Show HN: Hacker Times, a New York Times-inspired version of Hacker News

(hackertimes.ca)

438 points | by polpenn 16 hours ago ago

137 comments

  • emaro 14 hours ago ago

    I remember there was a similar project like this posted a while ago. Turns out there are multiple. Here are just a few (that are still online):

    A couple of months ago (so probably vibe-coded too):

    https://thefrontpage.dev/

    https://times.hntrends.net/

    https://hackernewstimes.com/

    This one even from 6 years ago:

    https://www.wolfgangfaust.com/project/paper-hn/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23669650, 627 points, 133 comments)

    https://hn.algolia.com/?q=hackernews+newspaper

    • yewenjie 10 hours ago ago

      HN keeps reinventing HN-flavored things.

      I built this to aggregate all the aggregators (like HackerTube, Hackerbooks etc.) that were popular a few days ago (they go back to 2011, at least).

      https://hackeragain.com

    • mshafir 4 hours ago ago

      yeah but to be fair, those all just show posts with the same title. This one actually come up with pretty good headlines and summaries based on the articles themselves and I think actually are quite good for LLM-written content. It probably took some effort to get it to match NYT tone/style in writing and I found some of the headlines much better than the original ones though some of the charm of HN is titles that are unclear enough to make you go to the article only to find it's not about what you thought.

      Might appreciate a print version of this mailed to my house :)

    • iorekz an hour ago ago

      I find this new one to be the best to look at. Layout, design, fonts. I'm not sure about the content but feels good to my eye

    • carloscheddar 4 hours ago ago

      I quite liked https://hackernewstimes.com because it let's you see the articles and HN comments in a split pane.

    • emaro 14 hours ago ago

      No shame in doing something that already exists for yourself. But at this point I think it wouldn't be asked too much to just ask your favorite agent to check first if someone already implemented your idea in the past and then consider if your vision is really distinct enough to warrant anther instance of whatever you want to build.

      • blocked_againnn 7 hours ago ago

        There is nothing particularly special about building something first.

        • emaro 7 hours ago ago

          True, but imo there's also nothing particulrarly special about telling your agent to (re)build something that already existed (in various flavours) before.

          I packed the thought into "consider if your vision is really distinct enough": make it better, make it weird, or make it recreationally (i.e. by hand). Make it opinionated, in Minecraft, whatever, but give it at least some new substance.

          It's also fine to do Hacker Tube or Hacker Times (it's really not about this specific instance) for the 100th time, but if nothing else distinguishes it from the others than "I wanted to have one too", maybe it's not the curiosity-inspiring thing to share on HN we should strive for.

          • blocked_againnn 6 hours ago ago

            None of these are listed in the guidelines on HN.

            • simsla 5 hours ago ago

              Nor was it implied. I agree with the poster, especially in the case of point-and-release agentic coding. Not saying it's to be banned if there's no additional substance, but worth asking yourself what you've contributed apart from token spend.

              • blocked_againnn 5 hours ago ago

                Subjective opinions. People can do whatever they want.

                • emaro 4 hours ago ago

                  Yep, thank you simsla.

                  My specific examples aren't listed, but the guidelines on what to submit support my point I think:

                  > If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

                • pessimizer 3 hours ago ago

                  You seem to be confused. Every opinion on here is subjective, and no one was suggesting that the poster should be arrested.

                  • blocked_againnn 3 hours ago ago

                    I was merely pointing at how some people seems to have some impression that the idea should be original and not a duplicate as if it's some sort of objective truth that they have found out.

                    In reality it's just some false belief they have.

                    There is no guarantee that the first implementation of the idea will be the first to capture the attention of the public.

                    Also it's perfectly fine to have someone post a duplicate implementation of an idea and get no reception as well.

      • herrherrmann 12 hours ago ago

        Maybe that can happen through custom instructions. But I guess, by default the agent will happily do extra work and spend lots of tokens on “redundant” projects.

        • nomel 11 hours ago ago

          We're going to enter an era of fragmentation and silos like never imagined before. It'll be terribly wonderful, with everyone getting exactly what they want.

          • willguest 9 hours ago ago

            You're probably right, but i think this is a human-led issue, not one brought on by tech, though it does exacerbate it.

            As someone committed to transdisciplinary work, I think the tech also really supports this - i can do lit reviews on topics and cross-reference much more easily, which gives me more time for reading and thinking (both of which are also falling out of fashion, but that's another story)

    • kreddor 11 hours ago ago

      I actually liked https://thefrontpage.dev/

      A shame that it broke a few weeks ago. These projects tends to get abandoned after a while.

      • martin- 8 hours ago ago

        It's been working fine for me most days. I came here from there just now.

        • emaro 7 hours ago ago

          Yup, I specifically only linked working sites, since not all I checked were online anymore.

    • nor0x 8 hours ago ago

      wow quite a list - my version of it is https://thedailyfront.johnnys.page which I built for myself, to read it on my tablet on my way to the office. A new issue is generated automatically every morning. My goal was to have something that is self-contained with every article directly readable on the site and to have the discussion there as well

    • sapphire4 13 hours ago ago
    • eddiewithzato 7 hours ago ago

      damn the vibecoded ones look a lot better

      • II2II 3 hours ago ago

        Is that all that surprising? We're comparing hobby projects created by a single developer, in a medium that requires multiple skills to master, to a machine generated site that can draw upon the collective knowledge of humanity. (I think that is a fair comparison here, since pretty much everything known about web development would be documented online.) Comparing it to a team of developers doing it professionally would likely lead to a different outcome.

  • omoikane 13 hours ago ago

    > Masthead set in Manufacturing Consent

    I like the description for Manufacturing Consent font:

    https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Manufacturing+Consent/abou...

    https://github.com/google/fonts/blob/main/ofl/manufacturingc...

    • user_7832 12 hours ago ago

      While I like the premise, the opening text:

      > Ah, Manufacturing Consent—the font that doesn’t just scream “serious journalism,” it calmly editorializes it in 144-point Fraktur while subtly nudging your worldview.

      Unfortunately feels too much like an LLM output for me.

      (Which is probably post-ironic in this context?)

    • itanalot 13 hours ago ago

      Reminds me of furniture descriptions in the Sims

  • polpenn 17 minutes ago ago

    Thanks all for your feedback!

    I added a few of them to the site:

    - Games and AI section - NYTimes style comment section

  • albertgoeswoof 2 hours ago ago

    Can you create a rendered pdf version of this? Similar to https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/10/04/nytfrontpage/scan...

    Then I can show it on my eink art board

    • polpenn 2 hours ago ago

      Sure. I'm currently working through a list of feedback items that people shared here. I'll add that to the list.

  • danpalmer 11 hours ago ago

    Isn't what people pay for with the NYT or other publications, the journalism and editing? Like, the UI isn't why people pay for it.

    Given that this seems to just be a re-skin, why a full site that updates hourly, instead of just a browser extension that rewrites the content in-place live?

    • FearNotDaniel 10 hours ago ago

      The instant value I got from this is actually something that resembles journalism and editing, even if it’s just an LLM doing the job: the rewriting of headlines along with a half-decent editorial summary paragraph gives me a clear overview of what each link is actually about without the usual puzzling over what the cryptic HN headline is trying to say.

    • Pavilion2095 6 hours ago ago

      Yes, but it's still nice to have a good UI. HN has many things that one can find inconvenient.

    • prmoustache 10 hours ago ago

      Quoting the show hn introduction: "I thought it would be fun"

      I think we can leave it at that no?

  • DivingForGold 4 hours ago ago

    Attempting to steal HN's thunder ? Knowing the NYT's, the ads and the Nag Screens will come shortly.

  • starkshift 2 hours ago ago

    Cool! This is great because it demonstrates how terrible NYTimes UI is on mobile, thanks!

  • smileybarry 5 hours ago ago

    I personally don't like the AI-rephrased titles, they feel too editorialized and similar to each other. I realise AI-rephrasing is necessary for the description, but I think the title should (optionally?) be left alone. Could be a toggle.

  • m348e912 an hour ago ago

    Since we're sharing vibe coded news sites, here's another: https://headlinegator.com aggregates push notifications from various news apps to one single page.

  • num42 5 hours ago ago

    Just my naive opinion, but HN's UI is so timeless. I love it, and I hope it never changes. I honestly can't imagine HN with a redesign.

    • walthamstow 5 hours ago ago

      I wouldn't mind a dark mode but otherwise agree. I do occasionally flashbang my baby by opening HN while he's asleep on me in the dark

  • woggy 9 hours ago ago

    I think I'd prefer NYT in Hackernews form

  • CMay 15 minutes ago ago

    HN being ugly is intentional. It actually does not need these facelifts, because its plain appearance serves as an important filtering function for who participates.

  • codazoda 15 hours ago ago

    I don’t think the pay wall is working.

    • me_vinayakakv 15 hours ago ago

      I was about to type this exactly!!

      • huffer 14 hours ago ago

        me too! does this say something about us or about the [T|t]imes?

        • myself248 4 hours ago ago

          On the plus side, I was able to cancel my subscription without a notarized letter!

  • drumpkid 3 hours ago ago

    I did it for myself and not getting into the rabbit hole of HN, I called digestivo https://digest.ezcurdia.dev its the same concept but its fewer notes summarized

  • duckkg5 15 hours ago ago

    This is great! Very readable and feels like a nice way to browse articles. I tend to gloss over stuff in the HN wall of text sometimes so this breaks the links up in a useful way. Nice job.

    • Tryvrsakjo10 12 hours ago ago

      Yeah, it does make the stories a lot more readable, HN just has bullet points of links making it slightly hard to follow everything the only thing the site is missing is a games tab like the NY Times.

  • theodpHN 14 hours ago ago

    Neat. To-do: Give HN the ONION treatment? :-) https://theonion.com/

  • huhtenberg 4 hours ago ago

    The x-height of the article caption font is wrong and the body font is too wide.

    PS. Hello from the former typophile.com ranks :)

  • rectang 11 hours ago ago

    Fun. I have a visceral dislike for the NYT, so the association is actually a negative, haha — but I could get over it.

    The tradeoff of the Hacker Times design is increased information for each story but lower density of stories compared to the HN homepage. The high-density design of the HN page is probably optimal for my habits, even though some of the user-submitted headlines are opaque enough that I miss some things I would otherwise click on.

  • JulianPaul 4 hours ago ago

    This is dope, although nothing beats the nostalgia of browsing the original HN

  • animal_spirits 3 hours ago ago

    This is great. I really like how information is organized in newspaper format. Gives me enought to know whether i want to read it or not. Bookmarked!

  • havik772 16 hours ago ago

    This reminds me of an idea I had a while ago; it would be nice if I could receive a paper daily/weekly of interesting articles, updates in the world, think pieces, etc. that weren't as broad as daily news or as opinionated. Just things that people found interesting or things happening around us without the political bias (on either side).

    The paper side would just be to anti-digitize my life more, feels like it would be almost like a paper RSS feed.

    • nechmads 8 hours ago ago

      I wanted exactly the same thing, so I built https://morningsift.com. You can use it to create your own daily newsletters from topics, specific websites, youtube channels, X accounts, etc. This is totally free. You can even create it as a daily podcast, but I had to charge for this option, as it can get expensive to run every day. If you give it a shot, I would love to get any feedback!

    • vunderba 15 hours ago ago

      It wasn't physical, but there was a slick app for the 1st gen of iPad called Early Edition which was basically just curated RSS feeds presented in the style of a newspaper. I was only able to find one image of it. I don't think the app exists anymore, unfortunately.

      https://imgur.com/a/5sw6zOP

    • Arubis 15 hours ago ago

      Early versions of Instapaper had a nice way to push out a Kindle "magazine" with recently-captured articles that I loved. This was circa...2010, 2011? An age long past.

      If you can track down some decent sources that you like (maybe something like Kagi News, https://www.positive.news/, a good local paper if you have one), you could with little effort vibe up a daily printout and have it waiting for you when you get up each day. For a fun version, there's plenty of cheap thermal printers on aliexpress and similar that'd give you a non-US Letter/A4 version so it doesn't feel like Yet Another Document.

    • al_borland 14 hours ago ago

      Kagi has a news site/app that updates once per day with the highlights from various categories of news.

      I would imagine one could take something like that, and have program fetch it each morning, format it nicely, and print out a front page overview of what's going on. Just pick up the paper from the printer each morning.

      This idea might be fine for a front page, but would fall apart when you start getting into long articles and think pieces. You'd be burning through a lot of paper.

    • y-curious 16 hours ago ago

      Not exactly what you’re asking for, but a big fan of Hacker Newsletter, which emails you top HN articles. What you’re asking for is a little utopian, HN is the closest thing I’ve found

      • logicallee 15 hours ago ago

        >Hacker Newsletter, which emails you top HN articles.

        have you read it recently? Is it still the authentic articles? (as opposed to ads for whatever you were browsing a few minutes earlier.)

        • duck an hour ago ago

          Ha, as the guy who runs HNL I'm curious what you're reading that makes you feel like that?

    • reaperducer 14 hours ago ago

      You just described what Time magazine was.

      Back when people still understood that they don't need to know about every single "breaking" news story on the planet the instant it happens.

      For a couple of months, I took a digital news break. I only read one national paper on Sundays, and the local paper twice a week. Amazingly, I didn't burst into flames or get stranger dangered. I felt both calm and informed. I plan to resume that pattern after the election.

      FOMO is the drug. The tech industry is the dealer.

      • IAmBroom 35 minutes ago ago

        Wow oh wow. There's a lot of wisdom in this post. Maybe not earthshattering, but a good perspective for me to chew on.

        By analogy, my best market moves were when I checked market activity about once a week, irregularly. Once I made a big decision, I stuck with it by not checking the market for a while. Not saying that is right for everyone, or even for me all the time, but I did very well in the 2008 crash.

  • anakaine 10 hours ago ago

    I just want HN in dark mode....

    • mpetrovich 9 hours ago ago

      Here's a JS bookmarklet I use to apply dark mode to any website. It tries to preserve colors and avoids inverting graphics. Add a new bookmark to your toolbar and paste in that JS in place of the link. I hope you find it useful!

      https://gist.github.com/mpetrovich/b3e4ec291d21bbdbe17b1adf4...

    • x______________ 10 hours ago ago

      >I just want HN in dark mode....

      Dark Reader extension for Firefox, works on mobile and desktop. I constantly forget this setup and blinds myself when I access HN from elsewhere.

    • dongecko 9 hours ago ago

      I use an alternative front end to Hacker News https://hn.premii.com

      You can adjust the theme to your liking and I find it actually quite pleasant. No subscription, no login, mobile friendly and it has been stable and online for several years.

    • keymasta 10 hours ago ago

      Dark Reader Mode for Firefox works well for me! ;)

    • jaapz 10 hours ago ago

      I would be surprised if nobody already created a plugin for firefox/chrome that adds dark mode honestly

  • ontouchstart 5 hours ago ago

    This is going to be the “Hello, world” of the AI era.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello,_world

  • vektormemory 15 hours ago ago

    I'm liking all of the remixes.

    We built a combined books/video version as well in our app library.

    https://medium.com/@vektormemory/vektor-2-0-4-hacker-news-bo...

  • DrewADesign 15 hours ago ago

    At least on mobile, the format is much more reminiscent of slashdot.

    Man, what a tragic waste of a great .com era community. The whole community self-moderation thing worked ok before the more worthwhile people left. Now they can’t even be arsed to pop by once an hour to remove the multi-page swastika ascii art comments.

    • smolder 11 hours ago ago

      It had too high of an influence to integrity ratio, and got infiltrated by motivated actors. That is not an uncommon dynamic. Every democratic forum kind of medium with significance becomes a target for career propagandists and con artists and so on.

  • siva7 5 hours ago ago

    wow this is revolutionary. it could change hn forever if folks would start reading at least one paragraph past the submission title before jumping into discussion.

  • thingfyi 15 hours ago ago

    This is so cool! Definitely liked the title font :)

    I do wonder if this kind of republishing is compliant with the original site? As in, if one can store the content vs. not and just lazily convert live - have been curious about the copyright rules & practices in this area.

  • onel 5 hours ago ago

    Do people remember Hacker monthly? It was a print magazine of top monthly articles. Great project, unfortunately discontinued in 2016

  • Rapzid 9 hours ago ago

    Amazing project! I can finally breath!

    If I cancel can I get the service for $1/week? That's my favorite NYT feature.

  • craaaig 7 hours ago ago

    This is cool. I built an HN reader recently too - this one is inspired by the old Apollo for Reddit app on iOS:

    https://hnollo.com/

    • statikor 6 hours ago ago

      That’s cool. Loved Apollo

  • muglug 15 hours ago ago

    Needs a better title font for headlines.

    Georgia Bold is not fit for the purpose, and there's no earthly reason to use it at 55px.

    There are so many good serif fonts to choose from on Google Fonts. An embarrassment of riches.

    • IAmBroom 35 minutes ago ago

      Just took a look out of curiosity. Zero is an insignificantly reduced version of lcase alphabetic 'o'.

      Fonts that don't distinguish between 0 and O/o are abominations before God and all that is good in life.

    • donohoe 5 hours ago ago

      Yeah, the typography choices here are poor. Nice idea but readability on mobile isn’t great sadly.

  • arich 2 hours ago ago

    Love this version

  • swiftcoder 8 hours ago ago

    Somehow this particular formulation makes me scream internally. It's not the classic print edition of the NYT that everybody grew up with, it's the click-maxing online version...

    • alexgoodhart 8 hours ago ago

      For me I’m thinking about the postmodern pastiche of it, as in Jameson’s Late Capitalism, wherein the NYT (while in many ways not a fair and trustworthy entity) earns its credibility through the measure it takes of risk before publication— this project would reproduce the aesthetic identity of such carefulness without actually containing it.

  • francisofascii 3 hours ago ago

    Very well done. I like the categories at the top.

  • Shadowmist 15 hours ago ago

    Archive link?

  • thrdbndndn 15 hours ago ago

    Just for your information, if you care about the reachability of your project: this site, like all ChatGPT sites, is blocked in countries that are banned by ChatGPT (e.g., Hong Kong). And because it uses a custom domain, it cannot be automatically proxied as I have set up for ChatGPT domains, which is slightly annoying.

    • neom 14 hours ago ago

      Guess I missed ChatGPT sites, I presume it's exactly what I envision, you can make an accessible website with ChatGPT? If so, how do you know this is one?

      • thrdbndndn an hour ago ago

        Because when i opened it, it says

        "Sorry, you have been blocked

        You are unable to access chatgpt.site"

  • simongray 9 hours ago ago

    Certificate issue, Firefox refuses to load it.

  • option_greek 14 hours ago ago

    so hacker tube, hacker books and now hacker times. what's next? hacker food?

    • Nition 14 hours ago ago

      HackerHackerNews, a collection of the best Hacker News comments that were recommended by comments on Hacker News.

    • turtleburger 14 hours ago ago

      Hacker food already well defined in 1995 by Razor and Blade - clearly jolt cola :)

      Source: https://youtu.be/O7AKquUtTvs?is=MJjR5eF9UY_JAo12

    • ironborn123 9 hours ago ago

      The problem ofcourse is when your measure becomes a target, it stops being a measure, and all that.

    • dsalzman 4 hours ago ago

      Hackertv.org

    • emaro 14 hours ago ago

      Hold my hacker beer...

      • wisemang 14 hours ago ago

        pschorr thing, no problem

  • markkitti 12 hours ago ago

    Having the paragraph under the title reminds me of slashdot.org.

  • vanjajaja1 15 hours ago ago

    i'm open to the idea that its the NYTimes that needs a HN inspired version

  • exabrial 13 hours ago ago

    Click here for this one weird trick…

    But honestly, the headlines there are refreshing

  • dotcoma 15 hours ago ago

    What about the ads, the tracking, the pop-ups and the limited-time special offers?

  • CAISY 11 hours ago ago

    Hey Wenhao, saw CheapGPT on Show HN cool build! Quick security heads up, found small prompt leak. Can I send 1 page fix?

  • Perz1val 3 hours ago ago

    Unrealistic, I didn't immediately get hit by a paywall

  • sshussain270 10 hours ago ago

    Next is Hacker X :)

    • x______________ 10 hours ago ago

      >Next is Hacker X :)

      Please don't :(

      /s Please do! Who knows what will stick when you throw it at the wall?

  • smolder 11 hours ago ago

    It's cool that you made something, but I don't like this.

  • absqueued 4 hours ago ago

    I would like a printed copy, delivered please. Where do I sign up?

  • LightBug1 8 hours ago ago

    Hackertube? NYTimes Hackernews? HackerBooks?

    What a time to be alive ...

    Still waiting for Doom running on HackerNews or Doom-inspired HN ...

  • tenderfault 6 hours ago ago

    OH. I thought you meant HN but with paid subscriptions. Disappointed.

    • bell-cot 6 hours ago ago

      Work in progress. Getting the "Impossible to Cancel" stuff right is surprisingly difficult.

  • rosseitsa 6 hours ago ago

    PTSD from clicking NYT links made me expect a paywall

  • rob74 8 hours ago ago

    That looks so convincing, I was expecting the paywall popup to appear any second...

  • blobbers 12 hours ago ago

    NYT but without the annoying google login, or subscribe for $1 paywalls! And I don't need someone linking to archive.is everywhere.

  • sweaterkokuro 15 hours ago ago

    Love this.

  • asmodeuslucifer 10 hours ago ago

    It would be more realistic if it was just a paywall.

  • ForgotMyUUID 8 hours ago ago

    Wait a bit! Where is a paywall?

  • aurareturn 14 hours ago ago

    HN reminds me a lot of Instagram.

    People complain about AI generated content, then proceeds to give a dancing cat AI reel 1 million likes.

    People here complain about vibe coded apps, then proceed to upvote this to the front page.

    • dang 14 hours ago ago

      washedup is right, of course, that the community is many people with many views (though the point should be made less snarkily). Of course HN disagrees with itself; it's not a self to begin with.

      I think there's another factor: it takes time to find the best ways of using such new tools. The community is working this out slowly (as is society generally) and it is naturally a lagging phenomenon.

      Seeing generated sites like OP and karpathy's HackerTube (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50319510) which look good and don't have the obvious-LLM sameiness that so many others do, is an interesting step along this way. It's also refreshing. There's no intrinsic reason why generated software should look bad or work poorly.

      • aurareturn 14 hours ago ago

        My point is that people will complain about GenAI but they actually love/enjoy AI generated content or projects as long as they fit what they're looking for.

    • lagrange77 12 hours ago ago

      It's not about the tools.

      I also regularly complain about AI generated content. I do that mostly, because it's often either

      - extremely uninspired design and UX wise (e.g. the classical beige/serif AI slop website),

      - full of obvious and stupid mistakes (e.g. those shitty infographics on social media),

      - just mimics the real thing, but misses the actual purpose (e.g. again those shitty infographics on social media)

      - or is ridiculously overloaded with features and documentation (e.g. many AI generated software tools on GitHub)

      That's repelling to me, because it screams that the human behind it is himself lazy and uninspired. It's bland, overloaded or full of mistakes, because raw output is a commodity.

      It feels like a waste of time to even consume something, that the author or developer wasn't willing to put actual effort and thought into.

      But that's an artefact of how the author is using the tool and presenting the results.

      It's not an inherent property of AI use itself. HackerTimes for example doesn't feel uninspired or bland. And i like it.

    • washedup 14 hours ago ago

      It's almost as if there are different groups that have different views and upvote different things.

    • wiseowise 14 hours ago ago

      Goomba.

  • oidar 16 hours ago ago

    add an AI section that is filtered out of technology and you'd have yourself a nice way to browse HN.

    • latchkey 15 hours ago ago

      i'm pretty happy with the existing way of browsing HN. i hope it never changes.