You're right, it does assume a certain screen width and doesn't scale at all in any way. I was also thinking when I returned to HN from the article that I could

You're right, it does assume a certain screen width and doesn't scale at all in any way. I was also thinking when I returned to HN from the article that I couldn't actually read HN because the white-on-black was such an extreme colour scheme, my eyes took about 10 seconds to adjust.