Where do you spend it, out of interest? What comparable places are there for chatting on nerdish things like this?

I was hoping for lobste.rs would be the place but it is invite only so the audience is very small in comparison.

I believe I have a few invites.

If you see this: How can one get an invite without posting a mail address in public forums?

Reddit. esp certain subs. its not perfect, and its hard to find the same density of tech-smart folks as HN. however, its more relaxed and friendly, doesn't punish creativity, and doesn't have the same "that opinion or statement is not allowed here" effect as I see on HN. It does have a kind of liberal/PC groupthink on some issues. But they're issues I don't like to talk about anyway. Reddit's discussion forum UI is also much friendlier and more sophisticated than HN's. And they have lots of areas that focus on non-HN topics, while also being better at allowing one to avoid politics and "startup Foo raised/valued-at $X" posts, yet-another-framework posts, etc. Again, you lose some compared to HN, but also gain a lot. Luckily everything on the web is a tab away and we can vote with our eyeballs.