Random Hacker News
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SHOW HN2024
How HN took it
10 positive, 14 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 6 critical, out of 32 comments about the project. Thread score +0.15.
Idea: 5 for, 2 againstExecution: 1 for, 3 againstDesign: 1 for, 1 againstPerformance: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Nice way to explore old front pages and find missed stories.
From 3 comments
Amazing way to browse the site, well done
breakfastduck on HNI went there once and found something useful. Kudos.
wscourge on HNClicked all the links on today's front page? Just go here for more.
Liftyee on HN
Objections
Hijacking the back button breaks navigation.
From 2 comments
Please do not hijack the back button. Your website should send a 307 Temporary Redirect to HN, so when I go back, I return to where I was, instead of being sent to another random…
sph on HNIt's incredibly annoying when this isn't taken care of. Alt + Left Arrow becomes impossible to use and I have to resort to using my mouse. Don't Microsoft's support pages [1] do…
sneela on HN
Many old linked articles are dead (link rot).
From 2 comments
I counted 14 out of 30 links on the front page back then still work and appear to refer to the same article / something relevant to the original submission. Link rot is always…
Pathogen-David on HNThis is great. But is so depressing opening a link and finding a 404 page or the site gone.
Astraco on HN
Requests
Open Hacker News in a new tab by default.
From 1 comment
Please make it open in a new tab, that'll make more sense (I suppose). It's not pleasing to go back to use it again.
sujayk_33 on HN
Add random week or top posts per week view.
From 2 comments
Random day is a bit overkill in my opinion, in the sense that there are too many days to explore, I would be more interested in random week, as in the most upvoted that week, as…
mattigames on HNNice work. Slightly related question: say one hasn't visited HN in a few weeks and wants to see something like the top N posts of a given week. Does this exist?
ks2048 on HN
Link to Wayback Machine archive copies of old articles.
From 2 comments
Cool - nice idea. Can I make a feature request? Automatically offer an alternate fetch of a post’s target URL from the Internet archive. The first post I found (from 2012) was…
urbandw311er on HNIt would be great if HN automatically added a "wayback machine" link for articles over, say, one year ago.
pimlottc on HN
Questions
Why was the feature surprising or does another site have it?
From 1 comment
> I was surprised that there wasn't a feature here that lets you go back in time to the front page of Hacker News on a random day May I ask why were you surprised? Which other…
hk__2 on HN
Alternatives named
HN /front?day= pages and hn.algolia.com custom date ranges.
From 2 comments
I'm happy to see people looking at /front?day=yyyy-mm-dd because it's a trove of great stories and threads. It's linked from "past" in the top bar, if anyone didn't know. Please…
dang on HNYou can use a custom range on hn.algolia.com [1]. [1]…
CrypticShift on HN
Hacker News Preview extension for screenshots of past pages.
From 1 comment
Nice! slightly related: If you'd like to see a screenshot taken of the pages on that day, then use the extension: Chrome:…
mustak_im on HN
Randhn by ketancmaheshwari.
From 1 comment
I created one too a while ago: https://github.com/ketancmaheshwari/randhn
ketanmaheshwari on HN