I'm responding just to your first point that the story doesn't belong on HN. From HN submission guidelines: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find in

I'm responding just to your first point that the story doesn't belong on HN. From HN submission guidelines: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. I think the story qualifies.