> HN doesn't allow me to escape * with \, which the markdown spec says I should be able to do
So? What does the markdown spec have to do with... anything? The XML spec says you have to begin your comment with a version number declaration, but you're not doing that.
I thought it was trying to implement markdown by italicizing half my sentence when I put * in. Markdown was what popped into my mind when I saw that behavior. It would be nice if I could find a way of escaping them without having to insert spaces where I don't want spaces.
