Yeah, its a really beautiful site.

I designed an extension with a roughly similar aim that filters based upon various phrases and characteristics rather than the poster of the comments themselves. It collapses comments (via automatic triggering of HN's built-in collapsing feature) and adds a "reason" tag to the comment information, so I can choose whether or not to read it anyways. I feel the features with the most positive differences are the capitalization detector (hides all caps or all lowercase) and the character requirement.

Beware of trapping yourself in a manufactured social bubble of emotional comfortable

It's just a fun title, don't read so much into it

Y'know, the thing which you did is probably the best way to make use out of nostalgia.

Like of course you had your CP/M machine and it had its restrictions but you are seeing them now with the added information of the current stage

There were also things that you liked too and still like and they may be better than somethings in current time

So you can then take things that you like and add it to modern or remove previous restrictions by taking access to modern upgrades.

> So yeah, nostalgia is never a good motivation for a manifesto. :-)

I think the problem's more so spiritual. The social contract is sort of falling off in most countries. So there is a nostalgia for the previous social contracts and the things which were with them like the old internet because to be honest the current monopolistic internet does influence with things like lobbying and chrony capitalism to actively break that social contract via corrupt schemes.

People want to do something about it, but speaking as a young guy, we didn't witness the old era so we ourselves are frustrated too but most don't create manifesto's due to it and try to find hobbies or similar things as we try to find the meaning of our life and role in the world

But for the people who have witnessed the old internet, they have that nostalgia to end up to and that's partially why they end up creating a manifesto of sorts themselves.

The reality of the situation to me feels like things are slipping up in multiple areas and others.

Do you really feel that the govt. has best interests for you, the average citizen?

Chances are no, So this is probably why liberterian philosophy is really spreading and the idea of freedom itself.

Heck I joined linux and the journey behind it all because I played a game and it had root level kernel access and I realized that there really was no way to effectively prove that it wasn't gone (it was chinese company [riot] so I wasn't sure if I wanted it)

I ended up looking at linux and then just watched enough videos until I convinced myself to use it one day and just switched. But Most people are really land-locked into the Microsoft ecosystem, even tiny nuances can be enough for some.

using Linux was the reason why I switched from trying to go from finance to computer science. I already knew CS but I loved finance too but In the end I ended up picking CS because I felt like there were chances of making real impact myself which were more unique to me than say chartered accountant.

So my point is, I am not sure if I would even be here if I had even the slightest of nuances. Heck, I am not even much of a gamer but my first distro was nobara linux which focused on gaming because I was worried about gaming or worried about wine or smth. So I had switched to nobara.

Looking now, I say to others oh just use this or that and other things and see it as the most obvious decisions sometimes but by writing this comment, I just wanted to say that change can be scary sometimes.

> Then there is the paradox of freedom to deal with, specifically if everyone is free to change anything they like to be the way they like it, other people will hate it and the entire system will be "bad." But for everyone to use the same basic frame work, and the dislike for the lack of freedom will be a common cause that builds community.

I would say let the man have his freedom. I would consider having more choices to be less of a burden than few choices in most occasions. Of course one's mind feels that there is a sweet spot but in longevity I feel like its the evolution of ideas and more ideas means more the competition and we will see more innovation as such.

I miss RSS too

Where is that a trend? It really doesn’t work in most cases because often the information and the design are not separable. One needs the other to convey the intended meaning.

> Hacker News, probably noticeably since 2016 or so, has been a negative, curmudgeonly place. It has become political (toward the left), sclerotic, and bitterly nostalgic. It's bad and no longer represents the future. I notice it every time I visit. It's sad.

An easy way to help with the negativity is to stop leaving bait comments

I promise you Hacker News was exactly like this back in 2011.

> It has become political (toward the left)

I wonder what you're talking about - your definition of 'political' or 'left'.

Tech and politics are so deeply intrenched. More than just "is DEI evil and there's no such thing as algorithmic bias". Should Apple be restricted from collecting its Apple Tax and locking down its devices?? Should the EU be able to regulate American companies? Should governments demand encryption back doors in devices? Should Australia ban teens from social network? Should there be a Right to Repair for our devices?

Honestly one of my biggest gripes with HN is that it does seem to be a place where pretty regressive social viewpoints seem to flourish.

I disagree it's "toward the left" but I would also disagree if you said "toward the right". By that I mean I've observed BOTH extremes happening.

That's true of the US population in general too. Their quality of life has been decreasing due to accelerated globalization (sans the top ~10% of asset holders).

HN is so depressing, but at the same time so Im addicted to it. It’s like tiktok but for people who enjoy plain text and hacking related stuff. When I first visited HN more than 10 years ago (without account) like, 90% of the content was exciting and you got to learn something. Nowadays it’s about 40-50%, and the rest is crap (including comments). I have been trying to leave HN, let’s see if I can do it in 2026.

Hacker News, probably noticeably since 2016 or so, has been a negative, curmudgeonly place.

No it hasn't.

Is it "negative" to identify shitty things as being shitty? I wouldn't necessarily blame the commenters for that.

> It has become political (toward the left)

I don’t feel this way at all. Maybe it’s one of the only places you’re actually consuming mixed opinions.

comment from account created ~4 years before the supposed noticeable decline: Here's a content-free opinion post designed to trigger more of the negative comments I really hate, but I'll keep coming back.

The bitter politics can also be right wing and you can spot it when migration topics pop up.

What distinguishes so much of the right wing and left wing politics is that so much of it is angry and zero sum.

I've also been looking for greener pastures. Lobsters has better technical signal/noise but is much more bitter, zero sum, and political.

> It has become political (toward the left)

Clever people tend to be on the political left. Computery people tend to be on the left because they have a higher level of literacy.

That's also why there are no particularly successful right-wing comedians.

I see the same thing. I don't know why I even bother to post here, habit mainly. I know I'm not changing any minds.

Once you understand this, you realize maybe it's not that something is wrong with LLMs, crypto, Google, Apple, Windows, Amazon, the US, Rust, not-rust, JavaScript, Israel, copyright & VCs. It's just a negative place.

> Sites that are true works of art and craft, like https://ciechanow.ski/, will get remembered more widely, but true works of art are rare.

This is a really nifty website.

[dead]

>10,000 GIFs

half of dancing hampsters.

De da dee dee doh!

[1]https://web.archive.org/web/20000301193204/http://www.hamste... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampster_Dance

I do miss "memepool" and snarky curation from ye olde web days

https://web.archive.org/web/20050225005911/http://memepool.c...

I'd show you mine but it's currently.. UNDER CONSTRUCTION

You can only be blind for things you cannot notice.

What you cannot notice is what shapes your "noticement" ability.

The best design is the shape of your perception.

The best design is already implemented in your reception of reality.

The quest for "good design" is a game.

On the other hand, your aesthetical culture and the shape of your perception create a system in which elements are more or less "understandable", "readable", "accessible".

The game of design does not have stable rules and is inconsistent among world populations.

"No design" is impossible, the nature of reality is such that entities are embodied. To be embodied is to be rendered in the game of design.

Ideas are not embodied OR their apparent embodiment in the game of design (electrical information ?) does not contain their content for the observer.

"No design" is perceptually inintelligible.