Sometimes the sheer number of comments is daunting too. Seeing some discussions reach three, four, five, even six hundred comments is almost a deterrent. I'll usually look at the first few top level threads to see if anything interests me if not, I'll move on.

I also wonder how it's possible that big of a discussion is happening in the middle of the day. I usually take a break from coding for 5 or 10 minutes, pop over to HN, refresh and see if anything sparks my interest. Then I notice some article has gone from 1XX to 3XX comments and am just like 'huh...'