recursion

I was saddened to learn last night that Aaron Swartz, activist and creator of many things, had died.

I did not know him, but like so many people I had a few interactions with him over the years. The first time I remember interacting with him was on the ArsDigita forums, talking about adding RSS to the ArsDigita Community System. Later, we had a long email conversation about voting systems (It was related to this blog post of his. I argued for ranked choice voting, he favored approval voting.). A common thread in remembrances about Aaron is the time he took to carry on conversations with complete strangers. I certainly had that experience.

He was an incredibly gifted person whose work touched many people (Indeed, I’m writing this in Markdown, so I’m using something he helped create right now).

Cory Doctrow has a more proper tribute.