sscheper, I love your average on HN (-.2). In response to jsprinkles: I do believe this was just a hack and not exactly intended for public consumption but someone decided "hey that's pretty cool let's chuck it on the web". Which has the obvious results of the opinions of hundreds :P
This was an announcement; "someone" in this case is a co-worker of the author. The author of xip.io (sstephenson) came on thread to discuss this and a related announcement about Pow.