I think a site that was submitted here about a month ago has almost the same features except that they fetch news from everywhere, not just HN and order them based on several interesting scores like "popular", "controversial", etc. They call it <a href="http://www.euraeka.com>All the news that's fit to read</a>. Pretty bold claim:-) From what I can see on their site, when you register you can "save" your sorting preferences (click on Advanced at the top of the site) and the site also allows you to filter by topic and domain. I am personally using it for their recommendations system. Truth be told, all news sites are really just a portal so you can find what's interesting to you. Once a system is trained on recommending you what you like, then all the sorting, scoring, mashing up, etc becomes pointless. That's goal really of every information providing site - customize the information flow to every user to the point that every user sees a unique version of the site based on their unique preferences. So, while I like the sortable HN concept ultimately it needs to be extended to a personalized recommendation news system in order to be truly useful. Euraeka and Google News are two sites that I like, Digg's recommendations frankly suck in my opinion. Good luck to you though, good stuff.