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You say this hit you on a personal level because you have known similar people .. I watched a close friend fall apart from mental illness who was an amazingly t

by xd 15y ago

You say this hit you on a personal level because you have known similar people .. I watched a close friend fall apart from mental illness who was an amazingly talented coder and I can say without any doubt that your article will do nothing but harm to this guy.

kristopolous 15y ago
That's horrible. Should I just take it down? I mean really, I don't want to do anything bad like that. I could try to stay up and remove the stuff referring to him ... but I've been struggling to build context without using him as a concrete example. Edit: I'm re-editing it now. (I should be in bed, ug tired) 03:45 I think it is a better job now ... hopefully you find it more acceptable; I'm starting to become a bit incoherent myself and need to catch a wink. 04:25 Just finished another round of editing. I do really hope everything is better. (4:50 still going ... )
- rainboiboi 15y ago
  Well what's been said is already public. No point editing it.
  - kristopolous 15y ago
    probably about 75% of the would be viewers haven't woken up yet ... if things should be changed, now is the time. Alright, I think most of the finger-pointing is gone. Hopefully it's better ... I need to get to bed.
    - rooshdi 15y ago
      If you didn't get consent to analyze this man in public, you should take it down IMHO. We should respect this man's personal life.
    - meric 15y ago
      I read about him in comments after seeing his dead posts on HN weeks ago and I had the same conclusions. Your article makes a very important point about community intolerance.
- JoachimSchipper 15y ago
  I'm not entirely clear on what you hope to achieve, really. If you are trading off possible harm for this guy against something vague like "more acceptance of mental illness in the hacker community", I'm not sure the ethical calculus comes out in your favor. You probably know more than I do. (OTOH, he's fairly public already, and I'm sure he's been called insane before.)
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - whateverer 15y ago
    Have you seen the kind of abuse that is dealt to Davis whenever he shows up, writing incoherent prose all over? He has come and gone on just about every programmer forum out there, even on 4chan's, and every single time he depleted the patience of their hosts and has been either banned, ran off the place or programmatically ignored, like here (or 4chan, with userscripts). He is a public figure already, as you say so yourself, regardless of whether we can hold him responsible of it. If anything, this piece served to humanize him, and spreading knowledge of his condition may, at least, serve to secure better treatment for him from his peers.
- mattdeboard 15y ago
  Please do not take this down. This is the most interesting bit of writing I've seen come across HN in quite some time.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- jbrichter 15y ago
  If you're dead-set on publishing a lengthy article about somebody's private business, it at least behooves you to spend some time on it. You even managed to get his name wrong. It is simply not true that the article is "mostly in praise of his accomplishments," either. There is a brief description of LoseThos at the start and a vacuous upbeat sentence about workflows and usability near the end. In the middle sits an illustrated description of Mr. Davis's antics and a rather uninformative discussion about how mentally ill people are mentally ill. You cap it off with a quote from the DSM describing behavior similar to his, and reflect that you can "understand and appreciate" someone's illness now that you have blurb, even one which says nothing more than "yeah, schizos do that sometimes." The article, aside from rubbernecking at a mentally ill man, has almost no actual content. It seems you were more interested in telling a "tortured genius" story. You insinuate that mental illness would be some sort of creative advantage if only society were more accommodating, that his mental illness and his writing an operating system are somehow two sides of the same coin. He's been unemployed and stuck at home for 7 years. I don't think it so notable that a programmer in that situation might do some programming. LoseThos is neat, but let's be level headed. Writing a basic kernel (and this one doesn't even have virtual memory or preemptive multitasking) and a basic compiler are both common projects for CS undergrads. To produce this over 7 years isn't some unfathomable feat, though I can't imagine being sick and medicated made it any easier. I absolutely don't mean to be critical of him, and the treatment he received on Something Awful was really unappetizing. But it does seem that you're building his accomplishments up a little. And it seems that you're doing it because you want to write a moving story and parade his personal tragedy through the streets like some nerd Oprah. This post is too long already, but I also want to say your blaming the community's lack of acceptance for the progression of diseases is ridiculous and trivializes mental illness. Smiling and nodding at his PRNG won't make him better. Finally, your stamping the article with a little self-aggrandizing blurb about yourself and a link to your github account leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
  - angersock 15y ago
    "Writing a basic kernel (and this one doesn't even have virtual memory or preemptive multitasking) and a basic compiler are both common projects for CS undergrads." Did you notice the part where he also runs goofy JIT/linking, or has annotated source code with pictures and compiler for same, and that the virtual memory/preemptive multitasking was explicitly omitted? Or several other nifty/quirky features of the OS? (http://www.losethos.com/LTHtml/Doc/Features.html http://www.losethos.com/LTHtml/Doc/Features.html) He's done work that any of us should respect as fellow programmers, crazy or not. Also, his source comments are...colorful in some cases. :)

by xd 15y ago

kristopolous 15y ago

That's horrible. Should I just take it down? I mean really, I don't want to do anything bad like that. I could try to stay up and remove the stuff referring to him ... but I've been struggling to build context without using him as a concrete example. Edit: I'm re-editing it now. (I should be in bed, ug tired) 03:45 I think it is a better job now ... hopefully you find it more acceptable; I'm starting to become a bit incoherent myself and need to catch a wink. 04:25 Just finished another round of editing. I do really hope everything is better. (4:50 still going ... )

rainboiboi 15y ago
Well what's been said is already public. No point editing it.
- kristopolous 15y ago
  probably about 75% of the would be viewers haven't woken up yet ... if things should be changed, now is the time. Alright, I think most of the finger-pointing is gone. Hopefully it's better ... I need to get to bed.
  - rooshdi 15y ago
    If you didn't get consent to analyze this man in public, you should take it down IMHO. We should respect this man's personal life.
  - meric 15y ago
    I read about him in comments after seeing his dead posts on HN weeks ago and I had the same conclusions. Your article makes a very important point about community intolerance.
JoachimSchipper 15y ago
I'm not entirely clear on what you hope to achieve, really. If you are trading off possible harm for this guy against something vague like "more acceptance of mental illness in the hacker community", I'm not sure the ethical calculus comes out in your favor. You probably know more than I do. (OTOH, he's fairly public already, and I'm sure he's been called insane before.)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- whateverer 15y ago
  Have you seen the kind of abuse that is dealt to Davis whenever he shows up, writing incoherent prose all over? He has come and gone on just about every programmer forum out there, even on 4chan's, and every single time he depleted the patience of their hosts and has been either banned, ran off the place or programmatically ignored, like here (or 4chan, with userscripts). He is a public figure already, as you say so yourself, regardless of whether we can hold him responsible of it. If anything, this piece served to humanize him, and spreading knowledge of his condition may, at least, serve to secure better treatment for him from his peers.
mattdeboard 15y ago
Please do not take this down. This is the most interesting bit of writing I've seen come across HN in quite some time.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jbrichter 15y ago
If you're dead-set on publishing a lengthy article about somebody's private business, it at least behooves you to spend some time on it. You even managed to get his name wrong. It is simply not true that the article is "mostly in praise of his accomplishments," either. There is a brief description of LoseThos at the start and a vacuous upbeat sentence about workflows and usability near the end. In the middle sits an illustrated description of Mr. Davis's antics and a rather uninformative discussion about how mentally ill people are mentally ill. You cap it off with a quote from the DSM describing behavior similar to his, and reflect that you can "understand and appreciate" someone's illness now that you have blurb, even one which says nothing more than "yeah, schizos do that sometimes." The article, aside from rubbernecking at a mentally ill man, has almost no actual content. It seems you were more interested in telling a "tortured genius" story. You insinuate that mental illness would be some sort of creative advantage if only society were more accommodating, that his mental illness and his writing an operating system are somehow two sides of the same coin. He's been unemployed and stuck at home for 7 years. I don't think it so notable that a programmer in that situation might do some programming. LoseThos is neat, but let's be level headed. Writing a basic kernel (and this one doesn't even have virtual memory or preemptive multitasking) and a basic compiler are both common projects for CS undergrads. To produce this over 7 years isn't some unfathomable feat, though I can't imagine being sick and medicated made it any easier. I absolutely don't mean to be critical of him, and the treatment he received on Something Awful was really unappetizing. But it does seem that you're building his accomplishments up a little. And it seems that you're doing it because you want to write a moving story and parade his personal tragedy through the streets like some nerd Oprah. This post is too long already, but I also want to say your blaming the community's lack of acceptance for the progression of diseases is ridiculous and trivializes mental illness. Smiling and nodding at his PRNG won't make him better. Finally, your stamping the article with a little self-aggrandizing blurb about yourself and a link to your github account leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
- angersock 15y ago
  "Writing a basic kernel (and this one doesn't even have virtual memory or preemptive multitasking) and a basic compiler are both common projects for CS undergrads." Did you notice the part where he also runs goofy JIT/linking, or has annotated source code with pictures and compiler for same, and that the virtual memory/preemptive multitasking was explicitly omitted? Or several other nifty/quirky features of the OS? (http://www.losethos.com/LTHtml/Doc/Features.html http://www.losethos.com/LTHtml/Doc/Features.html) He's done work that any of us should respect as fellow programmers, crazy or not. Also, his source comments are...colorful in some cases. :)