Top all-time · #9556
Ian Chadwick
Personal blog · ianchadwick.com/blogculturewritinggames
Ian Chadwick writes Scripturient, a personal blog at ianchadwick.com about culture, writing and games. Since 2013, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 9 times, most often “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Ian Chadwick's posts as references on historical and literary topics: the Plotto plot-suggestion system, the claim that California was shown as an island on old maps, a misattributed quote, and Machiavelli.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Portal to Ian Chadwick's web sites about tequila, mezcal, Zihuatanejo, Mexico, Triumph Motorcycles, British motorcycle history, blog, forum, discussion board, chess, wargames, essays, municipal politics, Collingwood, Ontario, harmonica reviews, seydel, hohner, suzuki
Most-linked posts?
- Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-04-15
What Hacker News says?
Reminds me of Archy on Shakespeare [1]: here i am ben says bill nothing but a lousy playwright and with anything like luck in the breaks i might have been a fairly decent sonnet writer i might have been a poet if i had kept away from the theatre ... well says i pete bill s plays are highly esteemed to this day is that so says pete poor mutt little he would care what poor bill wanted was to be a poet [1] http://ianch…
Comment linking /blog/three-archy-poems-by-don-marquis/
on “I Really Blew It (2020)”Submitted Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIt can be both. And it is. Machiavellian, even. https://ianchadwick.com/machiavelli/chapters-15-21/chapter-1...
Comment linking /machiavelli/chapters-15-21/chapter-18-the-subtle-art-of-lying/
on “Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers”Submitted The Weird World of Plotto as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis can be seen by all of these maps of around this period that are made by Dutch/English/German cartographers that don't show California as an Island, including Munster's very popular one: http://www.ianchadwick.com/hudson/other_maps.htm
Comment linking /hudson/other_maps.htm
on “Island of California”Submitted Microsoft killed solitaire for me as a story · 2 points
HN discussionhttp://ianchadwick.com/blog/the-weird-world-of-plotto/ Online version: https://garykac.github.io/plotto/plotto-fm.html or https://garykac.github.io/plotto/plotto-mf.html XML version: https://github.com/eykd/plottoxml
Comment linking /blog/the-weird-world-of-plotto/
on “Plotto: A new method of plot suggestion for writers of creative fiction (1928)”Submitted Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIt wasn't Einstein http://ianchadwick.com/blog/it-wasnt-einstein-who-said-it/
Comment linking /blog/it-wasnt-einstein-who-said-it/
on “Two envelopes problem”