skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
She has been rumored as a candidate for Governor or Senator, but denies interest (such denials often mean nothing).

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2013/01/...

The Boston Globe named her "Bostonian Of The Year" in 2011.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011...

Like most things, it seems complicated. She's done a lot of good for society, but it looks like she really screwed up in this particular case.
By why is it important that UTC stays in sync with the solar day? The drift is very small, and I see no practical application for a sync in such small amounts.

Most people's local time isn't synced with the solar time anyway (that only happens in the middle of a time zone, and only if there's no crazy stuff like DST going on).

The only people who care about that are probably the astronomy guys, and they already need to adjust their time with other stuff for most observations.
What he did _was_ right. It is the copyright law in this country and this world that's wrong. I find it hard to believe that the DOJ has nothing better to waste our taxpayer money than to go after such a passionate, young, bright mind.

While we can never know the true reason for his action (as no one can know), Aaron is a martyr in this cause, whether he intended it or not. How many more lives must be ruined by this crusade against knowledge before it stops?

RIP.
I already did:

javascript:for(var a=document.querySelectorAll('*'),i=0,e; e=a[i]; i++) if (e.currentStyle.position == 'fixed') e.style.position = 'static'; void(0)

I nicknamed the bookmark "fix", so I can just type "fix" in the address bar to fix those pesky fixed elements.

It works perfectly. Well, I vaguely recall there was one site, where it didn't work, don't remember which one (nor cared to figure out why it didn't). At first I was worried that looping over all elements on a page would be too inefficient, but JS is so fast nowadays, there's no noticeable delay. Also, there's no getElementsByStyle method, so I'm not sure how to even go about optimizing that loop.
What? I need my Death Star!
Message me your email and ill fire it through. A developer at work looked like he would cry when I showed him!
I worked for a toy design firm during the mid-90s. Though I did software, I managed to learn a bit about this stuff (osmosis, helping with CAD/CAM, eavesdropping, etc).

Tool die design for injection modeling is an art, a craft.

Lego's die tools are smaller, meaning they hold many fewer parts. They had more supply channels. So the parts would be formed more uniformly. I forget what they did to ensure the parts cooled more uniformly.

At the time, Mega Blocks were far inferior. The were using larger dies, more parts per die. So their bricks weren't as uniform. We used to bring in lots of other toys for inspection and play testing. I once assembled a Mega Block tank set. It just wouldn't stay together, with ill fitted pieces fighting against each other. The differences weren't even visible to the eye. Lego bricks just had better heft and fit.

Also at the time, and I imagine is still the case, Lego and Playmobile were the gold standards for plastic molding toys.
Oh, I guess he just wanted to point out that it 'happens' just as 'flu' happens or any other disease: it is not something that you try to get and in most cases it is hard to prevent.
> Some JSTOR articles are now free as in beer to the public
"Life is short (or so I’m told)", that pains. Rest in peace.
This type of behavior makes me wonder what the incentive structure is (both financially and socially) for these prosecutors? IMO that's what needs to change if we are going to have any sort of real justice in the future. Going after individuals might make us feel better for a little while, but it won't save the next Aaron Schwartz from the same fate.
Then do something about it.

This prosecutor is quite the collector and displayer of awards: http://www.necc.mass.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Carmen-O...

She is a PR asset to this university: http://www.pr.com/press-release/366324

Evidently some people want her to run for higher office: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2013/01/...

Governor Ortiz? Make sure it isn't: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/12/07/patrick-reported...

And if you are a big biotech company, you can readily negotiate a deal to avoid prosecution: http://www.justice.gov/opa/documents/gsk/plea-ex-k.pdf

Oh, and piling on in the JSTOR case, while pleading down to two years for an actual money-stealing ATM skimmer with real victims: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/11/08/romanian-man-who...

Make sure this black spot eclipses them all. Contact the organizations she is a member of and/or a recipient of some award. Make sure the leadership of that organization knows that she lacks a sense of proportion and that this tendency to overreach cost a good man his life.

Make this an exercise in how to correct these injustices, and make her an example to other prosecutors.
My condolences to you, ma'am. Your son was an inspiration to many people.
Doh! Right you are. Organic brains are so horrible at accurate memory reproduction.
The OP talks about how Aaron needed to be more pragmatic, like a Steve Jobs. I don't disagree...and as much as I admire his almost total-lack of self promotion and the minimalism on his sites, I wonder if Aaron would've felt more of a force had he more of the weight and attention of the world. Think of how much even digital media celebrities like David Pogue can make things happen (Remember how fast police in another state acted when he lost his iPhone? http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/03/technology/david-pogue-iphon...)...

Some tech prodigies have the desire to stay anonymous, but Aaron clearly wanted to be at the forefront of civic action, if not the "spotlight", so to speak. It's unfortunate that his accomplishments and virtues did not attract the celebrity that they deserved.
Yes, this is quite difficult to convey and to explain but some times it seems like you have to just stay on and believe that it will pass.

Because it will pass.

But the hard thing is to believe it and that is where help is needed, I would say.

Thanks.
1 in 3 Americans Have no Paid Sick Days
sorry Alan- u approach this with rational conviction but your emotions have your logic circuitry out of whack. don't take my word for it- come back to this thread in 5 years and you won't recognize the words! i've been there, i know.

that's why we are "life bullies" - because we've made it through tough times and can guarantee that it gets better. if you were a hungry child without a family or a roof over your head, i wouldn't be lecturing you. but then again you wouldn't have time for despair - you'd count every grain of rice as a blessing. buck up, cowboy up, weather the storm. if you feel out of place in this world, do something to make it better. pick up trash, help old people, build a website for a nonprofit.

throw this junk about how you're so special and don't fit in out of the window. being sad doesn't make you special or deep or wise. your life is YOUR LIFE - make it worth living.

if you like books, read Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. it's good perspective shared with the weight of firsthand experience.
ArsDigita Prize 2000 - featuring Aaron Swartz as a finalist
Just reading a bit about his life today is enough to convince me that he was a practical, busy, and enterprising person who tackled problems seriously and systematically. His involvement in various projects shows sustained effort at difficult things. He wasn't "bookish" in the least, if "bookish" means tending to neglect the things outside of books. We should take his suicide as evidence that the techniques that work for other people aren't sufficient for everyone. David Foster Wallace is another example of someone who was well-read in everything from mathematical philosophy to self-help literature, who famously talked about cognitive therapy in a commencement address he gave, who was disciplined enough to write 1100-page, two-and-a-half pound books, and who surely did not want to be so miserable that he would choose to end his own life.

Maybe those of us who are doing okay are more skillful, or maybe we are dealing with more tractable problems. How could we know the difference? What evidence would be relevant to that distinction, if not the fact that people brighter and more accomplished than ourselves have failed?
The issue is that deciding not to pay your taxes means that the dogs are set on you. This is not a free society, unfortunately. Perhaps bitcoin will change all of this. I've been contemplating the idea of a shadow economy where people work remotely and anonymously, getting paid in an anonymous currency and completely circumventing the current economic and political systems.

A fundamental misconception of Bitcoin is that using Bitcoin as a currency will magically obliterate the Government's ability to determine income taxes. The government never has tracked currency for the purposes of determining income. They track transactions in whatever currency or assets the transactions are denominated. Thus, governments have been able to determine taxes since the days of barter, and they will continue to be able to determine taxes until long after Bitcoin is digital dust.
A lot of times one just needs someone to just LISTEN and be sympathetic (that is, supportive without being hypersensitive)...

It may be what is called 'empathy'.
Copyright law is extremely broken, even in the case of academic papers and traditional books / writings. Morality has nothing to do with law, which defines what must or must not be paid for. If it did, we'd still be stoning each other to death over a chicken.
“Generally the minimum cost to defend a federal criminal lawsuit is $1.5 million.”

Wow, the US justice does really need a reform.
You Have Friends
This is perfect. I have no words.
Taxpayers fund my research, so can they just break in and steal "information" (code, plots, draft of papers, etc)? They paid for it, right? The academic publishing industry is not one of my favorites, but they do provide a service to the communities they represent. Circumventing them will eventually destroy the community unless another "open" organization is willing to step in. Many fields (mine included) are so arcane that very few would be interested in making an open publishing venue with the editorial quality we have now.
Anyone know which anti-depressant he's on?
"Please don’t pathologize this story." -- Aaron's friend, Lawrence Lessig

http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bull...
A friend and I developed BoomFax (http://boomfax.com) so that we could send faxes with just our iPhones. Please let us know what you think of the app and the site. Thanks!
I don't mind signing up beforehand as long as the service comes with the option to delete my account and data at will, assuming it doesn't delete itself if I decide not to sign up.

And I don't mean "disable your account until you come to your senses" but "it's like you were never there."
Internet Activist Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide
You have to deal with the syntax of a language regardless.

It's a lot easier to deal with that once you've learned how to program. This is why more experienced developers have an easier time picking up a new language.

They already know what purpose an if statement has or how to combine a few conditions and a loop to do xyz. These are things much easier learned in an environment that scratch provides you.
The question here would be why should the public have to break in in the first place? Why isn't it public info from the start?
http://www.catb.org/esr/continuity.html
Repeating with typos fixed:

Aaron is dead.

Wanderers in this crazy world,
we have lost a mentor, a wise elder.

Hackers for right, we are one down,
we have lost one of our own.

Nurturers, carers, listeners, feeders,
parents all,
we have lost a child.

Let us all weep.

timbl

(I'm heartbroken about Aaron Swartz. He had been helping Beeminder a lot and offered to be an advisor, to be formalized next time he was in Portland. He was a wonderful person.)
The problem is not that Aaron accessed the information; it is that he abused the public resources used to maintain the store of information, and further that he did so in such an egregious matter. He would not have been prosecuted if he had just downloaded a dozen articles, but he downloaded 4 million.
The HN RSS feed is down
I noticed stories stopped loading on my YC iOS app right after reading the news about Aaron Swartz...
Air pollution in Beijing surpasses 'health hazard' levels (Video, Photos)
That's a very poor way to comment, and even insulting to those who are genuinely suffering from mental illness.

Down-voted. Besides that, the fact that you're able to put a comment here (your voice) or anywhere else is first credit to Sir Timbers Lee [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
Yet more banking industry censorship
I think it's difficult to really help others beyond a degree, as they have to get help themselves (this is based on personal experience, I am a severe depressive.)

I think the best you can do is to show them that you understand the illness, share your own experiences and describe things that helped you in the hopes it might help them.

Overall I feel the key advice is to see your doctor. Get help, go + get the most help you can, and don't be ashamed by it. I have got so much better and dealt with things so much better with the help of my doctor and others. No need to go through it all alone.

I've been tempted to write something about my experience with depression recently, but have been worried about the impact it might have on my hire-ability as there is such a stigma to mental illness (I've even been wary of commenting on HN on the subject, in the past.) The sad and tragic news about Aaron tempts me to go ahead and write it in the hopes that maybe somebody will find it useful.
Prosecutors are self-selected to be zealous defenders of the rule of law as it is written. (Quite frequently, people who believe in the rule of law as it is intended choose to go into defense work.)

Thus, they need no financial or social incentives; the work itself is their incenctive, much in the same way that tackling a hard programming program is incentive in itself for a talanted programmer.
This post terrifies me. My own brother has been diagnosed with schizophrenia (then they retracted that diagnosis and came up with a different one), but the bottom line is that he has been suffering for most of his life and it seems like no one can help him. It feels inevitable that a day will come that will bring tragedy in some form or another.

I'm so sorry for your loss.
Incorrect; witness every uterus on earth.
This is going to be dead for the vast majority of HN, but if you ever wondered how HN tends to decline to a monotone, note that the above post got me, at a minimum, IP banned on HN.
Aaron Swartz' robots.txt file
This is quite possibly the worst idea ever.

Let's not just go after one person, let's go after everyone she ever knows, even if they have no involvement in this particular incident? Are you going to suggest we tar, feather, and lynch them too?

Make this an exercise in how to correct these injustices, and make her an example to other prosecutors.

You do this by airing ads against her if she ever runs for office or seeks higher appointment. You do not attack other people associated with her; that crosses the line.
Or really, that entire series of posts, called 'Raw Nerve':
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve
Well, with due respect, we are as entitled as Lawrence to give an explanation and try to find an answer.

What to Lawrence may be 'a reason' to many of us is not: you are valuable even in jail.

So we try to find a better explanation than 'as he did not want to go to jail, he decided to kill himself', which is quite simplistic.
> That's a very poor way to comment, and even insulting to those who are genuinely suffering from mental illness.

Seconded.
[video] Douglas Crockford: Monads and Gonads
in the end, it's a good thing hope's a double-edged sword
Do we really need another news site? Isn't hacker news and bbc.com good enough for everyone?

Why wired? Join the discuss here.
Robert Sapolsky on Depression
> Early on, and to its great credit, JSTOR figured “appropriate” out: They declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its. MIT, to its great shame, was not as clear, and so the prosecutor had the excuse he needed to continue his war against the “criminal” who we who loved him knew as Aaron.

Can someone expound on MIT's role or ability to impact the prosecutor's case against Aaron? Did they aggressively push for some kind of trial? Did they just wash their hands of it? What is the OP referring to?
In my case 2013 may be the year I go back to a steady job.
I wonder if Swartz ever had to deal with that as a kid. He was well-regarded within the tech community before he was a teenager. Maybe he skipped the awkward depressing phase most of us went through and landed straight in success. So new adversity was very uncomfortable for him.

Argh. I hate this. I disagreed with him on so much but I wish he were still alive to argue with. :(
Black Line Added to Hacker News
We are all sincerely sorry for your loss. Condolences.
Federal prosecutors are appointed politically and are political figures. This can sometimes be a good thing because they can be more accountable than a faceless bureaucrat—maybe this prosecutor won’t win her next election because of this—and because they might be more likely to reflect society’s values. For example a prosecutor can decide to be more lenient in some nonviolent drug cases: the police has to investigate and the judge has to convict, but a prosecutor has the discretion to just drop the case. Of course in Aaron’s case we see the dark side of the political
nature of US attorneys.

Fans of The West Wing may remember this quote from Robert Jackson:

“The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous. He can have citizens investigated and, if he is that kind of person, he can have this done to the tune of public statements and veiled or unveiled intimations. Or the prosecutor may choose a more subtle course and simply have a citizen’s friends interviewed. … While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst.

“Your positions are of such independence and importance that while you are being diligent, strict, and vigorous in law enforcement you can also afford to be just. Although the government technically loses its case, it has really won if justice has been done.”

http://www.roberthjackson.org/the-man/speeches-articles/spee...
I cant articulate it properly or fully, but it feels like there is an establishment jealousy or resentment of dot com type people. Kids making too much money and having too much power out side of the "norm" course of business.
Agreed. Many times publicly funded projects are not entirely open, case in point: DoD funded work.
You need to reread that.

Contact her professional network, and let them know you don't approve of her actions. No tar. No feathers. Just make your own opinion known in the circles that matter to her career.
> He was also a key contributor to Markdown

This is no time to speak ill of the dead.
Dear Aaron's mum. There is a lot of wrong in this world, and people like him take it upon themselves, because that's the only way to try to make the world a better place. The evil system is stronger than anyone of us, and chased him down, til it crushed him. I can understand why having lost his hope and lifelines he would feel he could not go on. Many people give up because they cannot find their way out of a wrong system. But I am sure he will be reborn in no time, and next time, he will come back stronger and more capable than before. Let's just pray for his soul and his rebirth.
Suicide Hotlines (USA):
http://suicidehotlines.com/national.html

1-800-SUICIDE

1-800-273-TALK

Please if you are depressed or suicidal seek professional help.
..damn.... kinda weird reading that after the news i just heard. RIP man.
OK this is getting ridiculous.
I think not necessary is the stronger tool here.
Feds go overboard in prosecuting information activist (2012)
I don't mean this as an attack, but I think you're missing the point. First, I doubt you publish significant amounts of code in any published papers. I've read a number of Physics papers and I don't think I've seen more than two lines of code in them. Plots are a different matter, but they'll be highly visible if a paper gains any traction at all.

Second, the taxpayers did fund your research (assuming you research at a university), even if you had to work for that funding, and the results should be publicly available as default. Or can you provide a reason for why it shouldn't?

Personally, I'm biased even without the taxpayer argument since I believe in online learning (duolingo, OCW, etc.). I also know most published papers will only be skimmed at some later date by people highly involved in that field, and so having the information available to interested taxpayers doesn't seem to me to be an issue.
> Taxpayers fund my research, so can they just break in and steal "information" (code, plots, draft of papers, etc).

They should be allowed to make copies of it (in which case it isn't theft). They should not be allowed to deprive you of your copies of the information.
A Moment Before Dying
The prosecutor's job is to charge you with the violation of every statute that the evidence indicates you violated, and use that breadth of charges as leverage in a plea negotiation. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
god, black on that orange is so hard to read
> The new additions bring more than 4.5 million articles from nearly 800 scholarly
> societies, university presses, and academic publishers into the Register & Read
> offerings.

It looks like we only need to register 1.5 million accounts.
I disagree with your edit. There's definitely a systemic problem, but it's a systemic problem with elected officials. Naming, shaming, and voting them out is the solution.
May he rest in peace and his legacy be remembered. That's all.
Seeing the reaction on Hacker News, I think it's fair to say that Aaron had a huge amount of support and following that he might not even have been aware of himself.

Life and surroundings can become very tough when people are up against seemingly insurmountable odds, but I think it's worth keeping faith that there are enough likeminded souls out there, even if it's hard to keep in touch with them all - Aaron and Ilya won't be forgotten.
Someone should start a whitheouse petition to question the anachronistic laws that allowed the threat of this sort of ludicrous punishment to be within the realm of possibility....
That is appalling. Effectively, by simply charging someone with a crime, the government is actually immediately convicting them of a crime with a de facto punishment of a $1.5 million fine. Forcing someone to pay $1.5 million to defend themselves, is, in and of itself, depriving that person of property without due process of law, and therefore a violation of the fifth amendment.
the blog links through to this article, which I found quite insightful: http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2011/07/articles/series/sp...
Suicide and society: Where does responsibility for preventing suicide lie?
I wonder if "making something" as a tribute to Aaron would be appropriate. This article puts a lot of emphasis on "code as poetry" and that really resonates with me.

So maybe today I'll make something. For Aaron.
> Morally wrong to download taxpayer-funded research? I'm sorry Larry, you lost me.

Then you've got a pretty significant misunderstanding of Larry, especially as he clarifies what he found morally wrong in the next phrases of the paragraph:

> The causes that Aaron fought for are my causes too. But as much as I respect those who disagree with me about this, these means are not mine.