I think it's an online version of the black arm band that's often worn to acknowledge the passing of a great figure in a community.

Yes. It's just for today.

You should make it a tiny clickable link to Sergei's blog post. When I saw it up there, my first thought was to mouse at it and see what was up.

Terrific idea / tribute. Touching

It's clever and I appreciate the sentiment!

It's for mourning Dr. Motwani's passing.

No offense, but I really wonder how many people have actually knew who Dr. Motwani was before two days ago.

Does it matter? He helped quite a lot of people. You need not be famous for that. His loss will surely be felt. I think that's what matters.

Also, it is good that more people know of him because a selfless man like him should be celebrated. He is a good role model. Too often we are too obsessed with success and fame and money. Here is a man who didn't covet any of that and helped whoever he could. It is kind of sad to see that more premium is placed on being famous than anything else!

As well as all the CS students who knew him through his books or his classes, everyone involved with startups in Silicon Valley did. He was one of the most respected angel investors. It's very strange to be using the past tense about him though.

I used the Hopcraft-Motwani-Ullman textbook on automata theory and it was awesome. That's how I knew him, and it's enough for me.

I did a course on randomized algorithms which referenced the book on the topic he wrote. The man was almost a genius, The book is as ground breaking as the knuth series.

I didn't. But because of this I'm going to wikipedia.

they just more or less started building that page, before it was pretty much non existent.

Here is the last version of the page before the guy's death:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rajeev_Motwani&...

sad

why downmod someone saying sad?

This circumstance and post is about someone passing which is sad.

Was it downmodded because it's just someone posting a quick expression of the circumstance and holds no value? It's a little snobbish here sometimes!

I don't think he is saying sad because the guy died, he is saying sad, because his wikipedia page was non-existent until he died.

A lot of people find their fame posthumously only.

And this raises awareness. Just because you died, does that mean you should be forgotten, or shouldn't be remembered?

No by person. But most CS students either read the "automata book" or the "randomized algorithms". I enjoyed the books and respect him. I was hoping to be able to read his "approximation algorithms" when it is finished.

My emotion response to the news is "how come!". It is the same emotion response that I heard Daniel M. Lewin, founder Akamai, was on flight 11 in September 11, 2001.

All I knew about him was that he was co-author on that 'Randomized Algorithms' textbook. I had no idea he was this prolific elsewhere.

Everyone who has taken an automata class and used the Hopcroft-Ullman book has come to know him in a certain way.

My hunch is that it's like the black armband worn on professional sports teams when they suffer a loss of a loved one. (I'm sure this extends beyond sports, but that's the only place I've seen it)

I assume it got added at the same time the HN footer was added to the bottom of comment pages....

Actually, I think the black bar got added earlier this morning and the footer was just added (last half-hour or so...?), so perhaps the black bar is for a different reason.