Get used to it. Law has a good deal in common with programming, many hackers have a strong interest in and commitment to civil liberties, and this is a story about a man who overcame obstacles most entrepreneurs can barely imagine - by teaching himself how to hack the legal system. It's not just inspiring, but instructive.

Yep, beside the obvious triumph of justice against near-insurmountable odds, it made me realize some of the setbacks I've faced as an entrepreneur are complete child's play compared to what this guy went through! I got off my ass, hit the treadmill for half an hour, cleaned up my space and have been working since!

From the HN guidelines at http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

I had no idea that you could lawyer your own way out of prison like that, and upon reading the title I was most assuredly curious.

The notion that you ought to be willing to become an expert in any field if your need is great enough is entirely in line with the ethos of Hacker News.