You sneer at “getting on the front page of HN” but when you rephrase it to, “discuss something you’ve observed informally” your dismissal loses its oomph. The

You sneer at “getting on the front page of HN” but when you rephrase it to, “discuss something you’ve observed informally” your dismissal loses its oomph. The point may be to entertain as well as inform. Many humans enjoy the unfocused discussion around the main point, and perhaps the author prefers it to the clinical and formal tone an academic paper tends to take.