Arrington was something of a meme back in those days.
I have a hunch that was what prompted pg ("I never write a line of code unless I have to") to close old threads to new comments.
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-08
Here are all the days with posts from 2006-10-09 through 2007-02-19:
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-10
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-11
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-12
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-13
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-14
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-15
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-17
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-22
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-12-14
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2007-02-19
What happened in between? Was HN tweaked and then relaunched?