RIP Aaron Swartz

taunto
taunto Posts: 6,420 Member
edited January 9 in Chit-Chat
It sucks that many don't know his awesomeness. Heres an MIT article about him. RIP man.

Aaron Swartz commits suicide
By Anne Cai
NEWS EDITOR; UPDATED AT 2:15 A.M. 1/12/13
Computer activist Aaron H. Swartz committed suicide in New York City yesterday, Jan. 11, according to his uncle, Michael Wolf, in a comment to The Tech. Swartz was 26.

“The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true,” confirmed Swartz’ attorney, Elliot R. Peters of Kecker and Van Nest, in an email to The Tech.

Swartz was indicted in July 2011 by a federal grand jury for allegedly mass downloading documents from the JSTOR online journal archive with the intent to distribute them. He subsequently moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he then worked for Avaaz Foundation, a nonprofit “global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere.” Swartz appeared in court on Sept. 24, 2012 and pleaded not guilty.

The accomplished Swartz co-authored the now widely-used RSS 1.0 specification at age 14, was one of the three co-owners of the popular social news site Reddit, and completed a fellowship at Harvard’s Ethics Center Lab on Institutional Corruption. In 2010, he founded DemandProgress.org, a “campaign against the Internet censorship bills SOPA/PIPA.”

source: http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N61/swartz.html

aaron-swartz-1.jpg

Replies

  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,228 Member
    I don't know anything about him, but it sounded like he was brilliant. It's a sad loss indeed.
  • taunto
    taunto Posts: 6,420 Member
    I don't know anything about him, but it sounded like he was brilliant. It's a sad loss indeed.

    One of his smaller yet more popular accomplishments is that he was the co-founder of reddit.com
  • LessOfMePlease
    LessOfMePlease Posts: 50 Member
    Proof that money and brilliance aren't necessarily enough to live for...
  • UncleMac
    UncleMac Posts: 14,162 Member
    A friend of mine linked a couple of articles about Aaron on facebook. Such a tragic loss... :(

    RIP Aaron! I hope you've found peace...
  • LittleMiss_WillLoseIt
    LittleMiss_WillLoseIt Posts: 1,373 Member
    Such a brilliant and intelligent man who had many accomplishments among being the founder of Demand Progress. This is tragic and sad.


    RIP Aaron!
  • Lone_Wolf70
    Lone_Wolf70 Posts: 2,820 Member
    I feel sorry for his family, but really I dont think he was a good person.
  • _Ben
    _Ben Posts: 1,608 Member
    Saw this this morning on Reddit. While I didnt know who he was prior to this, I think the majority of the techie/geek world will be forever in his debt due to his contribution to RSS and Reddit
This discussion has been closed.

Categories