skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Skip the line. I'm always amazed what can happen with a witty an well-timed email to the right person.

I suggest google stalking some people and make a linkedin account immediately.

Once you find your people, send them a direct and brief email outlining what you want and how they can help you.

I landed a few really good gigs doing just this.
> Going after her without changing the laws will not work.

Making it a political liability for prosecutors to act a certain way will surely influence things.
"I have no faith in the 'justice' system. Perhaps my actions today, and this letter, will send a stronger message to the public. Either way, I have lost control over this situation, and this is my only way to regain control. I die free."

That is a sad and powerful statement.
Agreed, Aaron was my hero and the hero of the common man and woman. Steve Jobs was a douchebag who would have died if he didn't get support from charity (e.g. walking for miles to a Church and standing in line for hours to get free food). When it was his time to give back, he ended all philanthropic projects at Apple when he retook control. The profit margin Steve Jobs earned on his products was much higher than the average evil, soulless corporation therefore I would term him as a more evil than the average selfish billionaire or CEO.
I've read through the case - I understand what happened.

It's just that everything that was described was the type of thing that my university had to deal with all of the time. People were always spoofing MAC addresses, trying to get onto privileged VLANs, and the Campus IT was always playing Cat and Mouse with them, and, in a very, very few rare circumstances where the student did something really stupid, brought Campus Police into the conversation.

But Campus police was the absolute escalation - I don't ever recall my university calling in the RCMP (Canadian Federal Police, and municipal as well) to investigate someone doing the equivalent of what Aaron had done.

I absolutely agree with Aaron's parents. MIT and the Prosecutor over-reacted, and, when the truth of the matter surfaced, failed to course correct.
I am only vaguely familiar with Aaron Swartz, so the magnitude of the response on this site surprised me and reminds me of the HN front page when Steve Jobs died: http://www.waybackletter.com/archive/20111005.html
Reddit-Mitgründer und RSS-Co-Autor: Wunderkind Aaron Swartz ist tot
Duplicate of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5049624
I have 40 mbit through CenturyLink (DSL) in Utah as well. Not as awesome as fiber (inconsistent latency), but the competition from UTOPIA/iProvo does seem to drive speeds higher. Wish this were more common in other parts of the country.

I only pay 30/mo (35 or so after modem rental) on a promotion, 45 or so afterwords without contract. I'm thinking of switching to veracity unless I move to a UTOPIA city.

Good times in Utah...
They made a choice to involve the feds.

Yes, because someone -- they did not know who, but someone -- kept on breaking into their network. Over and over and over and over.

handled internally

He wasn't a student.

the result would have been effective from their viewpoint

They kept on telling him "no" and he kept on going in anyway. It seems you think the 13th time they told him "no" he would have stopped, when he ignored the first 12 times.

By the time you get to the police chasing someone through the halls, you have passed the point where you can expect to get away with "a stern talking to." (I shouldn't have to say it, but I will anyway: that doesn't mean that a Federal prosecution for decades in prison is the proper response, either.)
So now you have 1 piece of general data (4pm is an OK time to go shopping) and one piece of specific data (not in Spain).

With a global UTC system, you have to remember that in Spain you can shop from 1100 - 1700, but in Melbourne you can shop from 1900 - 0700. In New York you can shop from 0800 - 1600.

Every single place will have it's own data you have to remember, not one piece of general information plus a few specific pieces.
People handle adversity differently. It seems Aaron had internal pressures and this trial had definitely increased these pressures.
You're being sensational and honestly rather rude. The left has dedicated programs just as the right does. If he was a tea party guy, he would basically be fighting for the same cause: an open government. You ought to keep in mind that the tea party started from the Ron Paul movement before it was, for all intents & purposes, hijacked by the traditional right.

The right and left often come together when it comes to restraining the rights of citizens (patriot act?). Don't demonize the right and put a halo around the left, it only serves to propagate the right/left paradigm that the Americans are already trapped in. We need the right & left coming together on open government issues. I feel good when politicians such as Dennis Kucinich come together with the libertarian-wing of the Right to push for things like Audit the Fed.

Finally, I find your comment rather ironic since it was the left who put this woman into power in 2009 and God knows she is, as you say, "protected". If Obama ever does come about this (doubtful), he will have all the excuses in the book ready for her pardon. The right was vehemently opposed to just about anyone the left selected, but perhaps if the right had their way, it wouldn't have been Carmen M Ortiz in power and maybe Aaron wouldn't be dead. But that's the kinda what-if talk that's just immature at the end of the day.
Great article, I will recommend it to every js beginner.
From what I have observed in myself and others, I suspect coding is something that anyone can learn to do. Some people may be particularly predisposed, but for others, effort can go a very long way to compensate. A lot of programming knowledge can be built up in small steps, and I don't think there is any innate pre-requisite for being able to make these steps.
Aaron sounds like an idealist in an extreme sense. He probably did not feel that what he did was wrong, and that accepting the label of 'felon' was an affront to the truth.
It sounds like you're damning ALGOL 68 with faint praise. C++ is the exemplar of complexity and ad-hoc features.

If you asked me how my blind date went, and I reply, "She smelled better than the inside of a septic tank," I'm sure you would know what's up.
I strongly disagree with what you said about self-control and "emotional intelligence". Depression is always caused/triggered by multiple factors. And in Aarron Swartz's case, you have to understand that he was going through a lot of stress and pressure at a very young age. Were you being put into Swartz's position, how could you handle that amount of stress? Everyone perceives things differently. To you, one thing may seem trivial but to others, it may seem important. Maybe to Swartz, this whole thing is a big insult to him. You would never know what he is going through. The fact that you are implying Swartz's lack of "emotional intelligence" makes me wonder if you have much emotional intelligence because a big component of emotional intelligence is empathy and reasoning from other's perspective.
How we stopped SOPA
John Fox belongs in a Fortune 500 Company, Not a Startup
So far 88 Seeds & 261 Leechers.

I think its fair to donate some money to JSTOR. Even if its 1-10$ they can recover their losses & may be even profit for digitizing.

If they can open a small donation channel I would like to donate & thank them. Make knowledge easily accessible to all & we should encourage it.
The iOS reset form is broken
PCHTTP
India would have been one possibility. We have hosted the Dalai Lama long enough.... and I would say ever since the U. S. started denying extradition of the 26/11 suspects, they wouldn't have had a lot of friends in the establishment here.
Oh .. is that the problem? No, opened it in chrome, still an annoying turn-the-page interface. No idea what everyone is talking about. Maybe you need a scroll wheel on your mouse?

I have ABSOLUTELY no problem tracking scrolling text as I read it. I think pagination is of the devil. We could have paginated the web in '93, but the beauty of the web is pages can be endless.
Why Young Hackers Are Killing Themselves
7Zip and other apps being ported to WinRT, ARM app store in the works
Thank you for this.

Depression at any level is very real and very serious. Most people will tell you to talk to friends and family. You will be alone, it will be hard; but most importantly, you will be OK. It does get better.
>It serves no one to make a single prosecutor the scapegoat for a whole system and a whole set of bad laws that need to be changed.

It sends a message that we are not satisfied with the way she ran her office.

>There are a thousand prosecutors who are no better just waiting to take that job.

Then they better learn from Ortiz's failure or be removed by the same process. Eventually someone will figure out that this kind of behavior is not acceptable.

>We're going after Ortiz because we think it will satisfy our outrage and grief.

No, I'm upset with Ortiz because this should not have happened. Absolutely no legitimate reason for them to pursue this if JSTOR has no problem.
I agree on the shockingly poor taste.

But if you follow the link for RSS 1.0, you end up on a page (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/syndication/message/372) with a list of names that doesn't include Aaron. Then it says:
The proposal has been published online at:
http://purl.org/rss/1.0/

Which says: "This document is maintained by Aaron Swartz of watchdog.net on behalf of the RSS-DEV Working Group." This suggests somewhat of a lesser role, although maintaining the document is still not insignificant.

However if you follow the other link on the yahoo message page (which is described as "a working group on the
newly-created RSS-DEV mailing list") to http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-dev/ then Aaron is listed as a member of the working group.

I would interpret this as roughly that initially Aaron was a "maintainer of the document" up to the point it was initially released, and then became part of the working group that presumably did modify/maintain the document after its initial release. And I would hazard a guess that he made contributions that were the impetus for changing his role from "maintainer of the document" to member of the working group.

My point being that the link DW posted for RSS 1.0 does actually point to Aaron's contribution, just at one remove.
The End of the University
I suspect that having a lost prosecution on her record would be more harmful to her own goals than helpful to the goals of any causes, so this explanation seems unlikely to me.
or both for next level mode!
Bye Aaron. An awakening.
I think those calling for her resignation want to send a more general message about prosecutorial bullying, not just copyright policy.
If you did it every time, sure. That's called changing the system. Sacking one engineer for breaking one build and then going back to encouraging all the other engineers for making as many commits as possible, and giving raises and promotions to engineers who make the most commits, while sweeping all the other broken builds under the rug, would just be scapegoating.

Just like this is, actually.
I want to point out the black banner that's riding above the navigation bar...
It is a testament to how control of this country has been completely wrested from the hands of the middle class since the 60s and 70s and taken over by megacorporations, the military-industrial complex, and the ultrawealthy. I recently read about this phenomenon in the book Who Stole the American Dream?, by Hedrick Smith[0]. I highly recommend it.

The first signs of change appeared in the 2012 election, as the young people voted for marijuana legalization (and gay marriage) in two states and the hundreds of millions spent by the wealthy on campaign ads (enabled by the Citizens United ruling) failed to produce material results. Unfortunately, it appears that the older generations' viewpoints are largely stagnant, so this change will probably have to occur one funeral at a time.

0: http://www.amazon.com/Who-Stole-American-Dream-ebook/dp/B007...
Best sid mashup
Better than just paying for mistakes is learning to prevent them the next time. If every major mistake anyone made was accompanied by an impartial failure analysis instead of finger pointing and scapegoating, society would advance much more quickly.
You shouldn't do it the day after he died. You should mourn him and let his loved ones mourn him.

And what part of forcing a single attorney out of her job is "greater change"? What part of that is being "proud"?
I don't understand the apologists' response to this.

"She's just doing her job"
"She was only acting in what she believed to be right"
"She's just good at her job."

Do I have to remind everyone here that we're actually just humans living amongst one another and the overarching rule of thumb is: Do No Harm?

Seriously. When it's someone in the private sector doing wrong, everyone wants to come out and demonize the person, but as soon as it's a person in the public office, it's as if we immediately start finding excuses for them.

Wake up. Someone's life was demolished because it seemed like a good case to pick up. "Stealing is illegal," she said. Well ok, so is marijuana possession, jay-walking, and smoking inside restaurants. I'm not too sure I can get behind any of these _morally_. Victimless crimes don't need a federal prosecutor coming in and slamming 30+ years at a person. It's just not right.

Like many others here, I want to know why she chose this case. Aaron single-handedly put an end to SOPA by gathering huge amounts of support. Imagine if he could have went on? Imagine the impact he could have made on this world? Does the government fear this? Does silencing him just as they are doing the Wikileaks founder ensure their own sick agenda?

Before we rush to Carmen Ortiz's defense, why don't we ask these questions, yea? Because it's not like we can't find another federal prosecutor -- perhaps one who has more moral integrity than to sentence a 26 yr old GENIUS to a life in prison.
I have a friend who has a Master's in Entertainment Arts & Engineering (with and emphasis on the arts) and is going back to get a bachelor's in computer science for this very reason. Maybe it's overkill, but he's definitely tired of depending on other people to build his stuff for him.
Wasn't the whole thing that they allowed free unrestricted access to the JSTOR database from MIT IP addresses?

All Aaron Swartz did was jack into an Ethernet port in a closet that was unlocked in an MIT building, and get an IP address from an unsecured network at MIT, and then wrote some Python scripts to work as a web robot and pull down articles. The web robot did the same thing as any user at MIT could do, read and download papers.

So yes it is possible to allow free, unrestricted access, JSTOR just decides to only do that to certain IP ranges. If they allowed that with everyone, Aaron wouldn't have to jack his laptop into an unused open closet to pull articles.

In fact there was no real crime committed, other than trespassing at MIT, and MIT didn't press any charges to that effect.
Academic journals are an obsolete historical appendage of academia
That would be the right thing to do. You will still have more time left when you can earn money but you won't have as much time to help your parents if you choose to be selfish today.
Nor MIT.

Which actually surprised me a bit, due to the culture of hacks/pranks that used to be common over there.
If you're removing anyone, remove Holder. Ortiz is just a fall guy. The entire DOJ is run this way, that's why Ortiz got the job in the first place. If Ortiz gets the sack, it will be as apologetically as possible, and her successor will be instructed to do the same damn things if not worse.

If the Feds think our outrage will be satisfied by sacrificing one prosecutor, that's all they will do, and they will do it gladly, and that will be the end of that. They will sacrifice their pawn and checkmate us.
What you're quoting refers to the scaling of the axis after all the values are computed. This affects the numbers on the Y-axis, but not the shape of the graph.

The issue wting was raising is the definition of search volume. If search volume means "raw total number of searches", then the graph might support the OP's conclusion (if, e.g., we assume the population remained the same and that the same set of people aren't increasing the number of times they search for 'software consulting'). If, on the other hand, it means "fraction of all searches containing the term", then it might not because, as wting points out, the fraction of searches for 'software consulting' may go down due to a flood of searches for, say, 'honey boo boo'.
This is the state of America, a kid with a laptop will go to jail for 30 + years and a banker cunt that stole billions or laundered billions for drug cartels gets nothing.

How sad it all is.
> MIT is an academic organization and is committed to, well, academics, not politics

Politics is too important to be left to politicians. If you refuse to take control over your environment, you cannot expect it to remain friendly to you, for you are no longer a force shaping it. Academics is politics.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak would have been persecuted for the Blue Box if they did it today.

The government has been like this for a long time. But it sure feels like they have accelerated on behalf of their corporate paymasters.
is there an instruction on how to compile an existing code project for RT?
These prosecutors routinely single out individuals for harsh treatment to "send a message". Turnabout is fair play.
Looks like Steve Heymann has a history of this:

"The case was picked up by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann in Boston, the cybercrime prosecutor who won a record 20-year prison stretch for TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez. Heymann indicted Aaron on 13 counts of wire fraud, computer intrusion and reckless damage. The case has been wending through pre-trial motions for 18 months, and was set for jury trial on April 1." [1]

Appears that Jonathan James and Aaron Swartz both had the same prosecutor after them...

[1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/aaron-swartz/
I signed this petition. It is the first Whitehouse petition I've ever signed.

I think its an oversimplification to rest all of the blame for Swartz's death on his prosecutor.

However, unnecessary, overzealous prosecution is wrong, and it has consequences - things like this are going to happen when you push people to the edge just because you can.

If this petition receives enough signatures it will force the White House to consider the issue. I do not expect them to remove Carmen Ortiz, but I do expect them to address the reality of overzealous prosecution. It is worth taking a few seconds to ask them to do that.
Using closures to encapsulate private variables is a good idea, but the way this article recommends doing it doesn't demonstrate any of the benefit as it doesn't really close over anything. I don't know if it's an example of good JS code, but something like the basic closure definition of a counter might have better demonstrated the ability to hide state:

var counter = (function () {
var i = 0;

return function () {
i += 1;
return i;
}
}());

Where the internal variable, i, is inaccessible to anything but the counter function itself.
Well I mean the guy commited crimes and entered private systems. Its not like he is innocent. Are you saying you want it to be legal to hack into any random system in the world ? (that would remove all the fun of hacking)

PS: And I have done some hacking, stolen some files, financial information a long time ago, but I agree that it is highly illegal and should be punished and I do regret my actions. Thankfully I stopped before it was too late
Cruising on Mars in 3D
1) A bad check is a state level offense, not a federal offense, and the discretion afforded to state and local prosecutors is far greater than the discretion afforded federal prosecutors (though federal prosecutors have broader powers).

2) They may have prioritized murders and rapes over crimes, such as bad-check-passing, that can be remedied in a civil courtroom. That's generally what happens when state and local budgets get cut. For example, in 2009 and 2010, San Bernardino and Riverside counties simply did not enforce drug possession charges for meth or marijuana for quantities below the dealer amount because they didn't have the prosecutorial resources to handle those cases after prioritizing violent crimes.

3) HIRE A LAWYER. Winning a case against him in civil court for passing a bad check is pretty much guaranteed to spawn a criminal case because you'll have handed the prosecutors their case; they won't have to redirect many resources away from serious crimes.
Find me anything in our universe that isn't, in effet, an infinite chain of purpose (or cause, if you will).

Just because the "purpose" of the cosmos is irreconcilable with the purpose that one being defines for themselves, doesn't mean that purpose is nonsensical.

I use the word nonsensical over the word irrational, because there are many things in the world which you would term irrational. One of them is the emergence of intelligence (yes, you can rationalize this as an evolutionary adaption, but the basis of everything is irrational, so who cares?). Irrational though it is, we are still, to some extent, rational minds trapped in this irrational world. To dispose of any presupposition as irrational, simply for the sake of logical consistency, is an irresponsible way to live.

It is neither rational nor irrational to live as a solipsist. It is simply an axiom on which you base the rest of your rationalizations. Choose your axioms wisely, and the world will unfold accordingly.
It is a slightly embellished (but based on his real life) narrative of him coming back from a vacation in Europe, dealing with some sort of stomach flu for about a week, getting fired from Reddit, and getting all emo about it.
Our government used to hire the brilliant minds who taught us about our security flaws. See here for RTM: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/08/us/living-with-the-compute...

Even Sean Parker of Napster, Facebook, and now Spotify glory was offered a job when he was younger. Somehow something changed in the past 10 years.
Try San Diego Airport Limo by SEAL, 858-224-5474
Remove DA Carmen Ortiz from office for overreach in the case of Aaron Swartz
On what grounds? That they reported a crime, that lead to an overzealous prosecution even after JSTOR said they had no interest in pressing charges, that may or may not have been the reason, or a reason, someone took their life.

People here and in other friends are discussing what they consider a blatant misuse of the law. To my mind, attempting to sue MIT for responsibility in Swartz's death would be a similar misuse.
Thanks so far to everyone who answered. Some great answers here!
What is MIT's tort? Investigating a repeat hacker violating physical building and network security?
author here, it wasn't about hiding private variables. i was demonstrating using closures to avoid global namespace collisions which i think is generally a big problem for beginners.
Hackers as a High-Risk Population
As another anecdote, despite having two technical co-founders for my first startup, I taught myself how to code. I consider it the best move I've made in the last 5 years.

Now on my 2nd startup, my highly technical co-founder recently left. If I hadn't learned how to code, I'd be in full panic mode right now. Going from "the business guy" a couple years ago to being able to build an MVP is huge.
The majority of people are not doing their jobs if your definitions are that strict. Sad but true.
The point remains that the prosecutor did not kill him. He killed himself. Just trying to bring down the hyperbole on this thread... Speaking of which:

In reality he would have gone to a while collar prison and would have gotten the counseling he obviously needed.
(edit spelling)
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