He's not wrong. Nothing about the statement infringes on any copyright or intellectual property.

"The NYT spent hundreds of hours hand-coding “Snow Fall.” We made a replica in an hour."

I just said it, myself. That's not a copyright infringement. Anyone asserting that it is is wrong. The NYTimes has every right to be unhappy that this statement exists, but they have absolutely no right to demand it be removed.

Not sure what the libel laws are like in the US, but based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law It looks like making factually wrong and "injurious" statements counts.

Firstly, he has no idea how long it took the NYT to do the original work, and secondly it didn't take him an hour, it took him a year.

There's no way this fits under the definition of libel. His statement doesn't harm NYT in any way.

And since when does posting "factually wrong" information on the web actually matter worth a damn?

He's not right or wrong, he's just figured out that provoking a famous brand is a great way to get some earned media.