Ask HN: What is thick black row above top of header?
6 comments
It's digital mourning stationery [1] in memory of Tony Hoare [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_stationery [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47324054
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_stationery [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47324054
Good to see you are un-banned ;) - might have just been that you are a new user.
The user who posted this seems banned, but their answer seems correct:
jonaslanglotz 2 minutes ago [dead] [–]
It's digital mourning stationery [1] in memory of Tony Hoare [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_stationery [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47324054
jonaslanglotz 2 minutes ago [dead] [–]
It's digital mourning stationery [1] in memory of Tony Hoare [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_stationery [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47324054
Its used to indicate that someone of importance to the community has died.
I don't mean any disrespect to dang or whoever designed it, but is this supposed to be a feature or a bug? :)
According to Internet Archive it was added earlier today; it wasn't there before [2]. Here's the html:
Personally I prefer the clean look from before, but respect if this is a new permanent design. I use a custom HN dark theme extension, so I can just adjust it to remove the row (unless it serves some other purpose; maybe counting visitors?)
[1] 2026-03-11 01:07 https://web.archive.org/web/20260311010735/https://news.ycombinator.com/
[2] 2026-03-10 05:34 https://web.archive.org/web/20260310053447/https://news.ycombinator.com/