Reiser story coverage made worse by Gawker Media ads

Once upon a time there was a genius software developer named Hans Reiser. He used to join Linux forums and lambaste other hackers as being foolish, prodigal, indolent, and was generally a bit of an egomaniacal ass.

In other words, par for the course in the world of software development.

But then he was indicted, and convicted, for the murder of his wife amid a tale of S&M;, Linux development ( intimately linked ), Russian internet-ordered brides, and infidelity.

A crucial feature of the trial was, well, that the cops couldn’t find the body. Upon being found guilty, Reiser seems to have copped a plea with the judge such that he could get a lesser sentence in exchange for the victim’s family and, nota bene, his own children being able to lay the body of their daughter / mother to rest.

Here was Gawker media’s “Valleywag” summation picture:

Gawker Reiser

First of all, and not to be juvenile, but a copy-editor would have caught the phrase “fingers corpse”–oh right this is blogging, ahem, never-mind.

Secondly, the incapacitated girl in the ad in the party dress appears dead if not really whacked out on laudanum. One could foreseeably think that that was the corpse under discussion.

The whole post is pretty distasteful, I’d say.