[DougWebb]

It's not just cheating a little. Just moving the mouse around the page causes lots of data to be downloaded behind the scenes; you could end up loading every story on HN without ever leaving the Top list. That's not friendly to user's data plans, and it's very far from expected browser behavior.

[rich_harris]

It's configurable. Add rel=prefetch to an <a> element and you'll get that behaviour; don't, and you won't. Since the links are small, mousing over them tends to suggest you intend to click them, but the exact behaviour is subject to refinement over time (this is pre-1.0 software, adjust your expectations accordingly).

Incidentally, 'cheating' is a bit of a silly word to use for a feature designed to improve UX that people spend a lot of time trying to implement (see e.g. http://instantclick.io/)