RIP Aaron Swartz

[MrBlue]

"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 accomplished Swartz co-authored the now widely-used RSS 1.0 specification at age 14, founded Infogami which later merged with the popular social news site Reddit..."

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

Probably one of the best articles I've read on productivity written by Aaron:

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/productivity

 

[Duffers5000]

Read about this earlier..Very sad end for a highly talented visionary. Apparently he was facing the prospect of a long prison sentence for downloading jstor educational papers with the intent to make them freely available. Welcome to the Internet, big brother is not only watching but hes all over your ass.

 

[steelballs]

Police had arrested Swartz in July 2011. He was accused of stealing 4 million documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. The authorities claimed that he broke into a restricted-access computer wiring closet at MIT and accessed that network without authorization.

Jstor said that the downloaded content included "more than 4 million articles, book reviews, and other content from our publisher partners' academic journals and other publications."

If convicted, Swartz faced a maximum of $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison after the government increased the number of felony counts against Swartz to 13 from 4.

So young so much to offer - so much to live for - but obviously looking down the barrel of a 50 year jail term may have pulled the suicide trigger...

Sad News...

 

[Rozla]

Life is hard, deal with it! There are people having a more difficult time than him and living in a more f*cked up condition than him and they don't kill themselves but hope in a better future. He did it in a selfish way you cannot have any compassion with it, while his family is now having a harsh time you can't imagine how hard!

 

[hacks]

demand Prgress and his Blog is Down any one facing same Problem

 

[SEO_Alchemy]

Life is hard, deal with it! There are people having a more difficult time than him and living in a more f*cked up condition than him and they don't kill themselves but hope in a better future. He did it in a selfish way you cannot have any compassion with it, while his family is now having a harsh time you can't imagine how hard!

and you know what exactly about his personal situation and family affairs? Everything you just stated is just pure conjecture on your part. All we know for certain is that a talented young man took his own life.

RIP

 

[Rozla]

Still suicide is a selfish thing!

 

[apoorv]

Very sad and a great loss.

I'd read about him and JSTOR a few months ago. Incredibly brilliant guy. BoingBoing has a very nice eulogy on him.

Life is hard, deal with it! There are people having a more difficult time than him and living in a more f*cked up condition than him and they don't kill themselves but hope in a better future. He did it in a selfish way you cannot have any compassion with it, while his family is now having a harsh time you can't imagine how hard!

Everyone has a different perspective to life, and his internal struggles may have pushed him to the brink.

We don't know yet. Though I agree that the problems he was trying to solve weren't solved by his death but to compare other people's lives with his is churlish. Being as smart as he was, this decision couldn't have been well thought out but that is the nature of such suicides. Though a lot of things push you towards it, killing yourself is *very* difficult and it must have been incredibly difficult for him to take that decision.

 

[hitman247]

Life is hard, deal with it! There are people having a more difficult time than him and living in a more f*cked up condition than him and they don't kill themselves but hope in a better future. He did it in a selfish way you cannot have any compassion with it, while his family is now having a harsh time you can't imagine how hard!

GTFO of here with that shit. Someone takes their own life and this is the type of comment you leave about it? Unless you know you why he did it or spent any time walking the path he chose, STFU.

The way we choose to live our lives or the way we choose to leave it, isn't for anyone to judge you insensitive prick.

 

[wappi]

RIP Aaron!
Too bad he had to take his own life...

 

[IamNRE]

50 Years is a long ass time.

Maybe he could have done 25 and gotten released early, who knows.

Thats still a VERY long time. I guess he did what he felt was best for him.

May he RIP!

 

[starcity83]

I really have a hard time believing the whole suicide story, with the establishment that was against him I think there is a lot more to the story.

 

[Jeevs]

Sad end to a great talent.
R.I.P.

 

[kharm]

So he tried to release a bunch of "academic papers" to the public, and gets jail time for it. This world has a long fucking way to go, and right when you think things improve in any form or fashion, there is a stark reminder of how distorted the reality of things are

 

[Soloman]

Rip in peace

 

[Zapdos]

Still suicide is a selfish thing!

 

[Duffers5000]

A good article that outlines the extent of his alleged crime

http://t.co/uJ8GbcNE

 

[bertbaby]

He suffered from depression for years so I'm sure the charges put him over the top so to speak. It's not about being selfish but being mentally ill.

 

[Statix]

Sad situation indeed.

 

[steelballs]

A good article that outlines the extent of his alleged crime

http://t.co/uJ8GbcNE

Thanks Duffers it is not a good article it is EXCELLENT!

Before folks post more conjecture on this tragedy best to read this article before blasting off against Aaron and his end game...

Now is the time to show some respect to a brilliant visionary who sadly is longer here to defend himself...

If I were to parry some blame it would be against the establishment and the lawmakers who hovered above Aaron on a daily basis like a never ending albatross!

The curse should be on the Lawmakers not Aaron...