HN Explorer

Ask HN: How do you find interesting stuff to read besides HN?

31 points by zasz ↗ HN
I've gotten stuck in a rut online. Aside from a couple blogs and webcomics, I'm pretty much trapped inside of HN and Reddit. How do you guys find interesting stuff--word of mouth, random Google searches, or what?

40 comments

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cstejerean
I like to use Google Reader to keep track of interesting blogs and news sources. Usually when an article is linked from HN I take a look at the site and see if it's interesting, then check if it has an RSS feed.
browndog
Good point. I do this too, though it takes regular pruning of the RSS feed list to keep it interesting. I'll usually sign up for a feed from a blog or site that seems interesting, and after a few weeks or every few months check how often I actually read that feed. If not, out it goes.
cstejerean
Indeed, pruning the feed list is important. I usually only remove a feed if it keeps annoying me with frequent irrelevant content. What I want to prevent is having too many unread items in my reader because it leads to either wasting too much time filtering through them or deciding it's not worth the hassle and missing out on good articles.
browndog
Word of mouth (or email) works for me. I send things that I find interesting to some friends, and they return the favor. Saving those links to read during "free" hours, you can build up quite a reading list.
ucdaz
A lot of time it happens haphazardly. Whenever I read my subscribed feeds, a lot of the posting will have links to other blog postings. I also find great reads through my own community of forums, blogs, meetups, social networks, etc...
yan
I actually try to actively fight the urge to seek out "interesting" things to read. The content on HN is of fairly high quality, and seeking out more stuff to consume outside of it leads to diminishing returns on time wasted.

I find if something is important enough, it will get to me one way or another. Or I'll see it passing by on HN.

aneesh
+1 for that. You can spend practically infinite time reading interesting stuff on the internet. Take some time and do something productive. I promise you won't be missing anything by spending a couple days away from HN, etc.
ajdecon
If I run across a particularly interesting post--linked from a favorite blog, or HN or reddit--I'll often subscribe to the site's rss feed for a week or two on the strength of that experience.

If the site's quality is consistently good, it stays in my feed reader. Otherwise it's booted fast. As a bonus, that high-quality site will probably link to other things I've never heard of, which might be worth reading long-term.

There's no universal recipe, and very few good aggregators online. But you can usually depend on the principle that good stories will link to other good stories.

voidfiles
I try and get friends who read blogs to use google reader and then constantly cajole them into sharing stuff. Some of my favorite stuff comes from things my friends have shared. Especially things that wouldn't show up on my radar normally.
arthurk
I get my news from: HN + Proggit + RSS Feeds from a few smaller, but important blogs (mostly personal blogs and other very specialized stuff) in Google Reader.

That's enough interesting news for me.

thorax
Socialbrowse has been a cool way to find stuff "word-of-mouth" lately for me.
peakok
Art & Letters Daily : http://www.aldaily.com/
chriskelley
ALD is a new one for me, bookmarked. I love that it seems generally sophisticated -- anybody have similar gems to this?
iron_ball
Long-time reader. One of my favorite things about it is that it presents articles and editorials written from everywhere on the political spectrum, from the soppily liberal (the Guardian) to the frothingly conservative (City Journal).
davidw
A subscription to The Economist is great for having some printed material to read in the head.
eru
And it's cheap for students.
gleb
A subscription to paper version of WSJ is the best $100/year you'll spend. The content is authoritative, exceptionally well researched and complete. The opinion side of things is pleasantly conservative.
zzzmarcus
As much as I like the WSJ, I can't stand the form-factor of newspapers. They're so awkwardly large that you can't read them on a bus/train or almost anywhere else comfortably... not to mention the ink smudging on fingers and anything else it rubs up against. I'd go for an online or Kindle (do they have that?) subscription.
aardvarkious
But I love newspapers. I can't think of anything else that would make a more convenient and effective covering for the bottom of my bird's cage. And a supply that lasts me several months only costs a buck! Now that's what I call technology.
eru
The Economist has a more managable form-factor
rw
And unpleasantly reactionary.
omfut
I usually checkout techmeme for hot news for the day. Othe than that, techcrunch,gigaom and some voip blogs.
vaksel
I read a couple of forums(a few for my hobbies, a few general ones, a few for politics). Then I have HH and Techcrunch for tech etc. And finally I visit reddit/digg to see if there is anything interesting on the front page.

This way I tend to find all of the interesting stuff as soon as it happens.

rokhayakebe
Try FriendFeed. It is definitely a work in progress but it can really help if you subscribe to a limited number of people.
UandIblog
I go to a major chain bookstore, the bigger the better. I look around for something really good, when I find something I like I then take the laptop out of my bag and I look up the book at Amazon. Quite often one of Amazons recommendations ends up being more interesting to me, so at that point I'll use my mobile to call a smaller, independent bookstore and special order the book. In the several days it takes to arrive I usually just read the same blogs you guys already mentioned.
asdflkj
Why don't you buy it from the bookstore you're already in?
UandIblog
Because I have a soft spot in my heart for independent bookstores.
thingsilearned
I'm incredibly biased but I recommend Socialbrowse! Send me an email if you would like an invite

dave at socialbrowse

gasull
http://del.icio.us/popular

del.icio.us/popular and HN are my absolutely required readings every day.

Try AideRSS for other blogs if you you want a better signal/noise ratio:

http://www.aiderss.com/

Besides this, websites I visit sometimes:

* iTulip (http://www.itulip.com) - alternative economic news

* Boing Boing (http://www.boingboing.net) - my favorite blog.

* Your Rights Online Slashdot (http://yro.slashdot.org) - about the coming orwellian state

* Pitchfork Media Best New Music (http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/best_new_music)

ashleyw
A Google reader full of smaller blogs and the mindset that I DONT have to read everything. 3083 unread, as of right now, in fact.

Smaller blogs are generally one-man shows, but that's what makes them special to me, they aren't out to make money, and their opinions (about generally geeky tech things, in my case) are priceless. I don't care if they are the wrong opinions, or daft opinions, just that they are alternative opinions. It helps me see different angles of new technologies, languages and startups.

I love sites like Hacker News, they filter out the good stuff, but at the end of the day its a group opinion, and sometimes even upvoted due to the title or subject, rather than the content of the linked to article.

kajecounterhack
Stumbleupon

though, I only actively seek things when I have time to kill which isn't often at all. Usually its just YC News.

mroman
Well, you did specify "online" but what got me out of a very similar rut is . . . reading good books. I read on my machine 99% of the time, and I even use the browser to read said books quite often :)
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