> My blog genuinely is a day job now, I make enough from the (unobtrusive, cookie-free) sponsorship banner

Posting his links and engaging in the discussions is his main job. This is spam, even if you like it - because most people don't want to see one person posting their links on every AI discussion, ranked at the top just because among hundreds of thousands of people reading HN, some thousands are not annoyed by seeing his blog links in every post.