I believe Alex's blog was an original part of the "Svbtle network". I don't see any particular improvements over his old blog, which I believe is still up. He seems to have very good design skills so I would rather see something original but I can't say I really care much either way.

I don't like the "kudos" widget. It's not clear you're "giving kudos" just by hovering over a widget and there's no way to retract a vote. Kind of cheesy to me.

I'm annoyed that I can't resize the page freely on my tablet. That font at that size is really hard to read.

Kindle Fire using silk

It's not really "in the wild". It's a part of the Svbtle network (http://svbtle.com/) started by Dustin Curtis. Check the link in the lower left corner.

I can't say anything about the content, but I love the minimalistic theme. I want it for my blog.

The only problem is when you design a similar minimalistic theme, everybody will say you're copying Svbtle.

Well, the criticism would be accurate.

Check out obtvse.