People who joined much earlier than I whose comments I think about away from the computer (my heuristic for "recognize") include mechanical_fish, robg, pg (of course), and DanielBMarkham. I read a lot more of the "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" posts than of the "hacking and startups" posts.
Some people on board more recently whose usernames catch my attention include cwan, and there is a fairly large group of users, including quite a few from the leader list
People who joined much earlier than I whose comments I think about away from the computer (my heuristic for "recognize") include mechanical_fish, robg, pg (of course), and DanielBMarkham. I read a lot more of the "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" posts than of the "hacking and startups" posts.
Some people on board more recently whose usernames catch my attention include cwan, and there is a fairly large group of users, including quite a few from the leader list
http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders
that I recognize as interesting posters but can't identify as recent users or as long-time users.
To the best of my knowledge and belief, I've not met any HN participant in person.