Aaron was a terrific young man. He contributed a lot to the world in his short life and I regret the loss of all the things he had yet to accomplish. As you can imagine, we all miss him dearly. The grief is unfathomable.
Aaron's mother
He did more in his short life than most of us will do in much longer ones, but he'll inspire for many years to come.
I wish you and yours much strength.
You should always be proud of him.
Your son will never die. For the soul never dies. Also his beauty lives in our memory, and learned aspiration. This world wil never be the same again, as he left a very strong mark, the mark of a beautiful soul. The world has been touched. Your son is a legend.
Your son brought me closer to you.
Katia leitao
Many people had immense respect for your son. He was seen as a good person. Clever, decent, principled, kind, generous.
> The grief is unfathomable.
I cannot understand the depths of that grief. But yes, the grief is unfathomable.
I wish you and yours much strength.
If you hit someone with enough felony counts sooner or later something can snap. This in response to those that claim the DOJ didn't have anything to do with Aaron killing himself.
For some people the mere fact of being suspected of a crime they didn't commit is enough to push them over the edge. When you're placed in a holding cell the police will remove your laces from your boots so you don't hang yourself, that's how heavy being imprisoned can weigh on some.
Aaron did something that he thought was right, that he truly believed in and that upset a large number of applecarts and that had far reaching implications, had the proverbial book thrown at him and then some. The prospect of significant amounts of jail time (35 years for downloading scientific papers, it shouldn't even be a crime) and/or a felony record must have weighed very heavy on him.
For a person that is of a very stable mental make-up that would already be extreme pressure.
For someone with a mental issue it may very well be all it takes.
Aaron was inspiring to me, I think that no copyrighted piece of paper is worth a human life and that the DOJ, even if they are not directly responsible at least indirectly carry some of the responsibility here for beating down someone who was fighting for an extremely good cause in a somewhat haphazard way. The letter of the law and the spirit of the law should both be taken into account.
I hope those that had a hand in Aarons' continued prosecution will sleep miserably for a long time to come. Likely it won't weigh on their consciousness at all.
Maybe being indicted while free may even be a bigger psychological pressure on somebody than being in prison. When you are in prison, you can focus all your energy on your case, and the situation can only get better than your current one, not worse. You have certain legal protections, and your basic needs are taken care of.
Imagine having to work a job to earn an income (your assets probably being seized) and function in society with a constant feeling of danger looming ahead. They can fuck up your life one little piece at a time. Imagine working on your defence when the computer you are using to do so can be seized at any time (some DA having convinced a judge that you may be hacking right now). Imagine restrictions on travel that make making a living even more difficult. Imagine randomly being delivered a letter with one more bogus charge.
While being free seems to be better than in prison from an objective point of view, given the workings of the threat detection system in our mind, made for tigers in the savannah, not constant worry and fear, it may be much worse. It is well known that the functioning of our "higher" abilities like creativity and critical thinking are impaired under constant stress. It's easy to conceive what this means for the feeling of self worth of somebody who lives for doing cool, meaningful, big things (one of my favourite essays ever, btw): http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/productivity
Also, it neatly avoids the aura of illegitimacy that imprisoning peaceful activists would have for a government.
One lesson that could be learned from this is to try and consciously provide people in his situation with an environment that feels safe. Nut just a fund for legal and living expenses and therapy to cope with the stress, but much more importantly, reliable relationships with people who are supporting, compassionate and willing to listen.
Aaron makes a parallel between the Batman movie and his own struggles, highlighting the corruption of the system and how the Joker was actually the only "sane" person in an insane world. Sadly, he decided to pursue the same path as Heath Ledger.
Can we stop the speculations until we actually know what happened? :-(
I would even argue that it's often the opposite; adversity gives motivation and meaning; meaninglessness is more dangerous.
People I knew who committed suicide did it when they enjoyed a limited level of success. For instance, twenty years ago I was an actor in a play by an author who had been trying to make it for years. This play was a (moderate) success. Two days after the last show, the author jumped out of a window in his grandmother's apartment.
It baffled everyone around him, but I think the reason is that success didn't bring him the joy he thought it would bring. There wasn't anything left to look forward to.
They're not the same.
There are the conditions for suicide, and then there's the impulse that drives it to happen. The first is visible and appears over a long period of time-- felony convictions, mental instability, or extreme career adversity-- but it never seems that things are that bad (especially because a lot of people refuse to admit that good things can happen to bad people). The second is fairly sudden and seems "random". This is why suicides are so unexpected. A person can seem to be "not that bad off" one day, and the next day, commit suicide.
The scary thing is that the first kind of conditions are being more common. We have:
* draconian sentences for minor crimes, including drug possession, white-hat hacking, and file sharing, * an increasing willingness of corporations to use extreme and illegal career adversity (e.g. blacklisting) against whistleblowers, * increasing difficulty for a person to "re-invent" him- or herself in the wake of a bad reputation.
Thirty years ago, if your life got fucked up, you could pull a Don Draper. You could pay people off to represent themselves as past employers and reconstruct your career under an alternate name, and move halfway across the country. (I don't consider this unethical in the context of radical reinvention, providing that you're not feigning competences you lack or defrauding people.) In 2013, that's becoming increasingly hard to do.
Of course, if everything was alright, I would have loved to see Aaron existing in this world for many more years and do wonderful things but not knowing what led him to this step and how he judged the current/future life for himself. Simply commenting that he should not have committed suicide is being insensitive to a person who has already done so much great work for humanity.
Life is not always better than no life. Context matters. A lot.
Depressed people are not perfectly rational agents. By the time you are contemplating suicide, it's not even close.
And depression is a factor in almost every suicide.
Depression is insidious because it makes all the alternatives to suicide seem much more difficult than they actually are.
People around the world go through tough times. For some the path is eased by good friends, family, "miracles", etc. For others the path becomes too difficult to tackle. In the end the person chooses not to fight any longer. As much as we should respect this decision, we should also remember that many people avoid that decision to end life and actually become happier in life. Sometimes you may be just an inch away from being saved.
Every person who has every felt disturbed and suicidal and did not take the step, probably feels good about not taking the step. So if you ask me personally I would differ and say we should help each other till the last moment, never give up.
This news is horrifying and only sadness to me, I don't think it was a healthy choice.
We really need to address the stigma of depression in this country and make it easy and painless to ask for help. That help should be free and readily available.
All this as a long ways to get around to saying: I disagree with anything that may consider suicide appropriate in any situation as one persons personal decision and situation becomes an example or model that someone in a similar situation could look to. But, I also don't think anyone should say a particular person should not have committed suicide. Instead, what should be said is a particular person should not have felt the need to commit suicide.
Because of that brain disorder, perhaps because it was not attacked with the requisite treatment, he is dead.
If you or a loved one are ever feeling suicidal, depressed, or are acting abnormally erratic, contact an expert. It's nothing to be ashamed about. It's just a lottery of genetic expression.
There are others going through the same thing. There are excellent treatments available, and they get better each year. You might save someone's life.
http://www.reddit.com/r/suicidewatch http://www.reddit.com/r/depression http://www.reddit.com/r/bipolarreddit
I find it bizarre how quickly our minds jump to impossibly unlikely reasons when tragic events like this happen. Troubles with the justice department don't alone cause a bright young man to kill himself.
> I was miserable. I couldn't stand San Francisco. I couldn't stand office life. I couldn't stand Wired. I took a long Christmas vacation. I got sick. I thought of suicide. I ran from the police. And when I got back on Monday morning, I was asked to resign.
> 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.
https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying
> I have a lot of illnesses. I don’t talk about it much, for a variety of reasons. I feel ashamed to have an illness. (It sounds absurd, but there still is an enormous stigma around being sick.)
> Sadly, depression (like other mental illnesses, especially addiction) is not seen as “real” enough to deserve the investment and awareness of conditions like breast cancer (1 in 8) or AIDS (1 in 150). And there is, of course, the shame.
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/verysick
In his short life Aaron has produced a wonderful collection of writing, code, and actions, which will all be available for years to come. He will be missed. His effects have not yet ceased.
A potential to spend a longer part of his life than he has already lived in prison, will probably have a serious impact on anyone's mental state.
His blog was thought-provoking. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/
His work on the RSS 1.0 Specification enabled richer, more efficient information consumption. http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/spec
His work on Markdown enabled intuitive, unobtrusive formatting and structuring of information in plaintext and conversion to HTML. http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/#acknowledgement...
His work on reddit enabled thousands—now millions—to share online information in a social manner. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rewritingreddit
His work on the web.py framework gave countless Python programmers a head-start on serving information through web applications. http://webpy.org/
His work with DemandProgress gave Americans a political voice to protect and win back their freedom and the freedom of information. http://blog.demandprogress.org/people
His work with Creative Commons promoted the freedom of information and fair use and helped inform content creators of options other than copyright. http://creativecommons.org/
Thank you, Aaron Swartz, for all the above and all the other activism and works (https://github.com/aaronsw) I haven't mentioned here. You'll be missed and remembered by many.
.
This guy was definitely making a positive impact in the world.
EDIT: The guy was facing 13 felony counts for downloading academic articles.
You can disagree with the laws of the land, protest them, even violate them in protest assuming you are willing to pay the consequences.
You can blame the country, its politicians, or its voters for having bad laws. You can't blame those entities for this suicide. That was his choice, and it's unfortunate he will not be around to make his case.
This feels a bit inappropriate but at the moment I hope that some members of the US Attorney's Office are wracked by guilt.
RIP Aaron, you were too soon for this world.
May he be remembered well; he seems to deserve it.
I winced when I got to that. It's sad to think this isn't the first time he's had these thoughts and how long he must have had them. Rest in peace.
Definitely. He wrote a bunch of blogposts last year on improving life, called "Raw Nerve": http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve
Wonderful writing.
Depression is treatable. If you find that you are thinking about suicide, even speculatively, seek help immediately.
You are not alone and it will get better.
Those who deny that that had anything to do with this, and it was only a "brain disorder" or other such claptrap are truly insane.
I've had students who for years were systematically abused and tortured by adults. This abuse caused them pain, distress, depression, and suicide ideation, not a chemical imbalance. Despite this, counselors they saw diagnosed them as having a chemical imbalance and pumped them full of pills that have psychosis and suicide as known and documented side effects.
Who is insane in this situation? Who is responsible for the damage it causes when a young person is targeted for destruction by sociopaths and it causes them to crack? A chemical imbalance? Not the things that are being done to them by others intentionally trying to harm them?
This attitude justifies the abuse of people. This attitude leads to suicide. This attitude needs to stop.
Looking back at his activity on github he was pulling in commits less than a week ago:
https://github.com/aaronsw?tab=activity
I don't know details about the "JSTOR" case or about what he did at Reddit but I can see in his code that he cared and wanted to make something better, smaller and elegant. I respect that and it is a loss to have him gone forever.
It was a bummer when I saw the headline, but I'm really, really upset now that I was reminded of his legal troubles.
Suicide is complex, so I don't want to speculate on whether or not he committed suicide to avoid a trial and probably incarceration. Regardless, it had to be a factor and it certainly fucked up his life somewhere between a little bit and a lot a bit.
When I realized just how many spiders I've written... When I think about that spider with a $240B+ market cap... When I think "This could have been me or one of my friends"... I started to cry :-(
RIP I guess.
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/9r8on/aaron_swar...
https://twitter.com/alexisohanian/status/93374221685755904
Still very sad, of course. I was fully in support of Aaron during the JSTOR fallout.
This is utterly disgraceful, I feel for his family.
http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/16ffph/reddit_cofounde...
What Happened
Last fall and winter, JSTOR experienced a significant misuse of our database. A substantial portion of our publisher partners’ content was downloaded in an unauthorized fashion using the network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of our participating institutions. The content taken was systematically downloaded using an approach designed to avoid detection by our monitoring systems.
The downloaded content included more than 4 million articles, book reviews, and other content from our publisher partners' academic journals and other publications; it did not include any personally identifying information about JSTOR users.
We stopped this downloading activity, and the individual responsible, Mr. Swartz, was identified. We secured from Mr. Swartz the content that was taken, and received confirmation that the content was not and would not be used, copied, transferred, or distributed.
The criminal investigation and today’s indictment of Mr. Swartz has been directed by the United States Attorney’s Office. It was the government’s decision whether to prosecute, not JSTOR’s. As noted previously, our interest was in securing the content. Once this was achieved, we had no interest in this becoming an ongoing legal matter.
My reaction to this is that he was a brilliant guy, and it was such a waste. Such a pointless waste.
It makes the idea of giving up myself seem so wrong.
Rest in Peace Aaron. I'm sorry it had to end this way.
If it happens again, get help. I'm quite serious.
I wonder why some people here are assuming this tragedy is because of the JSTOR incident. It seems to me that everyone should just meditate on what's been lost, and defer judgement about why he would do this until there is evidence.
Thank you so much. It's awful to see people in here blaming the trial when suicide is much more complex than a single incident pushing someone to the edge like that.
He had his troubles and he made some bad decisions, but it didn't have to be like this.
I wish his family peace and clarity in this dark hour. I'm just so sorry.
And as much as it is "right" to respect him for his very personal decision, I can't help but wish he were still here. This is the premature end of the life of someone who could have dramatically changed the world. Reminds us that, now more than ever, that's our job here, too.
Before all of that, I remember this guy doing it, doing it well. And that inspired me to believe I can do it.
An artist's only passion is to create, until the day you die. In between you fight all sorts of battles that they don't warn you about. But the most important being that when you create, you carry with you a savagery of sorts, of making something new, of living in the edge.
And it's hard to survive. Nowadays we take for granted the Google style lunches and buslines, but being at the edge of something has always been trying to eke out in an hostile environment.
But this guy was there, all day, all night.
And that's special. Because it's an isolating experience.
I get the same suicidal thoughts that drift in and out too. It's partly chemical and it's just your personality. When you stand outside of the system long enough, watch long enough, suffer the heartbreak of seeing the wrongs enough, you may end up there too.
This was the glorious ending I wished for him.
May he truly rest now in peace.
I just wanted to say that I understand why some people do it. My brother suffered from schizophrenia - he was an incredibly nice and giving person who kept on hurting people due to his disease. I understand why he took his own life and I don't fault him for it. Of course I am incredibly sad about it and wish I could have done so much more, but 20 years of intense suffering wears on a person.
We don't know the exact details behind Aaron's decision. A significant percent of the people who knew Stephen, even those who knew him well, didn't know about his diagnosis either. It's impossible to draw any more conclusion than "he was suffering and couldn't bear the burden anymore". My condolences to his family, I truly know what they are going through and it's absolutely shit.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
What a screwed up world.
There are a lot of things wrong with this situation, but the egregiously misaligned priorities of the US Attorneys are near the top of the list.
http://www.reddit.com/user/AaronSw#c4e7n4h
The same page shows that the last Reddit comment he ever made was on /r/HPMOR. I don't think I noticed at the time - I don't think I knew he was a fan.
I have said and will say that Aaron Swartz acted heroically in trying to free the scientific literature. It was a good try.
In HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=aaronsw
Pinboard: https://pinboard.in/u:aaronsw
His last tweet was on Jan 9th, https://twitter.com/aaronsw
Reddit: https://aaronsw.jottit.com/reddit
Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PGTlB14AAAAJ
Writings: https://aaronsw.jottit.com/writings
---------------------------------------------
Things he made:
HN will miss your contributions.
Rest in Peace. #Love.
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/productivity
Share the load Even if your friends aren’t cheerful, just working on a hard problem with someone else makes it much easier. For one thing, the mental weight gets spread across both people. For another, having someone else there forces you to work instead of getting distracted.
I've seen this happen in my own life. I had a family friend that committed suicide after being indicted of a felony DUI charge because he swore he never would go to prison.
Tragic. My thoughts are with his family.
All over 'stealing' some ideas.
rip
His writings on life and how to get better at it are also phenomenal [2]
It's very sad that aaronsw is no longer with us for he was very gifted and talented. May he rest in peace and my thoughts go out to his family and friends.
[1] - http://webpy.org/docs/0.3/tutorial [2] - http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve
So, yet another reason to be angry -- this case was perfect for removing ToS violations from CFAA.
The work I do now is made possible by Aaron's work on PACER (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13records.html). We are all in his debt.
Accordingly, I've added a memorial banner to PlainSite to ensure that everyone who uses it daily to find cases (including many in government and the DOJ specifically) will be reminded of his contribution--one of many.
How to fix ? if no damage was done there is nothing to accuse of.
And distribution of knowledge should be free, or ransom ware the release of that info to the public should be made available upon compen$ation for the work done, ransomware maybe.
Aaron ideals of greater good and sharing are nobler than any politician or any other bullshitter that get media coverage and have the power to change the world for the better.
There has to be more to it then just the JSTOR case.
Lost for words!
For whatever reason, I keep bumping into his work, whether it's through the python world or through BOSSlab, geurrilla open access, or The Sprouts. He has had a very strong impact on some very important problems in the world. I suspect that he might have seen some (perhaps twisted) value in being a martyr, especially in the face of extreme stress.. So far I prefer the living version of aaronsw.
I think a lot of us can see parts of each other in Aaron, both in his values and work. Another someone pointed out, just how many spiders have you written? Everyone does it, but hardly nobody talks about it. Is it really so terrible that we want to read science? or share code? And then this happens.
All of the criminal documents from his last court case are published on the Internet Archive. This one in particular is rather thrilling to read:
http://ia601205.us.archive.org/25/items/UsaV.AaronSwartz-Cri...
"An analysis of one of the fingerprints on the Acer laptop purchased and used by the defendant cannot exclude his friend, Alec Resnick."
"Promises, rewards, or inducements have been given to witness Erin Quinn Norton. Copies of the letter agreement with her and order of immunity with respect to her grand jury testimony are disclosed on Disk 3."
"a. The computer was registered under the fictitious guest name “Gary Host.” b. The computer’s client name was specified as “ghost laptop.” A computer’s client name helps to identify it on a network and can be chosen by its user. In this case, the name was simply created by abridging the pseudonym “Gary Host,” combining the first initial “g” with the last name “host.” c. The fictitious “Gary Host’s” e-mail address was identified as “ghost@mailinator.com.” This was a “throwaway” e-mail address. Mailinator is a free, disposable e-mail service that allows a user to create a new e-mail address as needed, without even registering the address with Mailinator. Mailinator provides this service for users to have an anonymous and temporary e-mail address. Mailinator accepts mail for any e-mail address directed to the mailinator.com domain without need for a prior registration, and it allows anyone in the world to read that mail without having to create an account or enter a password. All mail sent to mailinator.com is automatically deleted after several hours whether read or not."
"... "The defendant has requested first that the government provide ".. any and all notes and reports provided to USSS or USAO by CERT in relation to the forensic analysis of the ACER laptop, or any analysis of any evidence including but not limited to the PCAP log information"."
`.. earlier posted on one of his websites, guerrillaopenaccess.com, a call-to-arms entitled "Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto" which concluded "We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerrilla Open Access."`
Context for some of these quotes can be found here: http://gnusha.org/logs/2012-09-15.log
He was such a terrific writer, easy to see why he could code so well
I communicated with him once or twice re: rss, and I enjoyed his postings at photo net.
He was young, bright, witty. This is terrible.
I will miss you Aaron, I had such hopes for you.
As life moves as the currents in the ocean, some of us find ourselves in tropical paradises, whilst others are gifted the horrible cold of the artic. There are some who manage to hang on to another current and make headway towards warmer climates, there are some who do not. The world is now saddened to learn that you were caught up in the harsh artic cold of life. We could ask questions as to why did you not swim harder or faster, but none of us were in your place.
Your short life was anything but worthy of such tragic end. You decided to leave too early, too soon. Still, your presence still lives through your work, the community you helped build, and the people you touched.
Farewell.
Aaron Swartz was an inspiration. To know that a person you looked up to, someone from whom you learned so much through his writings and his projects, ended up finishing his life like that...
Speechless!
Depression is a terrible thing, and I hope we are one day able to cure it. It is treatable, seek help immediately if you are thinking about suicide! I hate that you cannot look upon someone and instantly know if they are depressed or not. If I could, I would drop everything to help a person I saw having trouble.
I hope Aaron found peace, and I wish his family the best.
I was always amazed that the wunderkind with the pizza stain on his shirt that visited us at Arsdigita University accomplished so much. He was reserved, but focused, forthright at such an early age. I couldn't help but feel he was a little disappointed in the rest of us, but he never showed it.
RIP, Aaron. We'll miss you.
The first link to "suicide" search results (https://www.google.com/search?q=suicide) to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide which unfortunately has "Reasons" & "Methods" before "Prevention" and has no mention of why you shouldn't commit suicide.
At the bottom of the first page of the results, the first related search is "suicide methods" http://imgur.com/7lJ02
Further search for "suicide methods" results in the following first three links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_methods
http://wantdeath.blogspot.in/2011/07/fastest-and-painless-su...
and
http://frater.com/suicidelist.html
There is no mention of why suicide is bad and it just gives the depressed person a way to end his/her life.
I don't blame only Google, but I think the entire web & the web community (with SEO, SEM, etc) contributes a lot for this disaster.
At the end of that, I wrote a reply commenting on what I thought about his writing process, and never got anything back. He must have not been feeling great at that point.
I feel bad now.
I miss you, we never met, but you inspired me. You burned so brightly, yet so briefly.
Aaron had a really interesting blog post on pain worth reading called, "Leaning into the Pain". It's worth considering that pain doesn't just impact the individual. Try to let others help. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dalio
You were an inspiration at times. And more importantly, one among those who make people want to change for the better.
Aaron Swartz was the sort of person I wanted to be, his works, his personality, and what he stood for.
Since nothing can ever be done to reverse this, may this occurence illuminate the fact that laws are made for people, and not people for laws..
Stunned & heartbroken.
If access to journals, or more accurately scientific research, is to be restricted in such manner, then all government should stop funding/ providing grants for scientific researches, at least not from taxpayers money. These interested parties, namely the journals publishers, should come out with such funds as eventually they are making money from such works. It's ridiculous for the public to fund their business.
RIP Aaron Swartz.... you have make yourself heard, loud and clear, to the civil society.
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._6_(Tchaikovsky) 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtLq8wj0p80
I was just reading 5ish year old comments on reddit about him and suicide http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cof... which lead my to this blog post of his describing a suicide http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying
I lost a friend to suicide. It is and was the worst thing ever. I still miss him dearly about 1.5 years on. Breaks my heart. My love and condolences to his friends and family.
The only thing we have on this earth is time.
Yet, Robert Morris has had a great life, both as an acclaimed professor at the greatest technological institution that has ever existed (MIT), and of course as a key member of Y Combinator.
Yet a petty non-criminal like Aaron is put through something infinitely worse than the "punishment" of community service that was dished out of RTM.
Ha. Some justice system indeed!
RIP Aaron
Aaron, you should have not done that .. I'm sure thousands of people of this community would have fought for you to get you out of your problems .. your contributions will always be remembered .. it's just so sad ..
My condolences to his family and the entire community. :(
I haven't been in touch with Aaron for several years, but I had a brief encounter with him in 2008. I was between jobs and decided to help out with his watchdog.net project of the time. He was always incredibly kinda and once tracked down my number and called to check that I was OK after I was unexpectedly offline for a several days.
Great guy; will be missed.
1. Publish in an open access journal 2. Publish in a regular journal and make YOUR version available in http://arxiv.org/ or your website
It will get you more citations and you will do your part in disseminating science
http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d2njs/til_the...
RIP Aaron Swartz.
Wish there was more that could be said, but I guess the only appropriate thing is:
R.I.P. aaronsw, you will be missed.
So what we wrong? Why was he so unhappy?
Thank you Aaron. RIP
What an absolutely dreadful shame. My heart is wrenched for his family and all of us, who lost a brilliant young man. I'm a month older than he was, and to imagine someone my age thinking there was no way out... with all of the possibilities of his life, a life just beginning.
Christ.
Like many others here, may path also crossed his several times as I kept bumping into his work. He had a ton of really cool side projects. I pinged him a few times about some of them and he was always really gracious and helpful in his responses. I didn't find out his stature in the community (reddit cofounder etc) until recently and was shocked he had taken the time to reply to me.
As for the reason he did this now: I'm sure it was a combination of things that had built up over many years, however in a criminal case like this, now would be the time his lawyer would be attempting to work out a plea bargain with the prosecutors. If they were demanding a long prison sentence and multiple felony convictions, and the evidence against him was very strong (as it sounds like it was) many people would probably contemplate suicide.
Sorry for bad grammar... small comment boxes make me feel pressured to get out everything in a few lines quickly.
