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This has been discussed many times in the past [1]. tl;dr: The creator was a brilliant programmer who experienced a psychotic break late in his life, which led

This has been discussed many times in the past [1]. tl;dr: The creator was a brilliant programmer who experienced a psychotic break late in his life, which led to chronic and severe schizophrenia. He killed himself in 2018. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=templeos.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=templeos.org

kratom_sandwich 6y ago
IIRC he was an active reddit user as well, so there are many discussions over there as well
wolfhumble 6y ago
Oh, I wasn't aware of his passing . . . According to his Wikipedia page #1) He passed away August 11, 2018, just the same day he posted his last video on YouTube (the same as included on his TempleOS home page): https://youtu.be/oH41gGBVpkE https://youtu.be/oH41gGBVpkE His Wikipedia #1) page says the following about his passing: "Investigators could not determine whether his death was suicide or accidental, although the train engineer believed his death to be a suicide. The police report stated that Davis was walking with his back toward the train and that he turned around before the moment of impact". Bless his soul! #1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis
mkl 6y ago
Here are (some of?) his HN accounts: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TerryADavis https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TerryADavis, https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=TempleOS https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=TempleOS Warning: not for the faint of heart - banned for obvious reasons.
- serf 6y ago
  >Warning: not for the faint of heart - banned for obvious reasons. I lived through it - on 4chan, reddit , and HN. It's still not obvious to me why he'd be banned, I don't think you should hand wave it that easily. The guy had mental issues, but he had some amazing lucidity at times. If I owned a movie theatre or restaurant I surely wouldn't ask someone with vocal tourettes to leave the establishment, and if I did i'd be ostracized all over the media and community -- so it's not as clear to me as you seem to think it should be why he was treated the way he was on the various forums. I get that he said abrasive and racist comments routinely; but I think there is something to be said about the fact that his voice was routinely listened to and considered on 4chan's /g/, and routinely sequestered and removed on HN and reddit. 4chan turning their attention to him wasn't a good thing, nor is it usually ever, but that forum did give him a place to talk without fear of bannings, karma struggle, deaded comments, whatever. Treating someone as good as they are treated on 4chan is a low bar. Back then the HN method of constant deading and shadowbanning felt heavy handed and unneeded; we're supposed to be adults who are aware that mentally ill individuals exist in real life and here on HN, but the way it was dealt with was by silencing an already schizophrenic person so that the 'normal' crowd could go on with business as usual. I can't think of a more head-in-the-sand response, and I'm not even saying that it wasn't a required action to keep the forum discourse on some level of civility , but boy does what happened to Terry make me feel nauseous -- the same kind of feeling I get in the pit of my stomach that is usually a sign for me that I am witnessing something morally uneven. I don't know the solution, nor do I claim to. I just feel bad about what happened. As someone who chatted in emails with him after his bannings, I still feel bad about his treatment and demise, and I miss him and his technical insights immensely. I think he got a poor run of life, and I wish that more people had been supportive of him, able to filter out the profane for the insight -- especially since he became fascinatingly technically capable and astute when spoken to personally with your 'vocabulary filter' on. Terry was an individual by which most mistook his trees for the forest -- and I'm glad to read in this thread that I'm not the only one with that positive sentiment towards him and his memory.
abafazi 6y ago
Please don't say he killed himself when it wasn't confirmed
themikesanto 6y ago
"Investigators could not determine whether his death was suicide or accidental." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis

kratom_sandwich 6y ago

IIRC he was an active reddit user as well, so there are many discussions over there as well

wolfhumble 6y ago

Oh, I wasn't aware of his passing . . . According to his Wikipedia page #1) He passed away August 11, 2018, just the same day he posted his last video on YouTube (the same as included on his TempleOS home page): https://youtu.be/oH41gGBVpkE https://youtu.be/oH41gGBVpkE His Wikipedia #1) page says the following about his passing: "Investigators could not determine whether his death was suicide or accidental, although the train engineer believed his death to be a suicide. The police report stated that Davis was walking with his back toward the train and that he turned around before the moment of impact". Bless his soul! #1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis

mkl 6y ago

Here are (some of?) his HN accounts: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TerryADavis https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TerryADavis, https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=TempleOS https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=TempleOS Warning: not for the faint of heart - banned for obvious reasons.

serf 6y ago
>Warning: not for the faint of heart - banned for obvious reasons. I lived through it - on 4chan, reddit , and HN. It's still not obvious to me why he'd be banned, I don't think you should hand wave it that easily. The guy had mental issues, but he had some amazing lucidity at times. If I owned a movie theatre or restaurant I surely wouldn't ask someone with vocal tourettes to leave the establishment, and if I did i'd be ostracized all over the media and community -- so it's not as clear to me as you seem to think it should be why he was treated the way he was on the various forums. I get that he said abrasive and racist comments routinely; but I think there is something to be said about the fact that his voice was routinely listened to and considered on 4chan's /g/, and routinely sequestered and removed on HN and reddit. 4chan turning their attention to him wasn't a good thing, nor is it usually ever, but that forum did give him a place to talk without fear of bannings, karma struggle, deaded comments, whatever. Treating someone as good as they are treated on 4chan is a low bar. Back then the HN method of constant deading and shadowbanning felt heavy handed and unneeded; we're supposed to be adults who are aware that mentally ill individuals exist in real life and here on HN, but the way it was dealt with was by silencing an already schizophrenic person so that the 'normal' crowd could go on with business as usual. I can't think of a more head-in-the-sand response, and I'm not even saying that it wasn't a required action to keep the forum discourse on some level of civility , but boy does what happened to Terry make me feel nauseous -- the same kind of feeling I get in the pit of my stomach that is usually a sign for me that I am witnessing something morally uneven. I don't know the solution, nor do I claim to. I just feel bad about what happened. As someone who chatted in emails with him after his bannings, I still feel bad about his treatment and demise, and I miss him and his technical insights immensely. I think he got a poor run of life, and I wish that more people had been supportive of him, able to filter out the profane for the insight -- especially since he became fascinatingly technically capable and astute when spoken to personally with your 'vocabulary filter' on. Terry was an individual by which most mistook his trees for the forest -- and I'm glad to read in this thread that I'm not the only one with that positive sentiment towards him and his memory.

abafazi 6y ago

Please don't say he killed himself when it wasn't confirmed

themikesanto 6y ago

"Investigators could not determine whether his death was suicide or accidental." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis