I actually forgot that this had been done before until you mentioned it.

Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, they may have not seen it before, or was bored and just wanted to make a toy.

And it seems like many in HN are in enough a similar boat to me to have up voted it to trending, so at least some people found it entertaining, so it fulfilled its purpose I suppose.

It's a good question though, and I don't think anyone really knows the answer.