It's probably not an intentional ripoff but more like an intellectual cul-de-sac - following certain typographic rules to their logical conclusion leads to the same design.

The designer Garrett Dimon had a similar design for a long time (and his Sifter app has remnants of that style) and so did my personal blog, back when I used to write a lot more.

http://alabut.com/nonsense/2005/03/ruby-self-tutorial-day-1-...