This headline strikes me as in poor taste. The article itself was interesting, but on first glance, the headline seems to be mocking Heath Ledger's death.

this is sad news, dude. your wonkish post lacks actual humanity. i imagine you are human ... but try to understand that others may have actual feelings about this. and those feelings have nothing to do with how google searches are curiously changing because of a misspelled name.

FM,

This is disrespectful, even in the technical section.

Heath was a brilliant guy, a talented actor. He was 28 and he just died. Clever is maybe the wrong way to go here.

Yeah, dude. I totally understand that this is a tech column adn you found an interesitng wrinkle to the day's events, but maybe you could have waited a couple of days before crowing over the funny interwebs? Just a thought.

"God strikes Heath Ledger dead for playing a fag!"

You show an astounding lack of basic human decency with the jokey title and glib tone of your article. Seriously, besides being famous, what did Heath Ledger ever do to deserve your making light of his death? Actually, you may have unwittingly offered a really telling glimpse into geek culture, that it's inhabited by cynical desensitized douchebags.

Salon has sunk to a new low publishing this article with its flippant tone only hours after a great actor and artist died. Everything Salon supposedly stands for -- respect for human life, admiration for creative souls, compassion -- oh, all the good values that go with a love of literature, art, etc. --- all trashed for a cheap joke. The Onion would have far more maturity and compassion.

It's possible (at least for some people) to simultaneously feel pity, sadness, even anguish about the passing of Heath Ledger and wry amusement about the way others have reacted to it.

However, I would agree with the general sentiment that the tone of the article and its timing were callous and that one would hope for better editorial judgment from Salon.

...just plain vile. The body isn't even cold yet and Salon writes a mocking headline. Just vile. ANYTHING for attention, I guess. No standards, no delicacy, no sensitivity. Just gross. I'd say shame on you, but that would be like saying get out of the water to a duck. Douchebag.

I read this post, then read the comments and thought to myself, "Wait a minute, I missed something." So, I went back and reread it and.....read it again and...I still don't get what has everyone so pissed off. Manjoo did not in any way mock Heath Ledger or joke about his passing. The post didn't disrespect Ledger or his family. The post didn't take advantage of Ledger's passing to reveal salacious or scandalous factoids about the guy. The author also did not joke about Keith Ledger. To be honest, I couldn't find anything in the post remotely resembling mocking or joking.

In reality, it was just a rather bland post about a not-so-interesting piece of internet trivia. You folks are way overreacting.