> Your knowledge of the subject and willingness to explain it indicates to me that you're valuable to the HN community.

You're too charitable. The truth is I'm unemployed at what feels to be a particularly bad time of the year to be unemployed (think of all the family and friends get-togethers… "so, what do you do?"), and I'm bludgeoning people on the internet with domain knowledge in some lame effort to stroke ego rather than facing a bleak job market for someone of my background. It's a harsh toke, but admitting it (even pseudononymously) is the only way I'm going to do anything about it.