If you downvote this comment, I think explaining in a reply why this article belongs in Hacker News would be great.
"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 posted it because it's damn interesting, and secondarily because the site could use a little more diversity.
The other side of the coin is that it was well written and humorous, which helps, but the language itself brought to life incredible images. Writing is a skill. Good writing is an art. Both can be appreciated but one is adored. I always assumed that hacker-types generally had a wide array of eclectic tastes and interests, and I'm pretty sure some of the more famous ones would agree [1]. Besides, who doesn't like a good, lively story about a culture that's alien to the majority of us Westerners?
I'm still puzzled though. I've never understood why some people have a penchant for clicking links they know they'll hate, read them anyway, and then post their misery and suffering. It would seem less of a cognitive load to ignore the unwanted than to embrace and let it fester.
(1) "Hey, this article is titled '10 cool things about X' (where X is some programming language or framework or library or server or something) but it didn't explain what X was! I've never heard of X so clearly no one else has either!" Every once in a great, great while, it's a defensible comment, but it's just not worth making the comment even when it is. Just Google it if you haven't heard of it, that's what the rest of us did.
(2) "Hey, this article you guys linked to doesn't fit into the category of articles that I have assigned to your website!" Seriously, no good can ever possibly come of this. Downvote the article if you feel this way, that's why the ability to downvote articles exists. It's just so not worth verbalizing the sentiment.
Unfortunately, the third most tiring and unnecessary comment that can be made on such sites is probably the one I just made, so sorry everyone! :) I mean well, I really do.