HN Explorer

Ask HN: Where did you hang out while HN was down?

53 points by yesplorer ↗ HN
I'm (and probably others, hopefully) will be interested in knowing where you spent your online surfing time in place of HN. As a person learning programming for the first time, I spent most of the time on r/learnprogramming, r/learnpython, r/ python and Google Groups for the Python mailing list.

What of you?

69 comments

[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 128 ms ] thread
citruspi
I ended up spending most of my time productively, writing code. However, I did spend a significant amount of time in IRC channels, Lobste.rs, /r/netsec, /r/python, /r/crypto, and /r/malware.
coloncapitald
Isn't IRC dead yet? What are some of the IRC channels you would recommend to HN users?
martindale
IRC is just a protocol, like HTTP.
cema
So is gopher.
pyre
... and protocols never truly die? Like Gopher?
twic
What? Gopher isn't dead, buddy. There are over 160 servers.
pyre
Forgive me if I don't hold my breath waiting for Gopher to come back in-style though. ;-)
brianpgordon
One of them serving legitimate files, even!

(Only on waning gibbous moons.)

riffraff
I still go to freenode, but being a protocol doesn't mean it can't die, i.e. gopher is practically dead.
bemmu
#startups on freenode has the biggest HN user concentration
Joeboy
I spent a short amount of time there and it seemed to be rather spoilt by a contingent of insane and simply unpleasant people. Perhaps I just chose the wrong day.
mvkel
No, it's always like that, unfortunately.
sillysaurus2
IRC is great. Need help with an advanced math problem (or a basic one)? Try #math on freenode. Need help with an esoteric Python problem (or a basic one)? Try #python on freenode. Need help with ${anything_else}? Try #${anything_else} on freenode. Etc. (If there isn't a freenode channel for your topic, then Googling for "topic IRC channel" will usually turn up something on some other IRC network.)

I can't think of any other tool which solves the same problem as IRC, so it seems doubtful that IRC will be joining the ranks of the dearly departed anytime soon.

citruspi
Not at all, I love IRC. I hang out on Freenode, consistently in #rit-foss (I'm an RIT student) and I jump around other channels.

Whatever you're interested in, there's most likely a channel on some server which focuses on it, whether it's math, literature, jailbreaks, python programmming, security, torrenting, etc. Here's a list of EFnet channels[0].

[0]: http://www.efnet.org/?module=channels

blueskin_
In the datacentre, troubleshooting.

I hardly noticed.

thirdsight
As most of it was Sunday for me, I spent some time working on my IOCCC 2014 entry after reading carefully through the 2013 entries for inspiration.

That and r/wtf which is slightly addictive if not completely wrong.

malka
beside working, I spent time lurking on reddit, lobste.rs and /g/
wanda
/g/ & StackExchange. Still waiting for my account to be accepted at lobste.rs

(˘､˘)

coloncapitald
I spent most of the time finishing my backlog on the multireddits I have made. To list down some of the sub-reddits, /r/dailyprogrammer, /r/cscareerquestions, /r/algorithms etc. This, in the time I would have been surfing HN instead, obviously. I also had a bookmarks folder of links from HN that I hadn't gone through.
pattle
I spent the whole time on HN pressing F5
kozhevnikov
Me too, until a day later I realised I should probably try Ctrl+F5, worked like a charm.
jyothepro
Me too, followed the HNStatus on twitter too
brianpgordon
So apparently I have a natural pressure gauge that makes me click my HN bookmark to let off some steam after some minutes of intense concentration. I found it incredibly bizarre that being unable to access the site prevented me from letting off steam so that I was clicking the bookmark compulsively every 30 seconds before remembering that it was down.
munimkazia
I was using techmeme to get the latest tech news. To be honest, my work breaks got a lot more boring.
peterkelly
It was tough, but in the end I got by with a combination of work and spending time with friends & family
davedx
Likewise. With a 3 month old baby, I didn't even realise it was down until just before I went to bed and checked it on my phone.
EdwCoady
I was hoping your comment was going to end with "I didn't even realize I had a baby until it was down"
khrist
I couldnt hang out anywhere, I wall polling HN with F5
chewxy
I ended up being productive - Started a new book (https://leanpub.com/jsoddities) and wrote some 20% of it while HN was down. Far more effective than my noprocrast
huhtenberg
20% in a day - sounds more like a pamphlet to me :)
chewxy
5000+ words a day isn't too difficult, really. Plus JS Oddities isn't going to be a very big book - about 20+ examples of rather crazy JS code and explanations
hatu
JS The Good Parts is a little pamphlet. But JS oddities sounds like a huge bible.
srik
That's great. the book looks pretty interesting and the cover is kinda awesome. Did you do that within the same time frame too?
chewxy
Yeah. I already had the vector of the lady from when I was working on Fork the Cookbook. The rest is all GIMP default
bcj
I honestly didn't realize how much time I spend on here until yesterday. It was more than a little disconcerting.

I spent a lot of my time reading up on Julia, and a little time working on a website.

wil421
/r/learnprogramming and /r/programming
ankitml
ISRO scientists were doing an AMA on r/india
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
dalerus
I spent time reading Medium.