read Japanese, so the characters above just happened to retain its meaning after being imported to the Japanese language. I know that many don't.
- userbinator 11y ago
  結果 = result (a term / expression with figurative meaning) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B5%90%E6%9E%9C https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B5%90%E6%9E%9C It looks like those characters literally mean "to bear fruit" - and in English, fruit is also used figuratively to mean a result, e.g. "fruits of labour", so I wonder if either English or Chinese was inspired by the other, or if they independently came up with the concept relating fruit and result.
cbaleanu 11y ago
This is great! Reminds one of just how fast time flies. Melancholy aside, this[0] was #1 on the day I finally created an account. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4220353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4220353
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
thomasreggi 11y ago
Awesome. One of the first posts was "Google Removes http:// http:// from Chrome". I remember that!
peteretep 11y ago
Bitcoin hit $4!
bambax 11y ago
Apparently I joined the day PG and Jessica got married: https://twitter.com/kn0thing/statuses/824631187 https://twitter.com/kn0thing/statuses/824631187 I wasn't at the wedding! ;-)
edw519 11y ago
Doesn't work for me: Sorry, your username was not found. Maybe you have never submitted or commented anything. user: edw519 created: 3070 days ago karma: 72254 about: Free ebook, "The Best of edw519": hn.my/edw519 twitter: @edw519 http://twitter.com/edw519 e d w 5 1 9 a t g m a i l https://hn.algolia.com/?query=edw519&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment 5,008 results
- DanBC 11y ago
  It's case specific. Did you try Edw519 or edw519?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ics 11y ago
  Besides what DanBC suggested, it doesn't work (gives username not found error) if you're blocking JS.
- Retr0spectrum 11y ago
  It worked when I tried it: https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb...
minikomi 11y ago
Nice one. Seems the day I joined was just 4 days after the big Tohoku Earthquake. Things were quite strange in Tokyo those days..
janoelze 11y ago
December 1, 2011. The frontpage was filled with the Carrier IQ thing unfolding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_IQ#Rootkit_discovery_and_media_attention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_IQ#Rootkit_discovery_a...
DiThi 11y ago
Neat, exactly the same :P It's wrong by one day. The page with my first comment didn't exist until the next day and I registered to write that comment.
- kevinbowman 11y ago
  Timezone issue perhaps?
slamus 11y ago
Show HN: thefacebook.com Just joking :)
bsbechtel 11y ago
Interesting! Meteor.js, which I've been using on my latest project, was debuted the same day I joined :-)
scelerat 11y ago
Four front page stories about why the lucky stiff's abrupt reclusion.
captn3m0 11y ago
I joined the day Stripe launched. I was a lurker for a long time, though.
Brajeshwar 11y ago
Nice. But you need to sanitize the username case-sensitivity. https://www.dropbox.com/s/16u7pjmpno685u0/Screenshot%202015-07-19%2014.20.01.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/16u7pjmpno685u0/Screenshot%202015-...
corford 11y ago
Apparently I joined (after lurking for ages!) on or close to the day Steve Jobs passed away.
burger_moon 11y ago
This is neat. Good job. I'm a pretty big fan of one that got posted here about a month ago, waybackhn. It chooses random day/months/years and shows the front page for either. I've spent a lot of time reading through old stories and comments from years before I got into this field. It's opened up my mind a bit to see what people were talking about years back.
joeblau 11y ago
A lot of SOPA stuff was going on which explains why I made the Stop SOPA awareness banner browser plugins!
BCM43 11y ago
Cool, top story for me was "Experiment: No Comment Scores" https://web.archive.org/web/20090929084547/http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=844979 https://web.archive.org/web/20090929084547/http://news.ycomb...
- mixmax 11y ago
  ah, I remember that - that's when I more or less stopped commenting. I still think it was a really bad move.
  - x43b 11y ago
    "ah, I remember that - that's when I more or less stopped commenting. I still think it was a really bad move." Why would that cause you to stop posting?
lcfg 11y ago
These throwbacks have a way of being very topical. 12th item on Hacker News that day for me is "The Next SourceForge": "SourceForge has been rethought, reimplemented, and rejuvenated."
ashwath 11y ago
This is very nice!
542458 11y ago
Ha! This is really cool. A few interesting things on mine: https://web.archive.org/web/20110716015547/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110716015547/http://news.ycomb... "Code.Google.com now supports git" Google code got the axe earlier this year. "Michael Arrington reportedly to launch “CrunchFund” to invest in startups" The rumours turned out to be true. "Court OKs Airport Body Scanners, Rejects Constitutional Challenge" They're everywhere now! "Italy and the euro: On the edge" Good guess, but turns out Greece is a bigger problem.
- CGamesPlay 11y ago
  I joined on April 1, apparently, so none of my rumors turned out to be true. Oh well. https://web.archive.org/web/20090401065245/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20090401065245/http://news.ycomb...
hga 11y ago
I joined 8 years ago, and the topic selection is not markedly different in nature, which I find remarkable. Then again, there's a reason I'm still here and not e.g. Slashdot, which I started following even earlier.
- ghaff 11y ago
  That's one of the things that struck me. Of the headlines that came up for me for March 2010, there were only a couple that would seem out of place today. (One related to Flash on an iPhone and one to the network at PyCon 2010.)
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  Yeah, same here. Except for a couple of stories, the front page from when I joined in 2008 easily could've been the front page today.
Jimmy 11y ago
One of the links from my page: "MySpace v. Facebook: It's Not a Decision. It's an IQ Test" Yeah, I joined a while ago.
noobermin 11y ago
Does anyone else get a 404?
ismail 11y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://news.ycomb... Some interesting things on mine: Does Apple's Steve Jobs have cancer again? (alleyinsider.com) https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/does_apple_s_steve_jobs_have_cancer_again_ https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://www.alleyi... Toyota Announces New 516-Mile Range Fuel-Cell/Electric Hybrid https://web.archive.org/web/20080611123133/http://gas2.org/2008/06/10/toyota-announces-new-516-mile-range-fuel-cellelectric-hybrid/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080611123133/http://gas2.org/2... Interesting to note how HN has grown since then. Much more people on, though content has stayed similar. In retrospect Jobs did still have cancer, and the Toyota hybrid was not much of a game changer.
epmatsw 11y ago
Huh, I joined the day MegaUpload went down. I don't remember, but I expect that those are probably related.
bluehazed 11y ago
"Google reader is dead"
- dylanz 11y ago
  On my front page was: "Is Google Reader next on the chopping block?". Also, JQuery 1.3 was released.
cwp 11y ago
Wow. I knew it's been a long time, I didn't realize I joined so near the beginning. Mine has "Why we made this site" submitted by pg.
- staunch 11y ago
  Also the day I joined. I think it was the day PG posted it on reddit.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
rglullis 11y ago
First link of mine seemed interesting at the time, but I guess it was one of those YC duds: https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycomb...
jumperabg 11y ago
I haven't commented on anything :( :D
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
msutherl 11y ago
Turns out this enduringly useful text was on the front page when I joined: http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html Bonus, also interesting: http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/migration.html http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/migration.html
blhack 11y ago
Wow..."AWS Startup challenge!" https://web.archive.org/web/20081222024222/http://aws.amazon.com/startupchallenge https://web.archive.org/web/20081222024222/http://aws.amazon...
Todd 11y ago
Clever idea. Top item on mine: My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive (getdropbox.com) https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycomb... Edit: Look at the stats! 27 points kept it at the top after 8 hours. How things have changed.
ryanmarsh 11y ago
11. What Every C Programmer Should Know About Undefined Behavior #2/3 (llvm.org) LOL, some things change, some things stay the same
larrykubin 11y ago
Wow, I guess I showed up pretty early. I still remember going to Startup School in 2007 and being so excited and inspired that I quit my job a few months later. Note: I probably should have stopped following startup news after the first year or so, I don't think anything I've read after that has been that beneficial, it's just an addiction at this point. I went to Startup School for a second time in 2008 and realized that I didn't need to be there, I was trying to recapture a feeling -- but after the initial inspiration I just needed to get busy. Why we made this site 34 points by pg 5 hours ago | 7 comments Odeo up for sale (so they could focus on this Twitter thing) 17 points by beau 11 hours ago | discuss Web 2.0 is a bubble for 3 reasons 12 points by xyzzy 16 hours ago | discuss Startup School 2007: 3/24 at Stanford 26 points by phyllis 1 day ago | discuss
- aquarin 11y ago
  Why we made this site 117 points by pg 5 days ago | 46 comments Startup School 2007: 3/24 at Stanford 32 points by phyllis 6 days ago | discuss
joshstrange 11y ago
Oddly enough on my first day the OP of this post (bemmu) first posted (I assume) about his Candy Japan business (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745694). Funny how that works out.
waterlesscloud 11y ago
"Tesla Says It Is Now Profitable, Ships 109 Roadsters In July" Heh.
jrockway 11y ago
8 years! It was still called "Startup News" back then. The front page when I joined looks very much like it does today -- a few articles about Google (6!), some startup-y articles, some politics, some business-y articles, some pure programming articles, etc. A good mix, but things are still pretty good today. I remember exactly why I joined, incidentally. With increasing regularity, /r/programming was making me very mad. I would post a detailed correct answer to someone's question, only for some troll to immediately reply with some insult and "proof" that I was totally wrong, even though the proof was totally wrong. It happens once, fine. It happens every single time I comment, I'm out. I have not been back in 8 years. I will admit this happens from time to time on HN, which is unfortunate because I like to comment and really only know what I'm talking about when it's programming-related. But it hasn't made me mad enough to leave, only to nostalgically think back to the good-old days. (I did start using Reddit again, too, but I only read unpopular subreddits. I can handle /r/AskReddit for some time killing, but things like /r/flying and /r/amateurradio are very pleasant communities with enough activity to be interesting a couple times a week. /r/anime is infuriatingly stupid, /r/awwnime is much more tolerable.)
- jzelinskie 11y ago
  What anime community do you use now? r/anime was always terrible. I've "outgrown" 4chan, but /a/ is still the best community I know of. I mostly just do my own thing and talk to my few friends who also watch.
  - jrockway 11y ago
    I use a (private) G+ community now.
- ShardPhoenix 11y ago
  > /r/anime is infuriatingly stupid, /r/awwnime is much more tolerable. Well that's not too surprising when the latter has almost no comments. You could try r/trueanime - it's smaller and smarter, though it does tend to attract long-winded people.
- IsaacL 11y ago
cellis 11y ago
Startup News new | comments | jobs | leaders | submit login 1. Your bank has a REST API now (wesabe.com) 14 points by dawie 5 hours ago | 3 comments 2. Facebook: $6 Billion? Nah. [John Battelle] (battellemedia.com) 10 points by aston 4 hours ago | 5 comments
jedberg 11y ago
I'm amused that a top post when I joined was "How long did it take you to figure out that the up/down arrows next to the links are for voting?" FYI this was 8.3 years ago, which was about 200 days in, but very close to the public launch I think.
driverdan 11y ago
Story with most votes for me was about terrible Google customer service in 2009. Some good discussion that's relevant today. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=790800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=790800
rozuur 11y ago
So I haven't commented or submitted anything
japaget 11y ago
It only approximates the date you first joined. It uses https://archive.org/ https://archive.org/ (the Internet Archive) to load the archived page nearest to (or nearest before?) the date you joined. Since the Internet Archive does not mirror HN every day, the page it will show you may differ by a few days from your exact signup date. It so happens that I joined on March 11, 2009 but I was shown the page for March 10, 2009 instead. You can use http://www.waybackhn.com/ http://www.waybackhn.com/ to get a list of the top stories on the exact date you joined HN.
noenzyme 11y ago
I think a cool derivative work would be to see today's HN but filtered to only see activity of people who joined before you.
endlessvoid94 11y ago
Obligatory "I joined on the first day" comment, w00t
BenoitEssiambre 11y ago
"browser stats: IE8 passes IE7 (arstechnica.com)" shudders
Semiapies 11y ago
I just get "Unknown" with this name. Are they mis-formatting the request or something? https://web.archive.org/web/20090314171151/http://news.ycombinator.com// https://web.archive.org/web/20090314171151/http://news.ycomb... ETA: Nevermind, archive.org just has a bad snapshot or something for that day.
agotterer 11y ago
What a day. Highlights: - what happened to pownce - Amazon Dynamo white paper announced - justin tv got funded - Microsoft to open source .net framework Thanks for making this. It appears the search is case sensitive, might be worth fixing.
txutxu 11y ago
The day I did join I was stupid and did use my memory for the password. Latter I did create another account, yes.
djyde 11y ago
See what Github looked like on the day you joined http://djyde.github.io/github-cakeday http://djyde.github.io/github-cakeday
HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
Thanks for this! The quality of the front page was either much better back then or that was just a lucky day!
PakG1 11y ago
Funny how the day that I joined so many years ago, people were debating whether or not Google would buy Twitter, and today that debate has been resurrected again so recently.
JimmaDaRustla 11y ago
NEIL ARMSTRONG DIED!?

237 points by bemmu 11y ago

Plus ça change. This was top story for me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211630

jozan 11y ago

This is cool and simple. :)

bootload 11y ago

"The reason I chose today to drop out was because of a conversation I had with pg last week. He said bluntly that Octopart's chances of getting funding were worse if I stayed in grad school." Classic. Top story the day I started, "I Dropped Out of Grad School Today" @sam (octopart) [0],[1] [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sam https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20070223035643/http://octopart.com/html/blog.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070223035643/http://octopart.c...

vlad 11y ago
You started Feb 22, technically that's a different date. :) The Archive.org page nearest my join date leads with the "Show HN" post for Dropbox, though I actually joined a month earlier in March 2007. Another top story from that day asks if people realized the up and down arrows were clickable and used for voting purposes.
- bootload 11y ago
  "You started Feb 22, technically that's a different date. :)" correct @vlad, though the Archive.org capture isn't hi-rez enough, I'm only reading what the app shows. Great idea.

tomkwok 11y ago

View page source. <script> $(function () { var 火 = new Firebase("https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/"); var ໆ = "http://news.ycombinator.com/"; $("#誤").hide(); $("form").submit(function () { 火.child("v0/user/" + $("#username").val()).on("value", function(結果) { var 人 = 結果.val(); if (人 && 人.created) { var 時 = new Date(人.created * 1e3); var YYYYMMDDhhmmss = 時.toISOString().slice(0,19).replace(/[-T:]/g,""); var ꜛ = "https://web.archive.org/web/".concat(YYYYMMDDhhmmss, "/", ໆ); $('body').fadeOut(); location = ꜛ; } else { $("#誤").show(); } }); return false; }); }); /* ASCII art omitted to save space */ </script> Wow, non-latin characters for variable names. And if you'd like to learn some Chinese, here is the definition of all Chinese characters appeared above. 火 = fire 誤 = error / mistake 時 = time 結果 = result (a term / expression with figurative meaning) 果 = fruit 人 = human / person --- My pick: 'HNSearch – old HN search engine – will be shut down later today'. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404972

coolandsmartrr 11y ago
Neato! Given that Bemmu live in Japan, I think he intended using the Kanji characters as Japanese characters, although they were originally derived from traditional Chinese (still used in Taiwan).
- tomkwok 11y ago
  > I think he intended using the Kanji characters as Japanese characters, although they were originally derived from traditional Chinese (still used in Taiwan). And in Hong Kong where I live. I can't read Japanese, so the characters above just happened to retain its meaning after being imported to the Japanese language. I know that many don't.
userbinator 11y ago
結果 = result (a term / expression with figurative meaning) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B5%90%E6%9E%9C https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B5%90%E6%9E%9C It looks like those characters literally mean "to bear fruit" - and in English, fruit is also used figuratively to mean a result, e.g. "fruits of labour", so I wonder if either English or Chinese was inspired by the other, or if they independently came up with the concept relating fruit and result.

cbaleanu 11y ago

This is great! Reminds one of just how fast time flies. Melancholy aside, this[0] was #1 on the day I finally created an account. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4220353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4220353

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

thomasreggi 11y ago

Awesome. One of the first posts was "Google Removes http:// http:// from Chrome". I remember that!

peteretep 11y ago

Bitcoin hit $4!

bambax 11y ago

Apparently I joined the day PG and Jessica got married: https://twitter.com/kn0thing/statuses/824631187 https://twitter.com/kn0thing/statuses/824631187 I wasn't at the wedding! ;-)

edw519 11y ago

Doesn't work for me: Sorry, your username was not found. Maybe you have never submitted or commented anything. user: edw519 created: 3070 days ago karma: 72254 about: Free ebook, "The Best of edw519": hn.my/edw519 twitter: @edw519 http://twitter.com/edw519 e d w 5 1 9 a t g m a i l https://hn.algolia.com/?query=edw519&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment 5,008 results

DanBC 11y ago
It's case specific. Did you try Edw519 or edw519?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ics 11y ago
Besides what DanBC suggested, it doesn't work (gives username not found error) if you're blocking JS.
Retr0spectrum 11y ago
It worked when I tried it: https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb...

minikomi 11y ago

Nice one. Seems the day I joined was just 4 days after the big Tohoku Earthquake. Things were quite strange in Tokyo those days..

janoelze 11y ago

December 1, 2011. The frontpage was filled with the Carrier IQ thing unfolding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_IQ#Rootkit_discovery_and_media_attention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_IQ#Rootkit_discovery_a...

DiThi 11y ago

Neat, exactly the same :P It's wrong by one day. The page with my first comment didn't exist until the next day and I registered to write that comment.

kevinbowman 11y ago
Timezone issue perhaps?

slamus 11y ago

Show HN: thefacebook.com Just joking :)

bsbechtel 11y ago

Interesting! Meteor.js, which I've been using on my latest project, was debuted the same day I joined :-)

scelerat 11y ago

Four front page stories about why the lucky stiff's abrupt reclusion.

captn3m0 11y ago

I joined the day Stripe launched. I was a lurker for a long time, though.

Brajeshwar 11y ago

Nice. But you need to sanitize the username case-sensitivity. https://www.dropbox.com/s/16u7pjmpno685u0/Screenshot%202015-07-19%2014.20.01.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/16u7pjmpno685u0/Screenshot%202015-...

corford 11y ago

Apparently I joined (after lurking for ages!) on or close to the day Steve Jobs passed away.

burger_moon 11y ago

This is neat. Good job. I'm a pretty big fan of one that got posted here about a month ago, waybackhn. It chooses random day/months/years and shows the front page for either. I've spent a lot of time reading through old stories and comments from years before I got into this field. It's opened up my mind a bit to see what people were talking about years back.

joeblau 11y ago

A lot of SOPA stuff was going on which explains why I made the Stop SOPA awareness banner browser plugins!

BCM43 11y ago

Cool, top story for me was "Experiment: No Comment Scores" https://web.archive.org/web/20090929084547/http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=844979 https://web.archive.org/web/20090929084547/http://news.ycomb...

mixmax 11y ago
ah, I remember that - that's when I more or less stopped commenting. I still think it was a really bad move.
- x43b 11y ago
  "ah, I remember that - that's when I more or less stopped commenting. I still think it was a really bad move." Why would that cause you to stop posting?

lcfg 11y ago

These throwbacks have a way of being very topical. 12th item on Hacker News that day for me is "The Next SourceForge": "SourceForge has been rethought, reimplemented, and rejuvenated."

ashwath 11y ago

This is very nice!

542458 11y ago

Ha! This is really cool. A few interesting things on mine: https://web.archive.org/web/20110716015547/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110716015547/http://news.ycomb... "Code.Google.com now supports git" Google code got the axe earlier this year. "Michael Arrington reportedly to launch “CrunchFund” to invest in startups" The rumours turned out to be true. "Court OKs Airport Body Scanners, Rejects Constitutional Challenge" They're everywhere now! "Italy and the euro: On the edge" Good guess, but turns out Greece is a bigger problem.

CGamesPlay 11y ago
I joined on April 1, apparently, so none of my rumors turned out to be true. Oh well. https://web.archive.org/web/20090401065245/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20090401065245/http://news.ycomb...

hga 11y ago

I joined 8 years ago, and the topic selection is not markedly different in nature, which I find remarkable. Then again, there's a reason I'm still here and not e.g. Slashdot, which I started following even earlier.

ghaff 11y ago
That's one of the things that struck me. Of the headlines that came up for me for March 2010, there were only a couple that would seem out of place today. (One related to Flash on an iPhone and one to the network at PyCon 2010.)
cookiecaper 11y ago
Yeah, same here. Except for a couple of stories, the front page from when I joined in 2008 easily could've been the front page today.

Jimmy 11y ago

One of the links from my page: "MySpace v. Facebook: It's Not a Decision. It's an IQ Test" Yeah, I joined a while ago.

noobermin 11y ago

Does anyone else get a 404?

ismail 11y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://news.ycomb... Some interesting things on mine: Does Apple's Steve Jobs have cancer again? (alleyinsider.com) https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/does_apple_s_steve_jobs_have_cancer_again_ https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://www.alleyi... Toyota Announces New 516-Mile Range Fuel-Cell/Electric Hybrid https://web.archive.org/web/20080611123133/http://gas2.org/2008/06/10/toyota-announces-new-516-mile-range-fuel-cellelectric-hybrid/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080611123133/http://gas2.org/2... Interesting to note how HN has grown since then. Much more people on, though content has stayed similar. In retrospect Jobs did still have cancer, and the Toyota hybrid was not much of a game changer.

epmatsw 11y ago

Huh, I joined the day MegaUpload went down. I don't remember, but I expect that those are probably related.

bluehazed 11y ago

"Google reader is dead"

dylanz 11y ago
On my front page was: "Is Google Reader next on the chopping block?". Also, JQuery 1.3 was released.

cwp 11y ago

Wow. I knew it's been a long time, I didn't realize I joined so near the beginning. Mine has "Why we made this site" submitted by pg.

staunch 11y ago
Also the day I joined. I think it was the day PG posted it on reddit.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

rglullis 11y ago

First link of mine seemed interesting at the time, but I guess it was one of those YC duds: https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycomb...

jumperabg 11y ago

I haven't commented on anything :( :D

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

msutherl 11y ago

Turns out this enduringly useful text was on the front page when I joined: http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html Bonus, also interesting: http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/migration.html http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/migration.html

blhack 11y ago

Wow..."AWS Startup challenge!" https://web.archive.org/web/20081222024222/http://aws.amazon.com/startupchallenge https://web.archive.org/web/20081222024222/http://aws.amazon...

Todd 11y ago

Clever idea. Top item on mine: My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive (getdropbox.com) https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycomb... Edit: Look at the stats! 27 points kept it at the top after 8 hours. How things have changed.

ryanmarsh 11y ago

11. What Every C Programmer Should Know About Undefined Behavior #2/3 (llvm.org) LOL, some things change, some things stay the same

larrykubin 11y ago

Wow, I guess I showed up pretty early. I still remember going to Startup School in 2007 and being so excited and inspired that I quit my job a few months later. Note: I probably should have stopped following startup news after the first year or so, I don't think anything I've read after that has been that beneficial, it's just an addiction at this point. I went to Startup School for a second time in 2008 and realized that I didn't need to be there, I was trying to recapture a feeling -- but after the initial inspiration I just needed to get busy. Why we made this site 34 points by pg 5 hours ago | 7 comments Odeo up for sale (so they could focus on this Twitter thing) 17 points by beau 11 hours ago | discuss Web 2.0 is a bubble for 3 reasons 12 points by xyzzy 16 hours ago | discuss Startup School 2007: 3/24 at Stanford 26 points by phyllis 1 day ago | discuss

aquarin 11y ago
Why we made this site 117 points by pg 5 days ago | 46 comments Startup School 2007: 3/24 at Stanford 32 points by phyllis 6 days ago | discuss

joshstrange 11y ago

Oddly enough on my first day the OP of this post (bemmu) first posted (I assume) about his Candy Japan business (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745694). Funny how that works out.

waterlesscloud 11y ago

"Tesla Says It Is Now Profitable, Ships 109 Roadsters In July" Heh.

jrockway 11y ago

8 years! It was still called "Startup News" back then. The front page when I joined looks very much like it does today -- a few articles about Google (6!), some startup-y articles, some politics, some business-y articles, some pure programming articles, etc. A good mix, but things are still pretty good today. I remember exactly why I joined, incidentally. With increasing regularity, /r/programming was making me very mad. I would post a detailed correct answer to someone's question, only for some troll to immediately reply with some insult and "proof" that I was totally wrong, even though the proof was totally wrong. It happens once, fine. It happens every single time I comment, I'm out. I have not been back in 8 years. I will admit this happens from time to time on HN, which is unfortunate because I like to comment and really only know what I'm talking about when it's programming-related. But it hasn't made me mad enough to leave, only to nostalgically think back to the good-old days. (I did start using Reddit again, too, but I only read unpopular subreddits. I can handle /r/AskReddit for some time killing, but things like /r/flying and /r/amateurradio are very pleasant communities with enough activity to be interesting a couple times a week. /r/anime is infuriatingly stupid, /r/awwnime is much more tolerable.)

jzelinskie 11y ago
What anime community do you use now? r/anime was always terrible. I've "outgrown" 4chan, but /a/ is still the best community I know of. I mostly just do my own thing and talk to my few friends who also watch.
- jrockway 11y ago
  I use a (private) G+ community now.
ShardPhoenix 11y ago
> /r/anime is infuriatingly stupid, /r/awwnime is much more tolerable. Well that's not too surprising when the latter has almost no comments. You could try r/trueanime - it's smaller and smarter, though it does tend to attract long-winded people.
IsaacL 11y ago

cellis 11y ago

jedberg 11y ago

I'm amused that a top post when I joined was "How long did it take you to figure out that the up/down arrows next to the links are for voting?" FYI this was 8.3 years ago, which was about 200 days in, but very close to the public launch I think.

driverdan 11y ago

Story with most votes for me was about terrible Google customer service in 2009. Some good discussion that's relevant today. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=790800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=790800

rozuur 11y ago

So I haven't commented or submitted anything

japaget 11y ago

It only approximates the date you first joined. It uses https://archive.org/ https://archive.org/ (the Internet Archive) to load the archived page nearest to (or nearest before?) the date you joined. Since the Internet Archive does not mirror HN every day, the page it will show you may differ by a few days from your exact signup date. It so happens that I joined on March 11, 2009 but I was shown the page for March 10, 2009 instead. You can use http://www.waybackhn.com/ http://www.waybackhn.com/ to get a list of the top stories on the exact date you joined HN.

noenzyme 11y ago

I think a cool derivative work would be to see today's HN but filtered to only see activity of people who joined before you.

endlessvoid94 11y ago

Obligatory "I joined on the first day" comment, w00t

BenoitEssiambre 11y ago

"browser stats: IE8 passes IE7 (arstechnica.com)" shudders

Semiapies 11y ago

I just get "Unknown" with this name. Are they mis-formatting the request or something? https://web.archive.org/web/20090314171151/http://news.ycombinator.com// https://web.archive.org/web/20090314171151/http://news.ycomb... ETA: Nevermind, archive.org just has a bad snapshot or something for that day.

agotterer 11y ago

What a day. Highlights: - what happened to pownce - Amazon Dynamo white paper announced - justin tv got funded - Microsoft to open source .net framework Thanks for making this. It appears the search is case sensitive, might be worth fixing.

txutxu 11y ago

The day I did join I was stupid and did use my memory for the password. Latter I did create another account, yes.

djyde 11y ago

See what Github looked like on the day you joined http://djyde.github.io/github-cakeday http://djyde.github.io/github-cakeday

HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago

Thanks for this! The quality of the front page was either much better back then or that was just a lucky day!

PakG1 11y ago

Funny how the day that I joined so many years ago, people were debating whether or not Google would buy Twitter, and today that debate has been resurrected again so recently.

JimmaDaRustla 11y ago

NEIL ARMSTRONG DIED!?