81–90 of 314 posts
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I have done nitrous before - what about it makes you more likely to be set on fire? Just risk of passing out while smoking a cigarette maybe?
It's an oxidiser; it can make things which are normally not flammable become flammable, as well as accelerate burning.
I am a recovering nitrous oxide addict who once set himself on fire, so I understand the terrible predicament he found himself in. Many people do nitrous recreationally as a party drug, but there's a reason they call it 'hippie crack.' Some become obsessed with it
Some of the speculation in this thread [1], originally flagged as hearsay, seems to be confirmed by this article, namely his use of nitrous oxide. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25235843
I would love it if dang could weigh in on this tough issue. There were a number of people being downvoted asking questions about how this could have happened, and now to see that someone posted the true answer and it was flagged and hidden, that I think reflects poorly on HN and warrants an explanation. I'll never forget at my first friend's funeral when his mother said during the eulogy "My son was a drug addict." I…
I was called "lazy" for much of my life. Then I was diagnosed with a genetic disorder and people finally understood I wasn't lazy. I just didn't have the energy other people had.
Everyone knows addiction is extremely hard to quit, yet being an addict remains stigmatizing and the addict is routinely treated in a blamey way for their failure to quit.
Specific outcomes also tend to have a circumstancial component. When a family has a "badly behaving" teenager, they typically blame the teen. But family therapists typically see a misbehaving minor as the presenting problem and wonder what is going on in the social fabric of the individual that is creating this outcome.
None of us entirely has control over our own lives and our own actions. We have some input, but we always have constraints on us.
Explanations that fall inside the Overton Window will be latched onto quickly. This can boil down to victim blaming rather than trying to understand with some compassion how and why things went wrong.
Some of the speculation in this thread [1], originally flagged as hearsay, seems to be confirmed by this article, namely his use of nitrous oxide. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25235843
Sorry to be daft ... in the prior HN discussion, which you linked to, people spoke of "nitrous ... and a candle obsession" ... candles are mentioned several times ...
Is that a euphemism ? Or is there some connection in nitrous usage ?
Or is it, simply, he really liked burning literal candles ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love it if dang could weigh in on this tough issue. There were a number of people being downvoted asking questions about how this could have happened, and now to see that someone posted the true answer and it was flagged and hidden, that I think reflects poorly on HN and warrants an explanation. I'll never forget at my first friend's funeral when his mother said during the eulogy "My son was a drug addict." I…
Part of the problem is that "the truth" is generally not as simple and one dimensional as people would like it to be. I was called "lazy" for much of my life. Then I was diagnosed with a genetic disorder and people finally understood I wasn't lazy. I just didn't have the energy other people had. Everyone knows addiction is extremely hard to quit, yet being an addict remains stigmatizing and the addict is routinely tr…
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Many people are not anonymous on here. (that said I would have found posting that in bad taste even from someone that could be placed 100% as probably being in the know)
I don’t think something in bad taste needs to be censored. Just my take. It’s the difference between taking a comment with a grain of salt and saying “no one can read this because we can’t prove it.”
Some of the speculation in this thread [1], originally flagged as hearsay, seems to be confirmed by this article, namely his use of nitrous oxide. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25235843
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A relative talking about it at the funeral is quite different than anonymous claims that are impossible to (dis)prove within hours of the death.
Hindsight is 20-20, but looking back it seems clear they were credible and correct, which is why I just wonder if dang could explain why they were flagged. Were moderators involved? Was any attempt made to verify? Or was it just lost in a sea of comments flagged daily (I don't know, not sure how the backend works here).
I don't have any special insight, but FWIW: situations like this are inevitably messy. People want different things (e.g. the social standard about not speaking ill of the dead vs. curiosity to know the truth or share inside information) and they do different things (e.g. use of throwaway accounts to share sensitive true information vs. to post rumors or lies). How all that adds up is impossible to be certain about, and people will strongly disagree. It's intrinsically conflictual and I don't think we can impose simple rules on it. For example: HN is a watercooler site and it's natural for people to wonder what really happened and want to talk about it; and at the same time, that sort of internet thread can run amok and do harm surprisingly quickly.
In my experience, that sort of throwaway account (but there are many sorts—let's not overgeneralize) is usually reporting something true, though perhaps biased. But "usually" is still far from certain. If we'd known that it was likely false we'd have left the comment flagkilled, but in this case it felt likely true, so I unkilled it, but left [flagged] on as a marker of community discontent. To anyone who objects "who the hell are you to make calls about 'feels', 'likely', 'true' or 'false'", I can only completely agree.
p.s. Here's what I replied to a user who emailed about it a few days ago:
"I've unkilled the comment but left it [flagged]. I think that's the right balance.
Posts like that are usually authentic, in my experience. Not to say that people don't make shit up on the internet—they certainly do—but one can usually 'smell' the difference somehow.
Of course the fact that it's true doesn't make it an appropriate comment, but I think [flagged] is enough of a marker to indicate that, and to let people decide for themselves.
It's a tragic story in any case."
As an aside: I hadn't bought anything off Zappos for years, and checked it out when the news hit and surprised that it still basically looks the same as I remember it maybe 10+ years ago. Certainly looks and feels like an eCommerce website from the late 2000s/early 2010s. I'm curious if this was an intentional choice or a sign the website has been on cruise control since the acquisition. It certainly makes me wonder…