Keeping Up with the Rosses

I suppose you could beat him to the cover of Time. That’d be cool, no? I’ll cross my fingers for you.

posted by Rick Knight at January 29, 2005 08:30 PM #

I’ll bet you’re beating him to a larger ego. :)

posted by Randy H. at January 29, 2005 08:33 PM #

I’ve seen you around since the ArsDigita prize, why didn’t you mention that? It seems fairly significant in the timeline of your accomplishments, and probably shows you getting in the business before Ross. Right now this entry seems resentful for Ross making the cover of Wired, added commentary would help explain how you feel about this, as I am somewhat interested. Or are you foreshadowing that you’ll be on Wired some time this year?

posted by Chris Bennett at January 29, 2005 09:34 PM #

Wonderful stuff! I just had to write a parody though.

posted by Sean B. Palmer at January 30, 2005 04:02 PM #

Should this be called techno-stalking?

posted by skeeter at January 31, 2005 11:56 AM #

2004: Blake Ross becomes a CS106 section leader

????: Aaron Swartz becomes a CS106 section leader

http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs198/

: )

posted by Jesse Young at January 31, 2005 02:38 PM #

2005 Aaron Swartz drops out of Stanford like Bill Gates and then receives cover of Time.:-p

posted by x5 at February 2, 2005 10:29 AM #

Consider the alternative, contraposed for your comparison:

2000: Aaron Swartz starts working on RSS 1.0.
2000: Rich has been in an unfulfilling job for 3 years doing nothing much of interest. He reads, with interest, about exciting developments like the birth of RSS.

2001: Aaron Swartz joins RDF development team.
2001: Rich has been in an unfulfilling job for 4 years doing nothing much of interest. Still reads about the cool stuff other people do.

2002: Aaron Swartz begins work on Creative Commons.
2002: Rich is still in his dead-end job, doing many of the same things. Might have started completely pointless new project at work by this point, I forget.

2004: Aaron Swartz starts darkly humorous diary-based weblog.
2004: Rich yet to start a weblog. Going to start “any day now” for no other reason than to share my suffering to the world.

2004: Aaron Swartz starts at Stanford.
2004: Rich remembers turning down Stanford, wonders if it was the right choice. Considers going back to school (but money is tight), but more knowledge is interesting.

2004: Aaron Swartz receives profile with photo in Wired.
2004: Rich continues to read and enjoy Wired. as he has practically since its inception (was happy to see the profile, too).

Though I don’t pretend that either my life is anyone’s fault but my own or that I am a representative sample of the average person, it still might be instructive to look at your own life from your own perspective, not someone else’s.

Barring burnout, you’re probably going to do even more even cooler stuff in your life. Don’t turn into someone nobody wants to be around simply because you’re obsessed with how the world sees you.

posted by Rich at February 27, 2005 11:50 PM #