Aaron Swartz
Aaron Swartz is overleden. Op 26-jarige leeftijd koos hij zijn eigen dood. Daar ben ik even heel stil van. Aaron was een internet activist en blogger van het eerste uur. Samen met anderen ontwikkelde hij RSS 1.0, de basis van de nieuwsgaring op internet. Via rss verneem ik zijn dood.
Aaron Swartz staat met zijn weblog na vele jaren nog steeds in mijn nieuwslezer. Hij was iemand. Bloggers citeerden hem. Hij was een autoriteit. Zijn laatste blogpost dateert van 1 november verleden jaar.
Guardian: "Swartz dedicated much of his time to fighting internet censorship and his court case had become a cause célèbre for many similar-minded figures. A social-justice lawyer, Bettina Neuefeind, had established a website to raise money for his defence."
Aaron Swartz: "Words of Advice
What's the secret? How can I boil down things I do into pithy sentences that make myself sound as good as possible? Here goes:
Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. I think a lot of what people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.
Say yes to everything. I have a lot of trouble saying no, to an pathological degree -- whether to projects or to interviews or to friends. As a result, I attempt a lot and even if most of it fails, I've still done something.
Assume nobody else has any idea what they're doing either. A lot of people refuse to try something because they feel they don't know enough about it or they assume other people must have already tried everything they could have thought of. Well, few people really have any idea how to do things right and even fewer are to try new things, so usually if you give your best shot at something you'll do pretty well.
I followed these rules. And here I am today, with a dozen projects on my plate and my stress level through the roof once again.
Every morning I wake up and check my email to see which one of my projects has imploded today, which deadlines I'm behind on, which talks I need to write, and which articles I need to edit.
Maybe, one day, you too can be in the same position. If so, I hope I've done something to help."
Het voelt alsof er een zwart gat geslagen is in de internet gemeenschap.