Aaron Swartz is the founder of Demand Progress , which launched the campaign against the Internet censorship bills (SOPA/PIPA) and now has over a million members. He is also a Contributing Editor to The Baffler and on the Council of Advisors to The Rules.
Visit aaronsw.com → On Hacker News Aug 2008 – Jun 2021
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This page was created by Aaron Swartz in 2003 detailing what, at the time, he would like to be performed in event of his decease. Aaron passed away in January 2013. This page was not updated between those dates, so it has now been updated to assist the general public.
There are three questions you have when you’re hiring a programmer (or anyone, for that matter): Are they smart? Can they get stuff done? Can you work with them? Someone who’s smart but doesn’t get stuff done should be your friend, not your employee. You can talk your problems over with them while they procrastinate…
I was talking with a friend the other day about that perennial subject of conversation in the Valley, Google. And finally she gave me the clue that made the whole place make sense. “It’s about infantilizing people,” she explained. “Give them free food, do their laundry, let them sit on bouncy brightly-colored balls…
Editorial note: This entry has more dialogue and so on than usual and I’m pretty uncertain about ordering and attribution, so don’t start changing your opinions of people on the basis of things I say they said.
When you first begin to exercise, it’s somewhat painful. Not wildly painful, like touching a hot stove, but enough that if your only goal was to avoid pain, you certainly would stop doing it. But if you keep exercising… well, it just keeps getting more painful. When you’re done, if you’ve really pushed yourself, you…
You want to get something done. But it’s too big to do it by yourself, so you bring in some friends to help out. In your dreams, all your friends just “click”, understand exactly what it is they’re all supposed to do, and do it quickly and effective. In reality, this almost never happens.