I'd take with context. Everything in this article should be understood by a 3rd year electrical/computer engineer as standard knowledge. Because I'm a computer engineering graduate, I can understand it. However, give me an article with '3rd year standard knowledge' from any other engineer discipline and I'll have no idea what's happening

One of the lessons college taught me is that I can learn anything, but I can't learn everything.

One of the lessons many engineers who pass the PE exam learn is, "not with that attitude you can't".

No you aren’t. (Well, you could be, but not because you can’t follow this). On any given article with a lot of technical content, it’s reasonably safe to assume that it’s on the front page of HN because a lot of people are enthusiastic about the subject or interested in it. Only a small number of people actually follow what’s going on for most of these topics.

I can follow this because I have a signal processing & controls background. I feel the same as you when I see some crazy reverse engineering feats or security breaches explained. They might be simple if you have the background, but it sure looks difficult.