Ask HN: Understanding HN?

I am a freshman computer science major that frequents this site and has trouble understanding a lot of the posts, especially the ones that link / discuss github, opensource projects, HTML5, and the like. The posts I enjoy the most are blog posts and reviews. I know the reason for this is my lack of experience and knowledge. Besides my courses, I am learning python and have a plan to start learning PHP/MySQL and JavaScript. I already have the fundamentals of programming down from my courses. Is there anything else I can/ should be doing?