4 ms·

Aaron Swartz Used this

26 points by nimeshneema 14y ago

bensw 14y ago
>I wish that everyone had perfectionist levels of attention to detail.
Apocryphon 14y ago
With the amount of personalized sites there are on the internet, and the number a hacker like Aaron was on, one could write a digital biography with that data.
jason_slack 14y ago
MPW 9? Is he referring to the Macintosh Programmers Workshop?
- soypunk 14y ago
  No, he's referring to a font. [A version of Monaco][1] that shipped with the Macintosh Programmers Workshop editor for a time. The paragraph above the MPW reference notes that he was using TextMate (which he'd be using since the 1.0 release) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monaco_(typeface) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monaco_(typeface)
corresation 14y ago
Perhaps it isn't the place (and I fully anticipate the knee-jerk flagging and the subsequent IP ban. Bravery Level:10), but is the idolization of Aaron Swartz perhaps a bit much? He seems like he was a smart guy. He did several interesting things. But did he do great things? Is his greatest accomplishment, bizarrely and destructively, that he killed himself? I've been pondering this lately given the various posts asking why the "greatest minds" are focused on improving ad clicks, etc. Yet they aren't: I'm in awe of so much in our society, so many products we use, so many profoundly society-changing technologies and innovations of enormous complexity that we enjoy each day. Most created by nameless, faceless people just doing their part. Which again makes me wonder why the tech world has been a week of adulation of Aaron Swartz, whose two greatest accomplishments (if you follow the lede of every story about him) were that he was pushed on the Reddit founders by PG after his own project failed (then exiting before them), and that he was one of a dozen plus people who authored a revision to a brutishly simplistic RSS 1.0 spec, his single celebrated attribute being his age. I hesitate hitting add comment because I know the above is effectively sacrilegious, but I don't buy it. I will not celebrate someone because they committed suicide.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- thirsteh 14y ago
  Nobody gave a shit until he killed himself. It's kind of disgusting that that was necessary.
  - pyre 14y ago
    Really? I had respect for him prior to his death. All of the articles/tributes that I've come across have bestowed me with more knowledge about him than I previously had, but Aaron wasn't a nobody that became a somebody in death. He was a somebody that is achieving a sort of 'sainthood' in death. You could compare this to JFK if you like. JFK might not have been such a memorable President had he not been assassinated. I'm not happy that Aaron committed suicide, but I am happy that his death is sparking some motivation on serious issues.
    - thirsteh 14y ago
      Yes. I'm glad something's happening to prevent recurrences, but I hate that it was necessary at all. It's more than likely that no politician would have cared at all if he hadn't killed himself and that had caused a large amount of PR/public outcry. I can't remember the last time I saw a post on Hacker News about donating to Aaron's defense fund, or about how ridiculous the charges against him were. (We already knew about JSTOR--why didn't we care?) There have been at least 300 different posts about him after he killed himself. I blame myself for not doing enough, too, but I don't do something _because_ he committed suicide. This piling-on of posts seems odd and morbid to me. I'd hate to live in a country/world where the best choice if you want to effect change really is to kill yourself. (As a thought exercise to show how the death was "necessary": How much time have you spent caring about/working to assist in a similar, active case after Aaron's suicide?)
      - danso 14y ago
        Don't blame yourself. Aaron and his associates were the closest to the case and it was incumbent upon them to do the PR necessary to raise the outcry. However, according to recent accounts, Aaron felt barred from fully presenting his cause. It was a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't situation for Aaron, which is a damned tragedy.
grannyg00se 14y ago
>I wish that I could lift up the screen on my laptop so that it would be closer to eye-level I thought this the first time I opened my Lenovo T530. It has very solid hinges that look like they could telescope up at least a few inches. But no. The monitor is stuck in place strictly limited to swivel action only. After a while I decided that what I really wanted was a pair of HDMI input sunglasses. Unfortunately that's a no as well.

26 points by nimeshneema 14y ago

bensw 14y ago

>I wish that everyone had perfectionist levels of attention to detail.

With the amount of personalized sites there are on the internet, and the number a hacker like Aaron was on, one could write a digital biography with that data.

jason_slack 14y ago

MPW 9? Is he referring to the Macintosh Programmers Workshop?

soypunk 14y ago
No, he's referring to a font. [A version of Monaco][1] that shipped with the Macintosh Programmers Workshop editor for a time. The paragraph above the MPW reference notes that he was using TextMate (which he'd be using since the 1.0 release) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monaco_(typeface) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monaco_(typeface)

corresation 14y ago

Perhaps it isn't the place (and I fully anticipate the knee-jerk flagging and the subsequent IP ban. Bravery Level:10), but is the idolization of Aaron Swartz perhaps a bit much? He seems like he was a smart guy. He did several interesting things. But did he do great things? Is his greatest accomplishment, bizarrely and destructively, that he killed himself? I've been pondering this lately given the various posts asking why the "greatest minds" are focused on improving ad clicks, etc. Yet they aren't: I'm in awe of so much in our society, so many products we use, so many profoundly society-changing technologies and innovations of enormous complexity that we enjoy each day. Most created by nameless, faceless people just doing their part. Which again makes me wonder why the tech world has been a week of adulation of Aaron Swartz, whose two greatest accomplishments (if you follow the lede of every story about him) were that he was pushed on the Reddit founders by PG after his own project failed (then exiting before them), and that he was one of a dozen plus people who authored a revision to a brutishly simplistic RSS 1.0 spec, his single celebrated attribute being his age. I hesitate hitting add comment because I know the above is effectively sacrilegious, but I don't buy it. I will not celebrate someone because they committed suicide.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
thirsteh 14y ago
Nobody gave a shit until he killed himself. It's kind of disgusting that that was necessary.
- pyre 14y ago
  Really? I had respect for him prior to his death. All of the articles/tributes that I've come across have bestowed me with more knowledge about him than I previously had, but Aaron wasn't a nobody that became a somebody in death. He was a somebody that is achieving a sort of 'sainthood' in death. You could compare this to JFK if you like. JFK might not have been such a memorable President had he not been assassinated. I'm not happy that Aaron committed suicide, but I am happy that his death is sparking some motivation on serious issues.
  - thirsteh 14y ago
    Yes. I'm glad something's happening to prevent recurrences, but I hate that it was necessary at all. It's more than likely that no politician would have cared at all if he hadn't killed himself and that had caused a large amount of PR/public outcry. I can't remember the last time I saw a post on Hacker News about donating to Aaron's defense fund, or about how ridiculous the charges against him were. (We already knew about JSTOR--why didn't we care?) There have been at least 300 different posts about him after he killed himself. I blame myself for not doing enough, too, but I don't do something _because_ he committed suicide. This piling-on of posts seems odd and morbid to me. I'd hate to live in a country/world where the best choice if you want to effect change really is to kill yourself. (As a thought exercise to show how the death was "necessary": How much time have you spent caring about/working to assist in a similar, active case after Aaron's suicide?)
    - danso 14y ago
      Don't blame yourself. Aaron and his associates were the closest to the case and it was incumbent upon them to do the PR necessary to raise the outcry. However, according to recent accounts, Aaron felt barred from fully presenting his cause. It was a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't situation for Aaron, which is a damned tragedy.

grannyg00se 14y ago

>I wish that I could lift up the screen on my laptop so that it would be closer to eye-level I thought this the first time I opened my Lenovo T530. It has very solid hinges that look like they could telescope up at least a few inches. But no. The monitor is stuck in place strictly limited to swivel action only. After a while I decided that what I really wanted was a pair of HDMI input sunglasses. Unfortunately that's a no as well.