4 ms·

Books that Aaron Swartz read, loved and hated

76 points by wowsig 10y ago

wowsig 10y ago
I don't think my intense fascination with Aaron's life will ever fade away. Sometime back, I thought of reading through his entire blog and came across his year-end reading lists wherein he would list anywhere from 70-140 books read in that particular year. Because all these books were linked to books.theinfo.org (which is not alive), I decided to put it into a shelf where I could add them to my reading list and access them directly. This is my very small attempt at spreading the sheer magic of Aaron's curiosity. Currently, I have been able to add books from 2006, 06, 08 and 10. Its a work-in-progress.
- ploggingdev 10y ago
  If you haven't already, read The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz [1] and watch this documentary (The story of Aaron Swartz) [2]. > I don't think my intense fascination with Aaron's life will ever fade away. Yes, it still hurts to think about his untimely death and what could have been. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Could-Change-World/dp/162097066X https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Could-Change-World/dp/1620970... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM
  - wowsig 10y ago
    I know. I still think that he's around. Not able to wrap my head around his absence and for such a reason!
rrggrr 10y ago
Is MIT's recent disobedience award a tacit apology to Aaron, unrelated, or a cynical attempt to change perception about MIT? One would expect Aaron to posthumously receive the first award if the intent were sincere. https://www.media.mit.edu/disobedience/ https://www.media.mit.edu/disobedience/
- gentoo 10y ago
  I think it's worth noting that this is a Media Lab award, not one presented by the regular MIT administration. The Media Lab is given a lot of free reign and tends to do more out-there stuff. You should not construe them as speaking for the same people who betrayed Aaron (if that's how you see it happening).
  - totalZero 10y ago
    Not to be pedantic, but I just learned a few minutes ago that "free rein" is the correct spelling, as in horseback riding. Thought I would share the knowledge.
- totalZero 10y ago
  Neither. MIT still looks out for #1. That award comes from a particular lab that values creativity and defiance in the face of overwhelming odds (as would be needed for an amputee to become a dancer or athlete).
sharkweek 10y ago
I recently read Infinite Jest, and while I loved all the micro-essays and commentary, prose, and most of the characters' stories, the ending was a big "WTF." So I Googled 'Infinite Jest Ending" to try and figure it out. Lo and behold, Aaron Swartz had written one of the best theories I was able to find, and while he's making a few assumptions about DFW's intent, it does help close the loop a bit. Lots of spoilers, so I don't recommend reading this if you plan on reading the book anytime soon: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend
- wowsig 10y ago
  I had this moment on his commentary on Dark Night.
kerbalspacepro 10y ago
Is this another cynical list of books that is reaping clicks for Amazon Affiliate bucks?
- wowsig 10y ago
  Sorry to disappoint. But its far from cynical. I made this because time and again, I found myself getting drawn to the choice of his books and wanted to get all of them in a single page. Any such list will not make me any more than a few tens of dollars so the amount is so minuscule that it makes all the effort of manually adding all these books, quite laughable.
- andresgottlieb 10y ago
  Most links posted on HN are "cynical" content that are "reaping clicks" for ad affiliate "bucks", welcome to the internet, Sir
  - kerbalspacepro 10y ago
    While you're right most of the posts here are trying to get some pay off for the site in question (the incentive to post here is not as strong as reddit, for example), I think it's unfair to say most people are looking for ad affiliate bucks. Plus, I can understand websites that use the affiliate system as long as they give me some long term value. I just don't think this website would do that.
sotojuan 10y ago
It is interesting how someone who read so much can have so few, if any, books in common with me (who reads around 50-70% as much as Swartz does in a year). There's really a ton of books out there for everyone :-)
- wowsig 10y ago
  And guess what, there's still 2 years of data still missing from this. I've been typing them all in manually so I thought of publishing a work-in-progress.
davis 10y ago
Google Cache version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://shelfjoy.com/shelfjoy/all-the-books-aaron-swartz-loved-hated-wrote-and-blogged-about http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
msielski 10y ago
I read Chomsky's Understanding Power on Aaron's recommendation [1]. I found it equally transformative. [1] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany
mordant 10y ago
> I don't think my intense fascination with Aaron's life will ever fade away. If I were forced read the kind of garbage this grossly-overhyped, precious little snowflake apparently did, I'd kill myself, too. This guy was in no way significant; and while his sentencing was disproportionate, anybody can do six months of soft Federal time. I'm sick to death (so to speak) of hearing about him, as he was totally unremarkable, exhibited extremely poor judgment, and was apparently weak-minded, to boot.
- RubenSandwich 10y ago
  I would not say that he is insignificant. He helped make: RSS, Markdown, Deaddrop and more. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Software_developments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Software_developm...) Your comment is wrong and grossly insensitive.
- dang 10y ago
  Uncivil rants and personal attacks like this one are not allowed here, including posthumous ones, because they're destructive to the community. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13839139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13839139 and marked it off-topic.
wowsig 10y ago
Really disappointed to see this flagged.
- dang 10y ago
  Since your effort seems heartfelt, we'll turn off the flags.
  - wowsig 10y ago
    Thanks a lot dang. I thought that this post was flagged because of something I did. Didn't realise that the flag was because of a nasty comment on Aaron. Feels bad to let that take away our HN #2 glory though :( Another time!
oye_coder 10y ago
I always wanted something like this. Just love the website.Awesome design and the site is well made. :)
tienthanh8490 10y ago
I have written a script to compile all his blog posts into a .mobi ebook if anyone is interested https://github.com/tienthanh8490/aaronsw https://github.com/tienthanh8490/aaronsw

76 points by wowsig 10y ago

I don't think my intense fascination with Aaron's life will ever fade away. Sometime back, I thought of reading through his entire blog and came across his year-end reading lists wherein he would list anywhere from 70-140 books read in that particular year. Because all these books were linked to books.theinfo.org (which is not alive), I decided to put it into a shelf where I could add them to my reading list and access them directly. This is my very small attempt at spreading the sheer magic of Aaron's curiosity. Currently, I have been able to add books from 2006, 06, 08 and 10. Its a work-in-progress.

ploggingdev 10y ago
If you haven't already, read The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz [1] and watch this documentary (The story of Aaron Swartz) [2]. > I don't think my intense fascination with Aaron's life will ever fade away. Yes, it still hurts to think about his untimely death and what could have been. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Could-Change-World/dp/162097066X https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Could-Change-World/dp/1620970... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM
- wowsig 10y ago
  I know. I still think that he's around. Not able to wrap my head around his absence and for such a reason!

rrggrr 10y ago

Is MIT's recent disobedience award a tacit apology to Aaron, unrelated, or a cynical attempt to change perception about MIT? One would expect Aaron to posthumously receive the first award if the intent were sincere. https://www.media.mit.edu/disobedience/ https://www.media.mit.edu/disobedience/

gentoo 10y ago
I think it's worth noting that this is a Media Lab award, not one presented by the regular MIT administration. The Media Lab is given a lot of free reign and tends to do more out-there stuff. You should not construe them as speaking for the same people who betrayed Aaron (if that's how you see it happening).
- totalZero 10y ago
  Not to be pedantic, but I just learned a few minutes ago that "free rein" is the correct spelling, as in horseback riding. Thought I would share the knowledge.
totalZero 10y ago
Neither. MIT still looks out for #1. That award comes from a particular lab that values creativity and defiance in the face of overwhelming odds (as would be needed for an amputee to become a dancer or athlete).

sharkweek 10y ago

I recently read Infinite Jest, and while I loved all the micro-essays and commentary, prose, and most of the characters' stories, the ending was a big "WTF." So I Googled 'Infinite Jest Ending" to try and figure it out. Lo and behold, Aaron Swartz had written one of the best theories I was able to find, and while he's making a few assumptions about DFW's intent, it does help close the loop a bit. Lots of spoilers, so I don't recommend reading this if you plan on reading the book anytime soon: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend

wowsig 10y ago
I had this moment on his commentary on Dark Night.

kerbalspacepro 10y ago

Is this another cynical list of books that is reaping clicks for Amazon Affiliate bucks?

wowsig 10y ago
Sorry to disappoint. But its far from cynical. I made this because time and again, I found myself getting drawn to the choice of his books and wanted to get all of them in a single page. Any such list will not make me any more than a few tens of dollars so the amount is so minuscule that it makes all the effort of manually adding all these books, quite laughable.
andresgottlieb 10y ago
Most links posted on HN are "cynical" content that are "reaping clicks" for ad affiliate "bucks", welcome to the internet, Sir
- kerbalspacepro 10y ago
  While you're right most of the posts here are trying to get some pay off for the site in question (the incentive to post here is not as strong as reddit, for example), I think it's unfair to say most people are looking for ad affiliate bucks. Plus, I can understand websites that use the affiliate system as long as they give me some long term value. I just don't think this website would do that.

sotojuan 10y ago

It is interesting how someone who read so much can have so few, if any, books in common with me (who reads around 50-70% as much as Swartz does in a year). There's really a ton of books out there for everyone :-)

wowsig 10y ago
And guess what, there's still 2 years of data still missing from this. I've been typing them all in manually so I thought of publishing a work-in-progress.

davis 10y ago

Google Cache version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://shelfjoy.com/shelfjoy/all-the-books-aaron-swartz-loved-hated-wrote-and-blogged-about http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

msielski 10y ago

I read Chomsky's Understanding Power on Aaron's recommendation [1]. I found it equally transformative. [1] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany

mordant 10y ago

> I don't think my intense fascination with Aaron's life will ever fade away. If I were forced read the kind of garbage this grossly-overhyped, precious little snowflake apparently did, I'd kill myself, too. This guy was in no way significant; and while his sentencing was disproportionate, anybody can do six months of soft Federal time. I'm sick to death (so to speak) of hearing about him, as he was totally unremarkable, exhibited extremely poor judgment, and was apparently weak-minded, to boot.

RubenSandwich 10y ago
I would not say that he is insignificant. He helped make: RSS, Markdown, Deaddrop and more. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Software_developments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Software_developm...) Your comment is wrong and grossly insensitive.
dang 10y ago
Uncivil rants and personal attacks like this one are not allowed here, including posthumous ones, because they're destructive to the community. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13839139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13839139 and marked it off-topic.

wowsig 10y ago

Really disappointed to see this flagged.

dang 10y ago
Since your effort seems heartfelt, we'll turn off the flags.
- wowsig 10y ago
  Thanks a lot dang. I thought that this post was flagged because of something I did. Didn't realise that the flag was because of a nasty comment on Aaron. Feels bad to let that take away our HN #2 glory though :( Another time!

oye_coder 10y ago

I always wanted something like this. Just love the website.Awesome design and the site is well made. :)

tienthanh8490 10y ago

I have written a script to compile all his blog posts into a .mobi ebook if anyone is interested https://github.com/tienthanh8490/aaronsw https://github.com/tienthanh8490/aaronsw