this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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The story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz, who took his own life at the age of 26. IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3268458/

Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 โ€“ January 11, 2013), also known as AaronSw, was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist. As a programmer, Swartz helped develop the web feed format RSS; the technical architecture for Creative Commons, an organization dedicated to creating copyright licenses; and the Python website framework web.py. Swartz helped define the syntax of the lightweight markup language format Markdown, and was a co-owner of the social news aggregation website Reddit and contributed to its development until he left the company in 2007. He is often credited as a martyr and a prodigy, and much of his work focused on civic awareness and progressive activism. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

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As much as I'd like to say it's such a shame what happened to him, I'm kinda glad he missed what's happened since.