When a member of the community, or a popular figure in the hacker community passes away, a black bar is put at the top of HN in memory of that person.

Ah! Thank you very much. It looks like the black bar is now up there, too.

Turning the orange bar at the top black. It's been done before as a sign of respect for other important people in the computing world who have passed.

PG has twice put a black bar above the top bar in memory of someone's death. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=644954 for the first use of it, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=859117 for the second.

He also did it (most recently I think) for rtm's father: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2712469

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=644954 It's a black bar across the top of the page. pg puts it up in memorial.

the red topbar is changed to black to show condolences.