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dang

43,161 karma · joined August 18, 2007

"Conflict is essential to human life, whether between different aspects of oneself, between oneself and the environment, between different individuals or between different groups. It follows that the aim of healthy living is not the direct elimination of conflict, which is possible only by forcible suppression of one or other of its antagonistic components, but the toleration of it—the capacity to bear the tensions of doubt and of unsatisfied need and the willingness to hold judgement in suspense until finer and finer solutions can be discovered which integrate more and more the claims of both sides. It is the psychologist's job to make possible the acceptance of such an idea so that the richness of the varieties of experience, whether within the unit of the single personality or in the wider unit of the group, can come to expression."

Marion Milner, 'The Toleration of Conflict', Occupational Psychology, 17, 1, January 1943

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Please send HN questions to hn@ycombinator.com.

submissionscomments
dang··on 100 years of student radio history in the DLARC college radio collections
One past thread (have there been others?)

DLARC amateur radio library tops 90k items - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37537870 - Sept 2023 (17 comments)

Internet Archive Seeks Material for Library of Amateur Radio and Communications - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33089535 - Oct 2022 (72 comments)

dang··on Mike Tomlin spent 12 years building a Minecraft city
Could you please stop posting low-quality comments to HN, such as shallow dismissals, snark, putdowns, etc.? Your account has unfortunately been doing it repeatedly, and we're trying for something else here.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

dang··on Superhuman AI for Stratego
I've added this link to the toptext of this related ongoing thread:

With most information hidden, the game Stratego had stumped AI–until now - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49933740

dang··on Limited Liability In Historical Perspective (1997) [pdf]
Changed from https://www.kjmlaw.com/merchants-slaves-peculium-history-llc... above. Thanks!
dang··on The Legend of von Neumann (1973) [pdf]
Related. Others?

The legend of John von Neumann (1973) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8212335 - Aug 2014 (65 comments)

The Legend of John von Neumann - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1427906 - June 2010 (4 comments)

(Reposts are fine after a year or so; links to past threads are just to satisfy extra-curious readers)

dang··on To grieve, or not to grieve?
Buzzard is such a good writer. Read it all the way to the end - it gets (even) better as it goes along.
dang··on Palantir CEO Alex Karp purchased 37,000 acres of forests in Sweden
Palantir founder purchases large swath of forest in Sweden - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49884169 - Sept 2026 (93 comments)
dang··on Surprisingly complex waves reveal the brain's inner workings
It's such a frequently asked question that, come to think of it, it belongs in the FAQ!

The answer is (1) yes, there probably are lots of other comments breaking the guidelines much worse than yours were, and (2) no, the reason I responded to you-but-not-them is nothing personal to you (such as your having recently said something about HN). It's simply that I didn't see those other posts! and we can't moderate what we don't see.

We don't even see 10% of what gets posted to HN; there's far too much. For that reason, it's impossible for moderation to be consistent in the sense of giving every post more-or-less the same treatment. We can only do that on the subset of posts which we do see—and there we do try to be more-or-less consistent—but since readers have no idea what that subset actually is, it ends up seeming super inconsistent and even unfair.

Also, we read the site in all kinds of random-access ways, so even when other comments-that-deserve-to-be-moderated are proximate, we don't necessarily know about them. From a reader's point of view that's even worse: how can you moderate X, but pass over Y doing far worse right on the same page?

It leads to feelings of being singled out personally, or of the moderators taking sides and favoring the comments they happen to agree with. That's why your question commonly arises: it's baked into the fundamentals. Unfortunately it's not so clear what to do about them; that's one consequence of their being fundamental.

dang··on Updated Google Maps shows destruction of the city of Rafah
Edit: I've unbanned the account for reasons discussed downthread, but please stop breaking the site guidelines.

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We've banned this account because it has been using HN primarily (even exclusively?) for political/national/etc. battle for many months. That's not allowed here, regardless of what you're for or against. (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...)

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

(and I suppose I'd better add: (1) yes, this would be the same if the person were arguing exactly the opposite; and (2) yes, I'm sure there are others doing just as badly which we haven't banned yet. If so, the reason is that we haven't seen them yet. We read HN pretty randomly, and can't come close to seeing everything.)

dang··on Clef: Open-weight decision models, and new RL fine-tuning platform
Ok, we've put weights instead of source in the title, at least until someone comes along and says that's not right either!
dang··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2026)
Looks like they made it to the other thread. Thanks for watching out for a fellow user!
dang··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2026)
Please follow the rules at the top of the thread.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49925489.

dang··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2026)
Please respect the rules at the top of the thread. I realize that not every company treats applicants as well as they should, but it's also the case that not every horror story is fair, and we are in no position to adjudicate the difference.

(I am not commenting on your particular story, and have no reason to doubt what you're saying. It's just a rule that we try to stick to in general.)

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49927073.

dang··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026)
I've moved it now. Thanks for watching out for a fellow user!
dang··on Ask HN: What are you reading?
I've fixed it now. From https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc:

If your url gets linked incorrectly, put it in <angle brackets> and it should work.

dang··on Surprisingly complex waves reveal the brain's inner workings
Could you please stop posting low-quality comments, such as snark, flamebait, and provocation? Your account has unfortunately been doing a ton of this lately. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

dang··on Surprisingly complex waves reveal the brain's inner workings
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang··on Gemini 4 Argon
Related ongoing thread:

Gemini 4 Argon (High): Intelligence, Performance and Price Analysis - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49914236

dang··on Gemini 4 Argon (High): Intelligence, Performance and Price Analysis
Related ongoing thread:

Gemini 4 Argon - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49913571

dang··on Show HN: Strata – an expressive semantic layer that can say no to your LLM
Ah, good catch. The submitted URL was https://strata.do/try/ but since that's linked from the text, I've replaced it with the actual landing page (https://strata.do/). Thanks!
dang··on Show HN: Strata – an expressive semantic layer that can say no to your LLM
Can you please edit out swipes, especially when discussing someone's work? You broke both HN's rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and the Show HN rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html), and your comment would be fine without that bit.

You could make an even more helpful comment by explaining what would make the landing page better, but at a minimum, please avoid pejoratives and putdowns.

dang··on A brief history of the Bloomberg terminal
Thanks! Macroexpanded:

A look back: The Bloomberg Keyboard (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20742329 - Aug 2019 (55 comments)

A look back: The Bloomberg Keyboard (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079033 - May 2018 (104 comments)

dang··on Pentagon Influencer Called Liberal Women 'Pestilence' Who Will End Civilization
Please keep religious flamewar off HN. The indignation/information ratio is far too high.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang··on Vermont replacing power plants with home batteries
I've put that link in the toptext. Thanks!
dang··on Booted up in 1993, this server still runs – but not for much longer (2017)
One (little) past thread:

Booted Up in 1993, This Server Has Been in Continuous Operation Ever Since - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13507972 - Jan 2017 (3 comments)

Perhaps there have been others on the topic?

dang··on Show HN: Raven – The harness of harnesses, built for RSI
Can you please not post AI-generated or AI-edited comments to HN? It's not allowed here - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079.

Of course, it's impossible to know for sure what was LLM processed or not, but this post got classified that way.

dang··on Sustainable energy without the hot air (2008)
Related:

Sustainable Energy – without the hot air (2008) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33957424 - Dec 2022 (2 comments)

Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air (Revised, Community Edition) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29056343 - Oct 2021 (133 comments)

Keeping David MacKay's 'Sustainable Energy – without the hot air' up-to-date - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14009057 - March 2017 (39 comments)

"Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air" by David JC MacKay - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=845446 - Sept 2009 (31 comments)

See also:

Can solar and wind power Britain? An update of David MacKay's numbers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38151453 - Nov 2023 (299 comments)

Sir David MacKay obituary (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35670145 - April 2023 (1 comment)

David MacKay, FRS died today, his diary is remarkable - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11500614 - April 2016 (1 comment)

dang··on Ask HN: What are you reading?
Just for fun—past examples with > 30 comments:

Ask HN: What Are You Reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45283087 - Sept 2025 (42 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39248780 - Feb 2024 (92 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading these days? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237730 - Nov 2023 (281 comments)

Ask HN: What Are You Reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21457827 - Nov 2019 (49 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you currently reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16160091 - Jan 2018 (43 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you currently reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14859274 - July 2017 (80 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14608397 - June 2017 (36 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10175465 - Sept 2015 (79 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9636361 - June 2015 (37 comments)

Ask HN: What book are you reading right now? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8108932 - July 2014 (86 comments)

Ask HN: What Books Are You Reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7968124 - June 2014 (80 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you reading right now? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4596721 - Oct 2012 (40 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading? What've you read lately? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3335496 - Dec 2011 (41 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading right now? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3230965 - Nov 2011 (59 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you reading - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2615647 - June 2011 (53 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading right now? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1865350 - Nov 2010 (298 comments)

What are you reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=797070 - Sept 2009 (214 comments)

dang··on New Cyber-OSINT model released
Please don't cross into personal attack, regardless of whether someone is being annoying or you feel they are. We're trying for something different here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang··on America.gov – Whatever you need from government, start here
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

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