HN Explorer

Ask HN: What are some excellent blogs, news boards, YouTube channels to follow?

100 points by daynum ↗ HN
Hacker News is the sole platform I discovered that caters to the type of information I want to stay updated with. I like it a lot.

While browsing YouTube, I sometimes discover stuff that interests me and that I've missed, like OpenAI drama, Helix Editor, and Qualcomm Oryon CPU. Then it feels like it is necessary to keep browsing youtube to stay updated, but youtube then sucks up a lot of my time.

I wanted to gather some good quality resource suggestions (besides hacker news) from where I could gather my news regularly, and stay updated with tech, computer science, and anything groundbreaking. And not fall into YouTube's recommendation engine trap.

Can you guys please suggest some?

43 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 89.4 ms ] thread
jacky2wong
I imagine Twitter would be the main one.
tmountain
If you’re interested in learning jazz guitar, Jens Larsen’s YouTube channel is a veritable treasure trove. I have made huge progress following his lessons.

https://www.youtube.com/@JensLarsen

steve_adams_86
This is awesome. Thank you! I love how practical he seems so far. Definitely not a purist. In one video he says you don’t need an amp, in another he talks about how he uses a $400 guitar. This is much more my speed.
supriyo-biswas
> OpenAI drama

How could you have missed it? Half the threads here were about said drama when it was unfolding.

I don’t really have any recommendations to give, because even I’m in the same boat and get to know things that I miss on HN through YouTube or through tech-focused social circles. However, HN’s best page[1] is something to look at occasionally to check if you’ve missed something.

For general news, there’s Wikipedia’s current events[2] list, and you may find it worth paying for quality outlets like FT, The Economist, or Reuters.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/best

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

pingohits
+1 on wikipedia's current events portal. One line summary per event, then a link to the article for more in-depth reading. It's a great way to condense information.
jillesvangurp
Ask chat gpt to summarize things for you and recommend sources. Surprisingly effective. I just ask it what's happening in Germany, what's happening in the world, what are people on HN talking about, etc. It will do a few bing searches and web page fetches and then just give you the summary.

AI is the way to go. It's summarizing and aggregating here so it's not dreaming anything up. You need chat gpt plus for this.

I even did a little HN gpt for this for my personal amusement that uses the snarky tone from the register.

robviren
Not so much news as a fun delve into older tech and code. This channel explores code in retro (god I'm old) games which reveals fascinating things about why things ended up the way they did with certain bugs. Fun to see developers have been getting business pressure for unrealistic timelines since forever.

https://m.youtube.com/@DisplacedGamers

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justanother
Not sure if it qualifies as 'groundbreaking', but Ben Eater's youtube and websites are an amazing way to stay sharp on first principles. You can watch him build and program a 6502 or similar computer on a breadboard, and there's an entire subreddit of people following along with him.
ravenstine
I recently found an excellent series on YouTube called Darknet Diaries, which I feel many HNers would be into.
abrugsch
also as a regular audio podcast. When I did more car-commute hours this was on my playlist. He has a great style and (probably true) stories that sound like an excerpt from Mr Robot. definitely worth a listen
LorenDB
I read The Register daily, and while I don't normally visit it other than HN links, Ars Technica is also a respected site with quality content.
Kye
These are mostly available on podcast apps, but some come out faster on YouTube.

Latent Space is among the least hype-y of ML/AI podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/@LatentSpaceTV

Decoder is a good general tech podcast: https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel

Hard Fork is good for informed analysis of hot topics: https://www.nytimes.com/column/hard-fork

Same for Sharp Tech (occasional free episodes): https://sharptech.fm/

Techquickie is YouTube-only: https://www.youtube.com/@techquickie/videos

It's very silly, but probably the shortest path to keeping up.

neom
Here are the youtube channels I subscribe to inorder to "stay current":

Internet Today: https://www.youtube.com/@InternetTodayTV (fantastic, probably my fav youtube channel for "relaxing and watching the news")

Marques Brownlee: https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd

Scott Manley: https://www.youtube.com/@scottmanley

Practical Engineering: https://www.youtube.com/@PracticalEngineeringChannel

Sabine Hossenfelder: https://www.youtube.com/@SabineHossenfelder

Wes Roth: https://www.youtube.com/@WesRoth (Covers AI news really well)

Bonus Tracks-

World Science Festival: https://www.youtube.com/worldsciencefestival

ColdFusion TV: https://www.youtube.com/coldfusion (meh)

AI Coffee Break with Letitia: https://www.youtube.com/@AICoffeeBreak (good but doesn't update frequently)

WheelsBoy: https://www.youtube.com/@WheelsBoy (Specifically about automotive innovation out of China)

Building Integrity: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildingIntegrity

mraza007
I love cold fusion TV
neom
I USED to love it, but I feel more and more Dagogo injects snide remarks and personal views on things. When he first started I had no clue who ran it, only that they generally did a decent job of covering tech subjects and it felt pretty objective. These days, quality declines + personal opinions/jabs are what moved me from yey! to meh!