The business aspects of Jackson's career are, perhaps, interesting and useful to this audience. For example, he acquired the publishing rights to much of the Beatles catalog at a bargain price in the 80's.
This was, obviously in hindsight (and probably at the time, as well), a very astute move, and the value of that catalog of music has only increased over time. Most of us would be very happy to have made business deals that put tens of million in our pocket, while still holding a share worth more than originally paid.
I don't know who Jon and Kate are, but Paris Hilton definitely is a PR hacker. Or if she is not, she is something even weirder, a self-feeding PR loop.
It's an interesting point, I'll bite. What did Michael Jackson do that was in the hacker spirit, as opposed to just being an immensely talented musician?
I was hacking my Apple IIe with "Thriller" playing in the background. I would like to think that counts for something. Perhaps that doesn't warrant the top link on HN at all - after all his death has no impact on the computer world. At the same time, his cultural contribution to my generation is just as much important to me as was the contribution of Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak.
Funny you should mention that; I remember playing with single-bit audio on the Apple II's speaker, and the title track from Thriller was about the only thing you could digitize and still recognize. Of course, only about 20-30 seconds would fit into memory...
