9 ms·

Yeah, that's kind of why I think it's important to reinvent the wheel sometimes. The "logical" choice if you want a custom OS is to start with a Linux, glue to

Yeah, that's kind of why I think it's important to reinvent the wheel sometimes. The "logical" choice if you want a custom OS is to start with a Linux, glue together Grub and a kernel and if you're really ambitious maybe write your own windowing system on X or Wayland or something. I think it's safe to say that's what most of us on this forum would do, and it's certainly what I would do, and I don't think that's an incompetent decision. But I think it's important for people shoot for the moon and inject entropy into the process. Terry definitely had a very interesting way of thinking than the average engineer, and I think there are more than a few clever ideas buried within TempleOS that we might not have otherwise. If we don't occasionally inject entropy into the process, I think we find plenty of local maxima, but miss a lot of potentially higher potential maxima.

LoganDark 2y ago
> If we don't occasionally inject entropy into the process, I think we find plenty of local maxima, but miss a lot of potentially higher potential maxima. Someone sent me this video a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHuFSnhKG9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHuFSnhKG9I The video uses an analogy that stuck with me, and the basic idea is that if autistics are good at deeply building out a single idea, schizophrenics / schizotypals find it very easy to adopt entirely new ideas. This could also be one of the mechanisms behind schizophrenic delusions, which are difficult to fight with logic, because they're not based on logical combinations of existing ideas, they stand on their own. I think it's extremely fascinating. I don't think there's any doubt that he was suffering from his illness, but I don't think he suffered only due to his illness. I think general society doesn't yet understand mental illness and neurodivergence in general well enough to know how to approach it. I don't know if I'll live long enough to see real studies catch up to even just what I currently know and feel intuitively, and that makes me a little sad. To me, autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, DID, BPD and so on, all feel critically misunderstood by medical literature.
- zem 2y ago
  for a brilliant science fictional treatment of some of these themes, check out friedman's "this alien shore" and sequel
082349872349872 2y ago
IIRC Terry literally injected entropy, in that he used a PRNG to suggest what to work on next. At the time, it occurred to me that that might have been an effective way to make sure all of the system got a little implemented, instead of only ever working on his favourite subsystems?

LoganDark 2y ago

> If we don't occasionally inject entropy into the process, I think we find plenty of local maxima, but miss a lot of potentially higher potential maxima. Someone sent me this video a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHuFSnhKG9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHuFSnhKG9I The video uses an analogy that stuck with me, and the basic idea is that if autistics are good at deeply building out a single idea, schizophrenics / schizotypals find it very easy to adopt entirely new ideas. This could also be one of the mechanisms behind schizophrenic delusions, which are difficult to fight with logic, because they're not based on logical combinations of existing ideas, they stand on their own. I think it's extremely fascinating. I don't think there's any doubt that he was suffering from his illness, but I don't think he suffered only due to his illness. I think general society doesn't yet understand mental illness and neurodivergence in general well enough to know how to approach it. I don't know if I'll live long enough to see real studies catch up to even just what I currently know and feel intuitively, and that makes me a little sad. To me, autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, DID, BPD and so on, all feel critically misunderstood by medical literature.

zem 2y ago
for a brilliant science fictional treatment of some of these themes, check out friedman's "this alien shore" and sequel

082349872349872 2y ago

IIRC Terry literally injected entropy, in that he used a PRNG to suggest what to work on next. At the time, it occurred to me that that might have been an effective way to make sure all of the system got a little implemented, instead of only ever working on his favourite subsystems?