Yes, articles like it (and some much more pedestrian) have made the front page in the last year or so, and I'm not sure why. Possibly I just didn't notice them before. Or maybe I'm getting smarter! :D
If you're serious, read the Guidelines (link at bottom of the page) for submissions. HN is for intellectual curiousity - table formatting basics don't qualify, IMHO, but I speak only for me.
I found the link interesting, that is why I clicked on it and upvoted it. Perhaps some of us here are interested in good UX design, particularly for hard-to-get-right areas like dense data tables. What satisfies your intellectual curiosity may not be the same for someone else.
Ironically, everyone in this thread complaining about the submission not being appropriate for HN are violating the guidelines.