About

Why I built this

Recently, HackerTube (prompted by Andrej Karpathy), and then HackerBooks and HackerBlogs, got a lot of attention. They solve the same problem in different places: finding the good stuff that Hacker News has quietly recommended for twenty years. I wanted one place where all of it belongs together.

Videos, books, blogs and podcasts stay in their own sections, because you watch, read and listen differently. But knowledge doesn't stay in one format. If a talk really grabs you, the book behind it, the blog post that explains it, or the podcast where the author goes further should be one tab away. If not, the regular feed is still right there. You can go as deep as you want on any topic, and jump to the original Hacker News discussion whenever you like.

How I built it

I didn't scrape Hacker News again. All three projects published their data openly, and I built on top of it: their selections, their labelled comments and their related lists. One pipeline merges them into a single catalog, matches the same HN people across videos, books and blogs, and works out the links between them. Podcasts were added the same way, from shows HN people linked. Covers come from Open Library. The app was built with Claude Code.

Browse the originals

Each project is great on its own, and goes further in its own direction. If you want just one format, use them directly:

• HackerTube: videos HN recommends, by @karpathy.
• HackerBooks: books HN recommends, by roansh.
• HackerBlogs: blogs HN keeps linking, by Ian Hsiao.

This will change

Because I combine several sources, this site may evolve differently from the originals: different rankings, different links, new formats. Some things will be rough at first. I'll keep updating the data and the app, and I'm happy to hear what's missing or wrong.

How items are chosen and ranked

The catalog is built on three existing projects, each applying the same idea to a different kind of thing. I reuse their selection and add the links between them.

• Videos follow HackerTube's method. A video is in if at least three different people linked it with real commentary, in at least three different months. It is ranked by how many separate months people recommended it in, so a steady classic beats a one-week spike.
• Books follow HackerBooks' method. Mentions are matched to Open Library, and scores weigh distinct commenters more than raw mentions. Each mention is labelled recommend, reference or critical, and the site shows how many people actually recommended a book, not only mentioned it.
• Blogs follow HackerBlogs' method. A blog is in if at least 15 different HN accounts shared it. That counts links, not praise, so blogs show “What HN said” without a verdict.
• Podcasts are shows that at least three people linked on HN. Episodes come from each show's own feed.

How related items are picked

Under a video you get more videos, under a book more books, and so on. A book or blog appears next to a video only when the match is strong. Three signals are combined: similar topics, the same HN people recommending both, and the original sites' own related lists.

Privacy

• You don't need an account for anything.
• History, saved items, likes and follows are stored on your device only. Export or erase them any time in Settings.
• Anonymous visit counts and page-speed measurements (Vercel Web Analytics), no cookies, no personal data.
• Videos play through YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed (youtube-nocookie.com), and only once you press play.
• Syncing between devices is optional, off by default, and not available yet.

Data and credits

• Comments and links come from Hacker News, via the open-index/hacker-news archive (ODC-By 1.0).
• Videos: HackerTube by @karpathy (ODC-By).
• Books: HackerBooks by roansh. Covers and metadata from Open Library.
• Blogs: HackerBlogs by Ian Hsiao, with feeds hinted by the Kagi Small Web list.
• Comment text belongs to its authors. Every comment links back to its thread on Hacker News.
• This site is independent and is not affiliated with Y Combinator or Hacker News.

Catalog built 2026-11-04.