Earlier quoted context omitted.
If this becomes a trend, we will all soon have to identify the full national data for every programmer we talk about on Hacker News. I can imagine the headlines: Saudi Arabian programmer fixes XSS vulnerability in Rails German engineer (who also holds a USA passport due to his American mother) finds new algorithm for error-detection of communications over rusty wires Programmer from Brazil, now a British citizen but…
You're correct about the trend. Find some unrelated aspect of the person's life, and include it in the headline to make the person more interesting. Randall Munroe has made fun of this and similar headline-writing trends: http://xkcd.com/1283/
You mean "Former NASA roboticist Randall Munroe"? ;)