This isn't what I normally post, but it's a summary of some morning reflections since Monday is the anniversary of @aaronsw's death.

He had a big impact on the world (and me). He's someone you should know.

Here's a tribute.

Aaron was "one of those kids" - he was part of the working group on early RSS at 14, dropped out of Stanford, was in @ycombinator's first summer class, and was part of the early @reddit team.

His life's work was focused on the accessibility and dissemination of knowledge.

Aaron believed public information, scientific research, and the Internet as a whole should be open and accessible to all.

Here's the preamble to his "Guerilla Open Access Manifesto".

He was the definition of mission, even if it meant flying in the grey areas of hactivism.

In 2008 he went after PACER, a database of public court documents that charged per page of access even though the documents were public (they made $100M+ per year).

Through a library loophole he downloaded 2.7 million documents and released them to the world.

The FBI investigated, but since they were public documents and he used the free library trial, nothing illegal took place.

PACER still charges to my knowledge, but @binarybits continued the mission with a browser extension that gives free access through the @FreeLawProject