If you place the dawn of the computer era (in terms of more than, say, 1000 people working in the field) sometime in the 1950s, and the youngest of those people were 20 when they began, we are now reaching the point where even the oldest of those people are dead or about to die.

Broad demographics are regular, but we're sliding into the period where "the first 10,000 people to make a living from working with computer technology" are all going to be dead or about to die. That's a sort of unique inflection point.

If you also reflect on the fact that a lot of the computer technologies that impact people the most today were developed in the 1970s-1990s period, this becomes even more so.

> The black bar is a simple gesture of respect.

The black bar is not "a simple gesture of respect" — if it was, it would never disappear. It's a sign of mourning over the passing of someone whose contributions were extremely influential to the high-tech industry, and who is/was widely known for their contributions.

> I see absolutely no reason we should stop.

Neither do I; nor do I think we should be doing that on a daily basis.