I suppose that the logic is "hey, I wonder if it's just us... surely someone on HN will complain the instant that things go south, better check there first."
I was happy with that. The first thing I did was try from a couple different proxies then try a different gmail account and I was in wtf mode. Google's status indicator was showing everything was fine. I then checked HN and it was at the top. Their status indicator reflected the state of affairs 15 mins later.
Whenever I'm looking for real time information, the first thing I do is type search.twitter.com into chrome, hit tab to autocomplete into a search command, and search some keywords. Highly recommended! Also works if you're curious if an earthquake just occurred in your general area.
