Hacker Cinema
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
2014 · Film · documentary · 105 min
Directed by Brian Knappenberger
Programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz achieved groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing. His passion for open access ensnared him in a legal nightmare that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26.
10 positivefrom 10 commenters
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10 comments on Hacker News
“ The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz” is a must watch documentary.
Btw, there is a movie worth watching: „The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz”
Hacker Culture, to me atleast is somewhat broad.
Here are some places where I found good representations:
1. Halt and Catch Fire: 70s/80s tech scene. Full stack hackers building products, companies. Depicts the hackers, code monkeys, visionary types, managers, financers- everyone. Also shows the transition of the business scene from analog to digital.
2. Westworld (Season 1 only) is brilliant. It depicts the ambition, the hubris involved in creating something new and grand.
3. The Travelling Salesman: P vs NP is solved. What are the implications, what are the uses, how will the State react? What is the role of the people imvolved?
4. Primer: Mind bending movie on time machine.
5. and 6. Imitation Game and A Beautiful Mind: I believe most people on HN will like these.
7. Agora is a hidden gem not many know about. It is anout Hypatia.
8. Dangerous Knowledge is a documentary about paradigm changing science. Godel, Turing, Boltzmann are covered.
9. Fractals is also a nice documentary with interviews from Mendelbrot.
10. Codebreaker is a mich more accurate biography of Turing that covers other aspects of his, not limited to his codebreaking and homosexuality.
11. Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz: very nice and left a deep impression in me.
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I am yet to watch:
1. Hidden Figures
2. Stand and Deliver
3. I'm In
4. TPB: AFK
5. Pirates of Silicon Valley
6. Triumph of the Nerds
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Harvard Professor Oliver Knill has a list and clips from movies where math appears: https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/
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I came to know a lot of these movies through Kagi search and Reddit search. "Best movies for mathematicians and computer scientists" and similar searches.
Such a colossal loss!
If you haven't watched it, I'd recommend watching "The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz". [1] It's a bit difficult to watch it more than once or twice. It'll leave you sad and angry.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy
- I recommend to put the above in quotation marks so people don't think it's your own comment. Extraordinary quote, here's a copy on github: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ksinkar/4552726/raw/74458d1932510e2b93d8ebde9ac387f842afbc0f/Aaron%2520Swartz:%2520Guerilla%2520Open%2520Access%2520Manifesto
- I recommend everyone to watch 2014 documentary "The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz".
We will never forget Aaron Swartz. He did not die in vain. His work lives on, we are continuing it and will forever.
'The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz'
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3268458/
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/internet-own-boy-story-aaron-swartz/
As someone who's followed Norton's work for several years- yes, that seems like the most likely cause. She appears in the documentary about Aaron Swartz, "The Internet's Own Boy," and by her own account greatly struggled with that whole tragedy.
It's a damn shame, in the least part because she is a superb writer. Her eulogy for Occupy Wall Street is a sprawling, stunning work of journalism.
https://www.wired.com/2012/12/a-eulogy-for-occupy/
Alternative links:
http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXr-2hwTk58
https://freedocumentaries.org/documentary/the-internet-s-own-boy-the-story-of-aaron-swartz
He is such a inspiring legend, shining beside Edward and the other fighting friends, for freedom and a better world. I love Aaron for his spirit and the mission he lived.
For anyone, who hasn't seen the documentary [1], I can recommend it!
Good to be remembered to some of his goals: „We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks.“ [2]
[1] https://freedocumentaries.org/documentary/the-internet-s-own-boy-the-story-of-aaron-swartz [2] http://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt
Thanks for pointing that out. I just watched "The Internet's Own Boy", the documentary about Aaron, and it is positively incredibly how many projects Aaron created or played a critical role in creating. An unthinkable shame that he left us so soon — one can only imagine all the things he had left to create.