The absolute best thing about HN is that if you're a Hacker, it's a semi-complete resource of what's relevant. Not every celebrity death belongs on HN, but this one absolutely does. It's hard to explain why it does, which is why HN's rules are vague, but there's no doubt that it does. It may mean nothing to you, as many of the things mean nothing to you on the site (do you read every link on the front page? No way) but to a lot of the community, as hackers this was important to us.
You dismissed an entirely relevant link because you are allowing your biases to blind you, and are actively missing an opportunity to learn about someone who actually embodied the hacker mindset, because you do not have it.