Here's an opinion:

People argue about what is and is not "on topic" for HN. Regularly items are submitted, only for people to say that since it's nothing to do with programming, technology, startups, or entrepreneurship, then it's not suitable for HN.

Quoting the guidlelines:

    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.

Those are the guidelines as laid down by our host, and that's fair enough. But I'd like to see a cultural shift. I'd like to add:

    If it's not in some way specific to the interests of hackers,
    then it's probably off-topic.

I submit a lot of stuff about education and mathematics, because I think these are subjects that interest hackers, but not the wider public. Topics that of more general interest I'd like to say don't really belong here.

This submission, in particular, should be of wide-spread, ubiquitous interest. It shouldn't be in any way specific to hackers, technologists, programmers, or entrepreneurs. In that way I believe that although it is and should be of interest to pretty much everyone here (including non-Americans) it is in no way specific to the interests of the community, and hence it is not really on topic.

So yes, I'm pleased to have seen it. But I personally think it's off-topic for HN. It should be of interest to HNers, but only because it should be of interest to everyone.