I knew Aaron Swartz since before he could shave, and I regard his loss as one beyond reckoning. To me he was a Keats, a Byron, a Shelley or a Mozart: one of those rare and original souls — a true genius — who changed the world for the better before dying way too soon. He was just 26 when he took his own life on January 11, leaving behind a string of achievements that would make an accomplished geezer proud.