I can't image how you'd write a web server that couldn't cope with that low load (actually I can but not for a mostly static site like this).
Even if we consider that it would be an additional page view every 5 seconds, this is barely believable that this would put the server under a stress load.
Either this one is wildly more popular or maybe something else is going on as well.
Cat-v is under "page view every five seconds" load basically continually. You don't have to imagine how to write the web server, because the source is available for your perusal, in friendly, easy-to-read shell scripting.
The site has trouble because we have devoted our meager resources to other tasks. If someone wants to donate beefier servers I'd gladly replace the aging, asthmatic machines that comprise 9cloud.
It's been my experience, however, that people generally don't want to spend that thousand dollars.
Remember, every page view also loads images, CSS, JavaScript, etc. So a single view can add up to a dozen hits. Depending on how powerful the machine is, how aggressively cached the content, and what else it is being used for, that can consume significant resources.
Articles on the front page receive roughly 700 page views per hour.
Obviously, depends very much on time of day, attractiveness of the title etc.