Sometimes you find the most random things on HN, you have to wonder how that came about.

Interesting character for sure, this leatherman.

OP here..

Yes, I agree that HN is the place to discover the most interesting, coolest and weirdest stuff on the internet but unfortunately, sometimes, these posts don't get enough traction in their first minutes and once they got pushed to the second page of newest submissions, they are technically dead!

Fortunately, HN had introduced what's called pool, or second chance, where the mods of the site periodically watch for past submissions and pick what they believe is interesting then throw it to the front page and see if it sticks by having users upvoting it.

Leatherman story was one of those cases. I submitted it three days ago without getting a single upvote and was surprised to see it made it to the front page this morning.

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praptak 3 days ago | parent [-]

I remember getting a second chance with my submission for non-explosive demolition agents.

The mods didn't put it on the front page themselves but instead emailed me with an invitation to repost.

	▲	redbell 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		In your case, this is being called "invited": Overlooked links, invited to repost: https://news.ycombinator.com/invited

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e40 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't know where, but probably here on HN, I read a very long version of the same story. The wikipedia version was surprisingly short. I remember reading it and feeling a lot of emotions. I think this is the version:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/magazine/old-leatherman-w...

but it seems too new... I'm sure it was more than a year ago I read about it...

EDIT: that's definitely not the one. The one I read was by an author who had had a life-long obsession with the Leatherman and wanted to retrace his steps, on his own, and he had a family. It was a haunting piece.

EDIT 2: actually, looks like it is the article. I didn't scan far enough. I guess March 2025 feels a really long time ago.