That may mean you've been slowbanned from HN. If you slightly annoy a moderator around here they'll flag your account so you see very long page load delays.

Try logging out of HN, and see if the long pauses go away for you.

Oh, there's almost zero doubt I've annoyed a moderator at some point.

There's no list of moderators anywhere is there? I could tick off the ones I haven't annoyed.

Nope, no list of moderators. You'll never know who, and you'll never know why, and you probably won't be able to get it reversed.

Also, Macro: The step beyond slowbanning is hellbanning, where nobody can see your comments except you, and users with "show dead" on. You've been hellbanned for over a year. As to why...maybe some mod thought your first comment was a bit content free. Maybe they were just having a bad day. I'd recommend getting a new account.

Haha, poor Macro. Look at his comment history: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Macro

wow. Macro posts one slightly vapid but inoffensive comment and is struck by instant death lightning.

Well we know why. I pissed off one of the cool kids. That's crime enough.