
Today is the fifth anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death - saaronm
thank you for everything
======
r3bl
I always remember the quote from Sir Tim Berners-Lee about his death:

> Aaron is dead. Wanderers in this crazy world, we have lost a mentor, a wise
> elder. Hackers for right, we are one down, we have lost one of our own.
> Nurturers, carers, listeners, feeders, parents all, we have lost a child.
> Let us all weep.

~~~
mrsmn
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&feature=youtu.be&t=5803)

------
codeulike
This StackOverflow question from Aaron about using rsync to download and copy
lots of files is like a piece of history frozen in time.

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48491/keep-rsync-from-
re...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48491/keep-rsync-from-removing-
unfinished-source-files)

~~~
Vinnl
And the required context, for those coming across this: Aaron was under
investigation for downloading an archive of academic articles from within MIT
(because they'd otherwise cost a lot), presumably to make them available
outside free of large, much like Sci-Hub does nowadays.

He committed suicide during the investigation, and it's supposedly not
unlikely to be related to the pressure the investigation and trumped-up
charges brought him. And then there's those that surmise he was murdered, of
course.

See also this documentary:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy)

~~~
SilasX
Knowing that context (besides the suicide) makes the question so hilarious to
read!

~~~
johnalamos
tragic

------
slack3r
His blog Raw Thought
([http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/)) details his
experiences. I found his memoirs about Stanford particularly interesting. An
example entry:

""" Surrounding them were groups of kids chatting. Clearly social rituals
depend on communication, which is presumably used to get a sense of the kind
of person the other is. In my culture (of vaguely technical people), people
converse by sharing information through mutually-beneficial discussion and
debate, but the teenager's system is altogether different and wholly alien to
me.

I have little firsthand experience, but I have developed an initial theory of
how things work. The protocol begins by sharing basic personal information to
establish identity, then moves to the humorous recitation of cultural
information. (Humorous may be too strong a word; the key point is that there's
a lot of laughing.) This is the beginning of a loop. The two parties exchange
information, allowing them to get a better sense of each other. If the clearer
picture is disliked, the party breaks the loop and disassociates. Otherwise,
more personal knowledge is shared as the parties get to know each other
better. Discussion moves from cultural issues, to societal ones, to gossip, to
personal matters, to deep intimate issues, presumably shared with close lovers
or friends. """ ―
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001421](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001421)

~~~
alxndr
Aaron's second paragraph there sounds like Social Penetration Theory:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_penetration_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_penetration_theory)

------
BenoitEssiambre
I wanted an Aaron Swartz t-shirt so I made these graphics:

For dark fabric: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6fL4G1FVF-
AdHhCdVU4UHhCNk0...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6fL4G1FVF-
AdHhCdVU4UHhCNk0/view)

For medium shade fabric: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6fL4G1FVF-
AblFNYlBrWTJmems...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6fL4G1FVF-
AblFNYlBrWTJmems/view)

(Even though these look dark against a white background, it works best if the
gray shadow part is darker than the fabric color: dark example:
[https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RY9wtKNtDzKdZKF-
eAa_vYNCXU...](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RY9wtKNtDzKdZKF-
eAa_vYNCXUcIhyHm))

Source Inkscape SVG: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6fL4G1FVF-
AbHB3ZW9CZWNDVmc...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6fL4G1FVF-
AbHB3ZW9CZWNDVmc/)

Based on a photo by Sage Ross (CC BY-SA) ragesoss.com/blog/2013/07/12/the-use-
aaron-swartz-photographs/

I printed one on zazzle.com on a dark t-shirt but it seems I can't share the
design without becoming some kind of t-shirt vendor and take a royalty which I
don't care to do. If you want one, you will have to upload the image yourself.

------
baldfat
Still the Federal Prosecutors are just as aggressive as before this event. We
had the Supreme Court having to get involved in the Virginia Governor case
where he and his wife were prosecuted. He set up meetings for a donor and
those meetings got the person zero money or business.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States)
Personal Note: My friend is a mayor and is under Federal Prosecution. He was
wired for 2 years by two people, one of which made $500,000 in three years and
didn't declare it to the IRS. He earned his money by illegal political means.
My friend has hundreds of hours on tape and thousands of documents and after
lawyers and people going through them there is nothing there. He has stated
his innocents since day one and there is zero direct evidence yet trial starts
in a few weeks. Federal Prosecutor has released statements and quotes of the
recordings that were one sided and actually if they just let the quote go for
one more sentence it would show that my friend actually told everyone to stop
doing anything to anyone. The person being wired actually said that the mayor
has never done anything wrong so we have to set him up and the FBI informant
actually sent out illegal texts and emails to a possible campaign donor. My
friend confronted him on tape and told him to cut it out and to stop this or
else they would all go to jail. US Court System is unbalanced and it will
sentence possibly innocent people multiple times higher sentences over people
caught red handed and plea bargain. It is better to lie and admit guilt than
to fight for your innocence.

Edit: Spelling

~~~
jessaustin
Yeah, anyone who is surprised by shitty things done by the "Justice"
Department has no clue about them: they exist entirely to do shitty things and
that's basically all they ever do. Once you're on their radar, you might as
well emigrate, because your life here will suck, no matter what you do or
don't do.

------
tsmarsh
We barely crossed paths, but in the couple of interactions we had he changed
my engineering for the better.

In particular, he demanded that all features have measurable success criteria
and if they didn't happen he pulled the feature from the code base.

Simple and elegant way of keeping your code base small and focused. The real
miracle there was he got the customer to agree and held them to it. I still
don't know how he did that.

~~~
hnarn
How are you supposed to test it if there's no success criteria? And by
extension, how are you going to write good software without tests?

~~~
tsmarsh
Sorry, I wasn't clear.

It wasn't if the software functioned the way that we wanted (is the business
logic correct), so much as did it have the effect on the business that we
wanted.

The criteria would have been something a long the lines of:

"By adding this ad banner to this page template we will increase revenue by 5%
per page view", or

"By adding this widget to the on boarding page we will reduce drop out by
50%".

If your feature didn't have the business impact it was supposed to, it was
pulled. Maybe the widget actually increases drop out? Maybe increasing ads
reduced page views?

But it prioritized being to answer those kinds of questions. Very neat.

------
madez
"The way Aaron always thought is that programming is magic, right? You can
accomplish these things that normal humans can't, by being able to program.
So, if you had magical powers, would you use them for good, or to make you
mountains of cash?" [0]

I feel this conflict also here on HN. When a point is made why a technology or
development is bad because of it's political impact on our society, always
there is the response that you gotta have profit. When for so many people
profit is more important than what is right, then negativity towards that is
not only understandable, but an ethical imperative.

We have powers we never had before. We transform this world, we shift power
and open new possibilites. We must not let profit and money steer it, for this
is much too important.

The masses meander around, wiping over shining tablets, consuming what
gatekeepers let them see, using the magic they have in their hands only in
golden jails their platforms force them in. We must never accept that, and
fight it every day.

[0] around 24:00 of The Internet's Own Boy - The Story of Aaron Swartz

------
mst
On a request from a friend who thought it might be handy to have the domain
ready but registered outside of the states, I owned freeaaronsw.com for a
while with the intention of using it for a campaign against the prosecution
later on.

The "oh, fuck, we're already too late" sensation I had when I saw his death
announced stays with me to this day.

~~~
O_H_E
I am so sad for you

~~~
mst
Eh, I was just helping out. Hold onto that thought and if you ever meet
somebody who was actually close to him, give them a hug or something instead
:)

------
furqs
Rest in peace you beautiful beautiful heart.

I would like to recommend the documentary "The Internet's Own Boy: The Story
of Aaron" for everyone to watch.

~~~
sicco
Which is, of course, available for free under a creative commons license:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLxpTGsclXM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLxpTGsclXM)

------
taildrop
It would be nice to see reddit have some sort of memorial. Sadly, I think the
"new" reddit finds his memory a bit uncomfortable.

~~~
rospaya
Reddit's founders have stated that Aaron's story about his history at reddit
isn't truthful so it's no surprise they're snubbing him.

Here's a 10 year old thread about various Aaron's claims regarding reddit and
Wired.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_co...](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cofounder_aaron_swartz_discusses_how_he/)

~~~
jessaustin
PG, at your link:

 _Aaron 's not wrong to call himself one of the founders. The company behind
Reddit was a merger of two startups, one that made Reddit and one that made
Infogami, and in that situation the founders of both startups are considered
founders of the combined company._

~~~
Tomte
Without knowing the details about this particular case that sounds wrong.

Note how PG subtly shifted from „Aaron co-founded Reddit the product“ (what
everyone meant) to „Aaron co-founded the company that today owns Reddit“,
which is defensible, but mostly uninteresting.

I consider that dishonest.

------
koevet
Here is a list of the books he read and enjoyed the most from 2006 to 2011.

[https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2577-a-hacktivist-
reading-l...](https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2577-a-hacktivist-reading-list-
aaron-swartz-s-recommended-reading)

Very illuminating to see how wide his interests were.

~~~
r3bl
Pardon me for asking, but why a third-party source?

They're all on his blog[0], which is still alive.

[0]
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/books2011](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/books2011)

~~~
epicide
Reading through his review of _The Trial_ is surreal.

------
staunch
People like Aaron Swartz represent the future of humanity. The people that
attacked him represent the dark past.

He was one of us, on this very site, and then he wasn't.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=aaronsw](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=aaronsw)

------
jackninja1
I was doing some research today on the topic of RSS and stumbled upon his
name. I remembered seeing his name before but did not remember who he was. Now
seeing this pop up -- what an uncanny amount of coincidence. He seems like an
incredible influential person with a story that must not be forgotten.

------
dinony
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/archive](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/archive)

------
lovelearning
One of his posts - "Believe you can change" [1] - has helped me a lot with
motivation issues. Thank you indeed.

[1]:
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck)

------
rusk
I was thinking about him the other day funnily enough. I was thinking about
Reddit and the contribution that has made to modern social discourse, and how
it has elucidated the discussion on freedom of speech, the perceived kind
versus the legal, constitutional kind. I feel sad that he came to the end that
he did, and that he didn't get to see the course of the fiery debate he kicked
off. Hard to believe it's been five years.

------
hanselot
Thanks for the feelz :(

------
tienthanh8490
I made a script to compile all his blog posts to .mobi ebook if anyone
interested, just in case his site goes down.

[https://github.com/tienthanh8490/aaronsw](https://github.com/tienthanh8490/aaronsw)

------
sidcool
Sad day for the tech community.

------
pvaldes
And two weeks ago was the second aniversary of Ian Murdock's death. Time
flies.

------
sus_007
In today's age of dramatic economic and political inequality, it does not
matter how talented you are or how hard you work. American meritocracy is a
sham and Swartz's death is the proof.

~~~
mar77i
Oh wow. I recently dug up Max Payne again. Guess what, I find some of the
content to be quite inspiring:

The trick in my situation was that there was no trick, no matter what the
movies tell you. No rules, no secret Mantra, no road map. It wasn't about how
smart or how good you were. It was chaos and luck, and anyone who thought
different was a fool. All you could do was hang on madly, as long and hard as
you could.

~~~
figgis
For a lot of people the decisions and actions they make can (and will) shape
their circumstance..

------
tylerruby
We love you Aaron.

------
whatyoucantsay
Never forget how prominent HN members treated him during his last call for
help to this forum. Aaron was a special person and we are all diminished by
his passing.

He did not fit our world and it was primarily a failing of the world that he
did not.

~~~
yesenadam
Well gee, he seemed to fit the world better than most people do.

Whatever that means. But he seems to have met a lot of inspiring people,
people he could work with, found important stuff to do etc. More than most
people do in a life time, much more.

------
appleflaxen
Any memorial to Aaron should include the name of the federal attorney whose
prosecution for copying journal articles was so overzealous that Aaron saw
suicide as his best option.

He shouldn't be subjected to a witch hunt or mob justice, but he should be
placed in context (and in search results) for history (and the public) to
judge: Stephen P. Heymann.

~~~
gizmo
Overzealous prosecution is the default, not the exception. Prosecutors build
their careers on high profile convictions. It's a systemic problem.

MIT was not without fault either.

~~~
sitkack
> MIT was not without fault either.

Shameful and weak is the phrase you are looking for. The follow on report [0]
by Hal Abelson showed a lack of personal and institutional critical integrity.

[0] [http://swartz-report.mit.edu/](http://swartz-report.mit.edu/)

~~~
jessaustin
It is to their credit, however, that they commissioned and publicized that
report. I have a hard time imagining my _alma mater_ up the street doing the
same in a similar situation.

------
oldsklgdfth
I find it disappointing that the front page of Reddit isn't flooded with Aaron
Swartz posts.

~~~
trampi
Can anyone explain why it is not on the front page of HN as well? The post is
3 hours old, has over 500 upvotes and yet still is not to be seen on the front
page.

~~~
jessaustin
It was #1 earlier today; with 595 points it's now #123. Presumably mods have
adjusted it somehow? I can't imagine HN has enough anti-"politics" zealots to
flag it down to that point.

~~~
krapp
If this were about the anniversary of the death of a mainstream celebrity, it
would have been flagged outright, and deservedly so. But even given Aaron
Swartz' background and popularity within the community, this thread doesn't
present an interesting new phenomenon or anything to gratify intellectual
curiosity. A sentimental footnote doesn't deserve to be on the front page.

~~~
trampi
I see. That makes sense, thank you.

