What is dankamongmen, and what will you find on dankwiki?

Updated

dankamongmen is one of the online handles for Nick Black, also known as "dank," the author of dankwiki (nick-black.com). The wiki is his personal collection of notes and writeups spanning Linux and Unix, computers and networking, postmodern literature, nuclear physics, and his own software projects. It is explicitly informal: the author states he makes no guarantees of correctness, relevance, or timeliness, so treat entries as working notes rather than authoritative references.

Who is behind the name

Nick Black is based in midtown Atlanta. The wiki describes him as writing primarily "to force my own understanding, and remember things," and notes that only a few entries are "actually semi-authoritative." He also taught CS4803UWS, "UNIX Weapons School," at Georgia Tech in Summer 2013, and has given talks including "Dynamic iSCSI at Scale" for Google at the 2015 Linux Plumbers' Conference.

The handle appears in the site's own branding: the wiki is described as the wiki of "nick black (aka dank)," and "dankamongmen" appears among the site's keywords alongside "dank," "dankwiki," and "notcurses."

What topics the wiki covers

The site's own topic list and headings point to several broad areas:

  • Unix and Linux — including a dedicated "unix" section and course material from UNIX Weapons School.
  • Computers and networking — under a "remarks regarding computers &c" heading, with a separate networking section.
  • Postmodern literature — one of the interests the site says you should avoid it if you're allergic to.
  • Nuclear physics — including "an ambitious chart of decays" and a page connecting worldwide TaB consumption to nuclear weapons.
  • Projects and open source work — collected under "Hackery!"

Notable projects and pages

Item What it is
Notcurses A library for "blingful TUIs and character graphics," created by the author
Eponym collection Described as "the world's largest(?) collection of computer science eponyms"
DANKBLOG A revived personal blog for "ramblings"
WORDHORDE Listed among his projects
Grad school / CS GRE prep Preparation pages, including LaTeX material

The wiki also links out to talks and presentations, including a master's thesis presentation and an invited lecture for the opening of Freeside Atlanta.

How to use it

Because the content is personal and unverified, the practical approach is:

  1. Use it as a starting point, not a final source. The author himself advises getting confirmation before relying on his writeups for anything consequential.
  2. Track updates via the recent changes page, which the site recommends for following edits.
  3. Expect breadth over polish. Topics range from kernel and networking notes to literature and physics, with varying depth.

If you arrived at "dankamongmen" wondering whether it's a project, a person, or a site: it's a handle for Nick Black, and the site it points to is a long-running personal wiki rather than a formal documentation project or product.