A great loss
The technology community and whole world lost a great person two years ago today.
Aaron Swartz • November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013
I did not know Aaron well at all, and we’d only exchanged some brief email and Twitter communications.
One time, he mentioned that ᏣᎳᎩ (Cherokee) was his favorite name for a language.
I strongly agreed and had also gotten the letters ᏣᎳᎩ tattooed on my body, so I responded:
@aaronsw Me too, but it’s in my blood & inked on my arm. :-)
— 42-Byte Nonce (@brianshumate) March 25, 2011
He then asked me for a pic:
@brianshumate pic?
— Aaron Swartz (@aaronsw) March 25, 2011
I replied with a photo from my Instagram account. Since I don’t have that Instagram account any longer, I’ll share locally what I replied with on that day:
A typical brief exchange on Twitter — I’d also expressed interest in some of his personal projects and working with him on those, but we’d never managed to make that happen.
Thanks for everything
Aaron was an exceptional human who exerted incredible amounts of energy in the true hacker spirit while pursuing a never-ending quest for knowledge. He also made some significant changes in this world.
Here are some things he did or helped to do:
- He helped with development of RSS
- He helped with development of Markdown
- He helped organize Creative Commons
- He created web.py
- He helped to build reddit
- He founded Demand Progress
- He was instrumental in helping to defeat SOPA
This is of course, a fantastic track record and a list of solid contributions for a person of such a young age.
If you are unfamiliar with the life of Aaron Swartz, you can learn a little about him and some of his life by watching the documentary The Internet’s Own Boy.
We miss you
Many people miss Aaron and the list of those who actually knew him well includes a lot of other great people doing awesome work all over the world.
I can’t help wonder what he could have accomplished if he could have remained here with us, and I think that we all wonder about that a lot.
That the U.S. government bullied him until he apparently could no longer live a peaceful existence represents a low point in American history that is unfortunate, sad, and most tragic.
I am frequently saddened by the loss of Aaron to his family, friends, and to our greater community of nerds who appreciated him, and also upset that I missed the opportunity to know him better.
While I am sad for the loss of such potential he could have continued to share with us, I am happy that he lived, and shared what he could with us while he was here.
I will always celebrate the life of Aaron Swartz, and all he gave to us.
Rest in peace, Aaron.