Apparently mostly to be a lightning rod for people to rant about the British monarchy and get flagged in the process. Threads like these have a certain car wreck quality in that it's hard to look away but you really shouldn't expect much of quality,

He has a tenuous link to computing. He visited Edinburgh's department of computer science in the early sixties not that long after it opened (the BBC used a different department doorway to the entry in Buccleuch Place because the front door was too shabby) and he and the queen had email boxes from pre-internet British telecommunications before it was cool on prestel.

He served on British warships and almost certainly used analogue computers to do fire calculations for the big ships guns.

> More out of curiosity than judgement; why is this on HN?

Maybe because in human networks monarchy is one of the major legacy operating systems?

I got into computers while skiving off during Duke of Edinburgh awards periods in school if that helps any

Maybe there are lots of people from the UK here.

I guess if it doesn’t belong here then it will be off the front page soon enough

We are a diverse bunch.

Though not everything on HN is tech related, you could argue Prince Philip was a bit of a tech icon as this article did: "Prince Philip, inadvertent father of the Computer Misuse Act, dies aged 99" https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/09/prince_philip_obituar...

It was upvoted often enough and quickly enough that the algorithm put it on the front page. Prince Philip is a public figure of some prominence, so I'm guessing the people who run the site (dang and maybe others?) let it be unless the comments turn to shit.

I, for one, am glad that it has lasted this long. I've learned a bunch of new things and added a book to my reading list.

A lot of people in the UK and Commonwealth have a link with the Duke of Edinburgh via the awards scheme that teenagers undertake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Duke_of_Edinburgh%27s_Awar...

I guess he was an influencer? Or maybe he got hacked, one of the two

I don't know. I'm opposed to obituary threads on principle but at least some of them lead to interesting discussions about the era and field the person lived and worked in.

There's a reason celebrity and mainstream stories are off topic unless they present evidence of a new and interesting phenomenon that sparks intellectual curiosity - discussions tend to wallow in maudlin sentimentality, political snark or pop culture nonsense otherwise. A person's death alone, while unfortunate, doesn't meet the quality bar.