From 9d8e50e7bce4394eaf2604d49170fedb2633ed71 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Danny O'Brien Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2023 00:36:12 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] assets: Vague editorial structure. Thanks, WiReD --- assets/dingbats/SOURCES | 1 + assets/dingbats/benfranklin.svg | 1 + .../00inbox/aaron-memorial/aaron.txt | 81 +++++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 83 insertions(+) create mode 100644 assets/dingbats/SOURCES create mode 100644 assets/dingbats/benfranklin.svg create mode 100644 assets/editorial/00inbox/aaron-memorial/aaron.txt diff --git a/assets/dingbats/SOURCES b/assets/dingbats/SOURCES new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b7e5a6b --- /dev/null +++ b/assets/dingbats/SOURCES @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +benfranklin.svg https://editor.unstock.ai/?src=3ea0bad1-443e-44a6-aff1-a8c35a24a42a diff --git a/assets/dingbats/benfranklin.svg b/assets/dingbats/benfranklin.svg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb3f622 --- /dev/null +++ b/assets/dingbats/benfranklin.svg @@ -0,0 +1 @@ + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/assets/editorial/00inbox/aaron-memorial/aaron.txt b/assets/editorial/00inbox/aaron-memorial/aaron.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c709aeb --- /dev/null +++ b/assets/editorial/00inbox/aaron-memorial/aaron.txt @@ -0,0 +1,81 @@ +I met Aaron in 2001, when Aaron was I guess fourteen. I was the Silicon Valley +correspondent for the Sunday Times, and I wrote the same article as many others +have written about Aaron's status as a young prodigy in the hallowed halls of +the world wide web consortium. The editor titled it "teenager in a million", +which, as is ever the case with editors, was to miss the point. + +The point was, Aaron's age didn't matter. While mildly surprised at the +discovery, his peers at the W3C were not scandalised, or terrified or reached +for a rule book when they discovered that a key developer of the open web was +attending high school. They welcomed him. I strongly suspect that they were +delighted that he surprised them. An institution is not truly open until +somebody you don't imagine even exists walks through its door. + +He told me then "I was worried about revealing my age and did my best to keep +it a secret. Now, I let my words speak for themselves." + +So many words: some written in rhetoric for Congress, some written for +computers in Python, all of it in plain text, for anyone to read. + +And as if could not read enough words in times, his programs read and scraped +and parsed the rest. + +He loved beautiful code. The only time I think I really pained him was when I +said some program he'd written was unreadable. It turned out that it wasn't his +code at all -- it was code his code had written. And yet it still hurt I think, +He was disappointed, I think, that his child had not inherited his refined +sensibilities. + +Words fail me now. Try as hard as Aaron always did, you can't encode his +experiences in words, his moral compass in words, all those connections he made +in a whole world's web of RDF triplets. + +I give you here the look of Aaron's face when he played with my daughter Ada, +Even at 26 he showed a childish delight then that most of us lose at ten. I +can't tell you how much he hurt me when he totally destroyed my argument in +favour of Searle's Chinese Room, that Christmas, and no I will not forget +Aaron. Or how much pleasure and ease there was to forgive and be forgiven by +Aaron. No archive can hold those moments. + +But if I cannot share with you the code that was Aaron, I can tell you the code +that makes more Aarons. + +Aaron became Aaron because of his unfettered access to knowledge. Aaron had the +support of a loving family, who let him fly to meetings, who gave him a +computer. Aaron had the privileges a young middle class man who lived in United +States of America gets just by existing. But even so, the gates of knowledge +had only just then, in that decade, swung wide enough for him to join those +mailing lists, and let him find and meet and learn from the web's own creators. + +And if anything bound together all of Aaron's crusades, it was his belief that +he was not alone, or exceptional or unique, and that there was more than just +him out there with his curiousity and talent. + +People say suppose you did free academic knowledge for everyone to read, and +you put all the law online to read, what tiny fraction would really care -- who +would really read it, who cannot read it now? + +They forget. They forget that if Aaron was a teenager in a million, that soon, +very soon, when we have connected seven billion people to each other in the +great work we strive to build, then there will be 1.2 billion teenagers +exploring our world. + +Even if my editor was right with his odds, which he never was, there's 1200 +Aarons among them. + +There is no closed archive, no carefully guarded ivory tower that can seat +billions. But the open society, the open and world wide web, the free culture +that Aaron worked for is for them all. And if we give them what they need, give +them the knowledge to feed their curiousity, and the care that we must never +forget they need, that army of Aarons will surprise us all. + +Aaron told me back in 2001 +"One of the things the web teaches us is that everything is connected +(hyperlinks) and we all should work together (standards). Too often school +teaches us that everything is separate and that we should all work alone." + +It is never to soon to begin working with the rest of the world. We need to +stay together, and never ever leave our friends too alone. + + A boy's will is the wind's will + And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.