Better, to be honest. Keep refining of course. But this is definitely more readable.

I admit that straight black is not quite the right answer either. A slightly toned down dark grey would be nice. And again, subjectively, I like how HN has a row of non-link smaller (lighter shaded) text under each listing, which I think plays nice for the white space between each item.

Personally, I far prefer black over grey. Grey is really hard to read across a variety of lighting conditions and devices. The older you get, the more important contrast becomes.