learning about--and from--aaron swartz

I scrapped my Game Design & Development lecture today, and instead I spoke to my students about Aaron Swartz. His accomplishments, his impact, his death. The brokenness of the systems that he fought against, and their role in destroying him. And depression--how to recognize it, and what to do about it.

Then I asked them to read these articles, to understand Aaron and how and why he died. If you haven't read them already, too, you should. There's more--so much more--out there, but these are the ones I thought would be best to start with.

Larry Lessig, legal scholar at Harvard, founder of Creative Commons: Prosecutor as Bully
http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully

Alex Stamos, the expert witness in Aaron's case: The Truth About Aaron Swartz's Crime
http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartzs-crime/

James Grimmelman, legal scholar at New York Law School:
Aaron Swartz, Was 26: http://laboratorium.net/archive/2013/01/12/aaron_swartz_was_26
Two for Aaron: http://laboratorium.net/archive/2013/01/14/two_for_aaron

Tim Wu in The New Yorker: Everyone Interesting is a Felon
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/01/everyone-interesting-is-a-felon.html

danah boyd, social media scholar at Microsoft and NYU: processing the loss of Aaron Swartz
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2013/01/13/aaron-swartz.html

Harvard Business Review: "Aaron Swartz's "Crime" and the Business of Breaking the Law
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/01/aaron_swartzs_crime_and_the_bu.html

Boston Globe: On humanity, a big failure in Aaron Swartz case
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity-deficit/bj8oThPDwzgxBSHQt3tyKI/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw(may need to open an incognito window to view)

Tim Burke: Academe is Complicit
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/01/15/essay-role-academe-tragedy-aaron-swartzs-death

The Economist: Remembering Aaron Swartz
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/01/remembering-aaron-swartz

Aaron Swartz: How To Get a Job Like Mine
https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget