23 ms·

God's Lonely Programmer

883 points by eli 12y ago

jason_slack 12y ago
Terry really is a gifted programmer.
- kelvin0 12y ago
  Since you seem to be on a first name basis with him, can you tell us more about him? His work, aspirations?
  - jason_slack 12y ago
    I dont know him, I just know his name. I think we all know him here as Terry.
    - gojomo 12y ago
      In fact his chosen name here is his project name, 'TempleOS': https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOS https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOS It was previously 'losethos', when that was his project's name: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=losethos https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=losethos
      - LukeShu 12y ago
        He's got a couple of others too, but https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOSV2 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOSV2 is the only one I can remember off the top of my head. For a while he was using TempleOS and TempleOSV2 concurrently, but it seems he hasn't used V2 in over a year.
      - wooster 12y ago
        Also, previously, SparrowOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=SparrowOS https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=SparrowOS
      - Igglyboo 12y ago
        He's got a lot of accounts actually because they all keep getting hellbanned.
  - kelvin0 12y ago
    Man, getting sick of being downvoted for asking questions ...
    - publicfig 12y ago
      I would think the downvotes were because his name was in the article and due to the fact that a good percentage of people around here know his name, people assumed you were being snarky with the question as opposed to curious.
      - kelvin0 12y ago
        The key here is : '...People ASSUMED you were being snarky...'.
        publicfig 12y ago
        I was only explaining the reasoning, not defending or condemning it.
Gracana 12y ago
> As an undergrad he’d been hired at Ticketmaster to program operating systems. Ticketmaster, huh! Does anyone know anything about what they were working on?
- TTPrograms 12y ago
  Maybe he meant operating systems for automated ticket kiosks.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - OldSchool 12y ago
    That's correct as I recall.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- mathattack 12y ago
  In the early to mid-90s I saw a lot of strange systems building exercises. Large companies building their own email systems from scratch. Creating their own custom Windows widgets. Building their own databases from scratch. At the time IT was more of a white-glove environment. When the only people handling it were the tools makers themselves, a lot would get done by a couple smart people in some nook or cranny of the organization. Of course this didn't last, as state of the art enterprise software eventually over-ran them, and the experts wound up joining software firms.
- OldSchool 12y ago
  Ticketmaster in Phoenix, AZ - early times - here's a little anecdote about the bizarre culture I saw there circa 1989-90. I applied there, having an EE degree already and I was called in for an interview. The initial interview consisted of what was more or less a battery of IQ tests. There must've been 30 of us initially. Soon only a couple of us were left after everybody else was dismissed. Apparently having passed this somewhat offensive process, they took more of my time and scheduled me for a second interview another day. I don't recall any names or faces, but there they offered me a job and mentioned some "genius" guy I'd be mentored by. Before I had the honor of meeting this guy we started talking money. The "pay?" $8/hour... Even 25 years ago that was less than half what a freshly graduated engineer could easily get anywhere else in a corporate job. That alone was enough for me to politely decline the offer, but the management attitude and culture was also repulsive. I wouldn't be surprised if they were exploiting this guy at the time and he may very well have been their "genius."
redthrowaway 12y ago
Could we get TempleOS un-shadowbanned for this thread?
- vichu 12y ago
  I personally would love to have him host an AMA-style thread where we could ask him things about TempleOS and his illness. I'm tentative as to how that would turn out though.
  - teraflop 12y ago
    In case you missed it, there's a link in the article to a sort-of-Q&A discussion he took part in a couple years back on MetaFilter: http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Songs-from-God#4538269 http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Son... (Back then he called his OS "LoseThos" and used that as his username.)
    - mattmanser 12y ago
      LoseThos was his username here for a while too: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=losethos https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=losethos
- bithush 12y ago
  He did an interview with The Setup http://terry.davis.usesthis.com/ http://terry.davis.usesthis.com/
- vernie 12y ago
  So that somebody can trigger one of his racial-epithet-laced tirades against the CIA?
Delmania 12y ago
Terry is technically brilliant, but I just don't understand TempleOS. I can't tell if he's serious, or it's a tongue in cheek concept.
- eli 12y ago
  I do not think it's a joke.
- ludamad 12y ago
  http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/Strategy.html#l1 http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/Strategy.html#l1 User interface aside, it's pretty serious work.
- yzzxy 12y ago
  It's very real. I've installed it in a VM and played around for a while - it's technically very impressive and has a HUGE number of utilities and weird little features.
  - damurdock 12y ago
    Does it run in standard VirtualBox?
    - zenciadam 12y ago
      yes
- jesuslop 12y ago
  I skimmed at the source and it had functionality enough to be called an OS, boot sector, drivers, filesystem, etc all of great simplicity in the good sense.
- Amezarak 12y ago
  I don't think it's a joke. Terry has written before that he made many of the design decisions because he wanted it to be a simple OS anyone could tinker with and learn from, like he did from the computers available when he was younger.
danielweber 12y ago
Something about that webpage is making my computer slow to a crawl.
- softdev12 12y ago
  Same here. It must be overloaded from HN.
  - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
    That actually made sense for a moment. I think it's time for bed.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
dunstad 12y ago
I find this guy's moments of clarity amazing. I'm not very familiar with mental illnesses in any form, but it surprises me how clearly he understands how the rest of the world views him. It makes me think about what the world might be like if we reverse the situation, and the article were about the only man who can't hear the voice of God.
- daveloyall 12y ago
  > I find this guy's moments of clarity amazing. Oh, that's because: > I'm not very familiar with mental illnesses [...] :) Schizophrenics are frequently lucid. Well, a modified sort of lucid... It's as if they are rational folks for whom first principles or axioms have been shaken up, and indeed are malleable all the time. It doesn't sound like Terry would ever think that his dinner plate would sprout legs and walk across the table. But as he stated in the article, he has thought that some dinners were poisoned. See, the first one can't happen. The second one could technically happen. Schizophrenics aren't stupid, you know? :) But, their plausibility metrics are broken. Regarding the plausibility of a dinner plate walking across a table: Well, it could happen if the plate is some Transformers(R) style robot, or something. It could be, if those exist, right? When a schizophrenic tells you something is true but you think it is implausible, remember: it's not implausible to them, because they are rational folks employing a different set of base assumptions than you. Walking plates are normal in a world that has Transformers(R). Why would a rational person believe in fictional toy robots? Or even that someone wants to poison them? ...Well, once you believe in God, or time travel, or aliens, or that the universe is a simulation, or any number of "crazy ideas"... once you actually believe one crazy idea, it's all down hill from there. But, it is generally an otherwise sane individual that is running down that hill... Terry specifically mentioned a feeling or belief that God picks random numbers or events as a way to communicate with folks. "I can sit down with my parents and praise God and open the Bible randomly," he says, "and it will talk." All of those sorts of beliefs are rooted in some form of the following base principle: "The world is fundamentally not what the common man thinks it is." Once you think that some entity which has the power to alter individual atoms or the results of a coin toss (God, aliens, whatever) exists, then the belief that they would use that power to communicate is just a small logical step away. [EDIT: Indeed, I just found this quote from him: God controls ALL the random numbers in yer life [...]. Every [...] random number from when you awake to sleep [...] So in his world, if you run over a nail in your car and get a flat... Well, you did something to deserve it!] NOTE: Apparently some schizophrenic folks experience vivid, realistic open-eyed hallucinations sometimes (at the peak of a manic episode) or all the time. I don't have much experience with that. Sometimes those events coincide with seizures and events in which awareness and consciousness is lowered. I am guessing that my "these are rational folks" argument does not apply at those times (or to some people any the time).
m0th87 12y ago
What fascinates me about Terry is that his schizophrenia doesn't somehow prevent his ability to make something as complex as an entire operating system. Maybe this suggests that while schizophrenics look discordant to the rest of us, there's an internal consistency that very much makes sense.
- dereferenced2 12y ago
  A computer offers direct irrefutable feedback about your input. If you program something that doesn't work, you get a syntax error. The real world doesn't. If your beliefs about god, religion, etc are wrong, well.. it gets a lot murkier.
Torn 12y ago
I remember the somethingawful.com thread where someone tried to install his operating system. It got real crazy real fast. There was a HN thread here discussing it, and the top comments were people rightfully suggesting the guy needs serious mental help, not derision. The suggestion he had schizophrenia was thrown around a lot. Following the rabbit hole from 2012, it seems he was banned from SA, and shadowbanned here on HN, but are visible if you turn on 'showdead' in your profile options: http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Songs-from-God http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Son...
yzzxy 12y ago
I wonder if there is something the programming community could do to help him. I'm not sure what this could entail, but I'd hope there are people who would be willing to talk with him about his interests or attempt to set up some kind of assisted employment situation - he is by all accounts a very talented engineer.
- GuiA 12y ago
  Why are you under the impression that he is in need of help? It seems to me that he has no problem finding outlets to talk about his interests, and that he doesn't seem to desire assisted employment.
  - yzzxy 12y ago
    I don't think there's sure evidence either way, but I did read this line: > Unable to work, he collects Social Security disability and spends most of his time coding, web surfing, or using the output... I have no idea if Terry would like to work or not, but I don't see harm in someone making it possible for him by extending an offer. In addition, I think it's hard to see the huge number of TempleOS posts and comments throughout the web as anything other than an attempt to talk about his interests with people.
    - mietek 12y ago
      Not everybody needs a job in order to live a fulfilling life. LoseThos is working—he is doing God's work, as he would gladly tell you.
      - yzzxy 12y ago
        It's as if you didn't read the comment above where I said that "I have no idea if Terry would like to work or not."
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  One of the wonderful things about Western society is that it's got enough social welfare structures to allow someone like Terry to exist, is wealthy enough to allow them to thrive, should they want to, and enough individualism to where he's not constantly being beaten over the head with other people's demands for him to change to fit their idea of what a person should be. As someone who has at times relied on this social largesse, I can say that attempts to do more wouldn't really have the desired effect. His is a wholly self-directed life, attempts to 'help' would take the self-directed quality out of his life that is being selected for. If you're worried for his well-being, I can say from experience that a person's subconscious mind is a lot more capable than we give it credit for. If Terry wants to work, he will find work. His subconscious mind will proclaim through God that he is to glorify Him through this new avenue, which just so happens to be in a company in return for a salary. If he wants to do something else, he will do that something else. He doesn't need us, and that's the real beauty of it.
zaius 12y ago
If you'd like to see his comments on HN, enable showdead in your profile and then go here - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOS https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOS
euphemize 12y ago
From the TempleOS: AfterEgypt video[1]: "Now you're supposed to do an offering before you talk to God. [...] just get conversation, maybe being witty and charming - or praise - like 'praise god for sandcastles and snowmen and bubbles and popcorn'...hum, I'm gonna praise him for something new, which is isotopes! Like you have Carbon-14 and stuff like that. I think that's pretty cool. Didn't have to be that way, maybe...Ok here we go!" Fascinating. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhRYGm_b9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhRYGm_b9A
- Redoubts 12y ago
  *hold court* "Woman commits blasphemy" *punish* "Child commits idolatry" *really punish*
TeMPOraL 12y ago
I really liked the article. It was very respectful towards Terry and shown a deeper understanding of his life and issues he faced. It was explaining, not judging. I now have a much more complete picture of the man I know only from shadowbanned comments here on HN.
zafka 12y ago
I really enjoyed this window into the life of "LoseThos". I am glad that he seems to be both relatively safe and happy. I think in the long run the value his life's work will be comparable or greater than the worth of most of his peers.
- Nursie 12y ago
  How do you figure that? I'm genuinely interested. He's made a network-less OS with a fixed, low-resolution display, that is of seriously limited utility in the modern world and (AFAICT) doesn't advance the state of the art, all as an act of worship. It's a curiosity, but of value? Not so much.
  - esaym 12y ago
    Well that is a heck of a lot more than I can do...
  - zafka 12y ago
    We don't have an argument here, but rather two different ways of looking at the same facts. For comparison, I was paid rather well to add diagnostic code to large PBX systems in the late 1990's, recently I have been working on a variety of embedded projects, some for solar, some for medical devices. In 50 years, my guess is that all of my code will have fallen out of use. Most likely, so will Terry's,but there is a small chance it will hold out as a curiosity. Now we are down to one of my hobbies: What is meant by Quality? What is Meant by Value? As a side note, I think the whole project is an interesting view into how the mind works. I am very much in agreement with theories that posit very high intelligence is often intertwined with what we call mental illness. The same reduced filters that can cause so much anguish give others the ability to see hidden facts in everyday objects.
MarkPNeyer 12y ago
i have had a number of experiences very similar to what terry went through. connecting computing to religion, seeing 'larger patterns' that weren't there, believing in conspiracies directed at me... it was rough. i was lucky enough to have a few people really step up and support me when i was at the edge. it's weird reading this and feeling like i know exactly what he means when he says this stuff that sounds crazy. here's a description of one experience i had in april 2011, a day before joining uber: http://www.reddit.com/r/BipolarReddit/comments/l7nij/interesting_humorous_not_tragic_manic_stories/ http://www.reddit.com/r/BipolarReddit/comments/l7nij/interes... this is something i submitted later to hn, while cto of a gaming company: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877483 i made it out of all that, though. thanks almost entirely to daily love and support from my now wife. if you have friends in a position like this - you CAN help them, it's just a crazy amount of work.
- MrBra 12y ago
  Didn't read the comments at reddit yet, but I wanted to say that a friend of mine, also in IT, had a similar experience where he started to see conspiracies everywhere, and "religion thoughts" kicked in for him as well. After some time on cure this regressed and he now even jokes about that period. He got to work again and has a completely normal life, but in a way I can still feel something changed inside of him... It'd be nice if I could talk about this more with you. I will surely read your comments.
  - MarkPNeyer 12y ago
    sure - add me on facebook or through my blog or what have you.
noname123 12y ago
Although the guy lives arguably outside the fringe of society, I cannot question his commitment to his project. We tend to celebrate the successes like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg and then quietly go back to our daily lives, and compromise our creativity for family, wealth accumulation and professional advancement. The opinionated amongst us will debate which of their favorite value is the "right way," (If LoseTheOs got the help and settled down with his family, a partner or friends; If LoseTheOs found a job at Red Hat and channeled his energy towards Linux Kernel development...). But choices and our commitment to these choices are what defines us. TempleOS in this regard, seems more like a work of art in the medium of code. Of course, the merit of that art is up to the beholder (and tbh, I don't think I'd have appreciated Van Gogh a priori.) "The difference between genius and insanity is measured only by success," but is the guy who doesn't succeed by conventional sense but finds his own meaning and keeps going, insane?
mblevin 12y ago
Throughout the span of modern history, we've had gifted creators whose talent is at a minimum intertwined if not completely predicated on their mental illness. Whether it was Van Gogh or Kurt Kobain, we've seen it consistently. Terry is potentially one of the first if not the only creators of this type using a completely digital medium. TempleOS is essentially a 10-year art project.
- lomnakkus 12y ago
  Unfortunately, in years past, we only heard (in the mainstream) from the few that succeeded, not the huge numbers of individuals that just ended up in asylums or, worse, dead. That's not to take anything away from the "project" (as art), but let's be realistic about the possible gains we (as a society) can gain from this. My conjecture is that it would be better to try to get some help for this person.
  - darkmighty 12y ago
    I find it very weird that his treatment is being viewed as unnecessary due to him producing something. Any other disease and this would be frowned upon. His disease is a sad and miserable existence. Being schizophrenic is like have everyone against you; religion is his coping mechanism not to freak out against everything, but who knows how long it's going to last. Anyone suggesting he could get be offered a job clearly never really knew someone with the condition. I think it could be possible if he worked remotely, though. I hate so much schizophrenia... being denied reality has got to be one of the worst conditions a person can find herself in.
    - mblevin 12y ago
      I don't think treatment is unnecessary at all - I assume if he was on medication he'd be gainfully employed writing code somewhere, and potentially producing even more interesting things. Rather I was highlighting that individuals possessing a certain artistic talent, potentially correlated with propensity for mental illness, when untreated may produce incredible works of art as a side effect. I'm not at all saying that him or society has a net benefit from that at all, but rather it's a second-order effect that is quite different from what we often observe (and stereotype) in terms of schizophrenia and mental illness. Purely an observation vs a judgment.
GuiA 12y ago
I'm a huge fan of Terry's work, because he works hard, has a clear vision for what he wants to do, and makes it happen. That's more than can be said of many self-professed hackers who never see a project to completion or are motivated solely by peer recognition. You may disagree with the logical coherency of his goals - I for one think the "temple for God" thing is pure kookery - but he is a master craftsman, and in this context it's all that really matters. There are people who devote their entire lives to pointless things. There are people who work on supposedly pointless things, which later turn out to not be so pointless. There are people who are supposedly working on world-changing things, which really are completely pointless. In the end, you can't predict the future. Just do honest work that you feel is worthwhile, and see what happens. (if you want to play the hypothetical game, who's to say that Terry Davis won't develop some extremely efficient low level algorithms/techniques never done before that will dramatically impact computing?) Every time his story comes up, there are people who respond with answers along the lines of "what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? can we raise money for him?" etc. While these comments are surely well intentioned, they end up being mostly condescending and out of place, as if talking about a completely helpless being. But Terry strikes me as anything but helpless - based on the various interviews he's given and comments he's posted, he seems to be quite content with his situation, and that "assisted employment" is the last thing he'd want or need. If anything, this is just a further argument for reforms like basic income and better treatment of mental conditions (e.g. with better early detection). There are also always comments expressing surprise at how one can suffer from such a mental condition and yet do complex intellectual work like low level programming. These questions are based on the premise that schizophrenia (or a similar condition) impacts your brain in such a way that would make logical reasoning impossible. But that's not how it operates - logical reasoning is largely unaffected. Like `daveloyall says in another comment in this thread [0], what's affected are a few key "first principles". For instance, if you're persuaded that you're being constantly tracked by the CIA, removing all your clothes or dismantling your car to make sure you aren't bugged are very logical, reasonable things to do. The problem is that when you're operating under premises that are shared with no one else, the resulting dissonance makes integration with the rest of society problematic. But with this in mind, it's easy to see why one could be schizophrenic and yet still be able to program or do math or weave baskets, especially if the skills were mastered before the condition developed. Terry is a maker of miniatures [1], and I'm happy we have such people walking among us. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8658958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8658958 [1]: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/10/in-the-reign-of-harad-iv http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/10/in-the-reign-of...
_exec 12y ago
I've stumbled upon Terry's work a long time ago...and suffice to say he's been a major inspiration. It's a shame the majority of netizens (Yes, HN and Reddit included) can't look beyond his eccentricity and mental health issues (then again, it takes some digging and google-fu to find out the full story / context behind the man...his posts don't exactly come with a disclaimer). Going down the rabbit hole of Googling, Redditing, finding out more about him and his story ("a one-man novel, modern x64 almost-but-not-quite-entirely-unlike-retro OS?" type of thing is catnip to my synapses), I've also come to understand a friend's schizophrenic relative a bit better. I've read accounts of schizophrenia and art intersecting, but did not understand what it is, what it's like, *, until I witnessed schizophrenia intersecting with IT, at which point the gates of empathy, admiration and fascination were flung wide open. [/r/programming's 637 comments thread from 2010] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/e5d8e/demo_video_of_new_operating_system/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/e5d8e/demo_vide... [another /r/programming thread] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/lhefd/losethos_64bit_operating_system_v707_released/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/lhefd/losethos_... His username on HN is / has been some variation on "TempleOS", "LoseThos", "SparrowOS", "TempleOSv2", etc. AFAIK all hellbanned due to un-PC comments posted in his, for lack of better phrasing, "Moments of Un-Clarity". The irony (perhaps using the wrong word) of being hellbanned when the story of of your life's work..your magnum opus (especially in this case, an objective article that places it in context and with some background) is featured on HN's front page, makes me sad. I consider his work to be a prime example of ["Outsider Art"] {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art} in our field. I wish to collaborate with him one day. Edit: Formatting, more caffeine.
- nyolfen 12y ago
  the dude is straight up racist and just because he's eccentric and mentally ill doesn't mean it should be tolerated
  - jack9 12y ago
    > just because he's eccentric and mentally ill doesn't mean it should be tolerated So let's all be intolerant of the mentally ill? There's no celebration of his social contributions here, this is recognition of his technical achievement. Social behavior is orthogonal to the discussion.
MrBra 12y ago
so, how 'bout that :)
- MrBra 12y ago
  stupid hypercritical judgmental people downvoting did not understand the sympathetic reference.. and are probably the ones to know less here about this guy, oh well..
  - a_c_s 12y ago
    FYI: Your comment is being downvoted because, well-intentioned though it may be, it doesn't contribute to the discussion.
    - MrBra 12y ago
      Also because they don't know what I am referring to.
blt 12y ago
I really like the "modern, souped-up, multi-tasking, cross between DOS and a Commodore 64" vision for TempleOS. The OS also has some innovative design choices like using the C compiler as the shell and compiling most programs on the fly. It reminds me of Lisp Machines in a way. A different vision of what computing could be like if closed-source binary-distributed software didn't exist. I wish the source code (http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineRep.html http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineRep.html) were easier to read though. It's very dense with a lot of abbreviated variable names and no comments. It's the main reason why I haven't installed TempleOS yet, because of course I'd want to hack on it, and the code seems tough to learn.
- tredontho 12y ago
  He has a YouTube channel where he has some "5 Minute" code walkthroughs where he analyzes randomly selected code and its context, and tries to explain it. The few that I've watched had a fair amount of rambling, and since it's random, it's obviously not a structured overview... but still interesting. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdX4uJUwSFwiY3XBvu-F_-Q http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdX4uJUwSFwiY3XBvu-F_-Q
- jpgvm 12y ago
  It also uses physical memory, not virtual memory and no protection to prevent 'userspace' programs from modifying the kernel. I quote userspace as it doesn't technically have the same distinctions that you are used to. This has some interesting performance implications. Specifically there is no need for a traditional "kernel bypass" when you want to work with hardware from userspace. For instance in Linux we have stacks like the Infiniband networking stack and some userspace TCP stacks (usually based on PF_RING) that are quite a hack to build in Linux that would be "just the way it is" in TempleOS. (though it's worth mentioning that TempleOS has not networking capability, apparently Gods decision) These sorts of operating systems were common before multi-user computing but died out because of the need to protect the operating system from it's users and the applications they may want to run. However the world is coming full circle again. Unikernels are back, sometimes they are written in C, sometimes in OCaml (MirageOS), sometimes in Erlang (ZergVM or something I think). TempleOS may actually provide insights for how to do these sorts of things as it's been built this way for a long time which can't be said of many other modern operating systems. Alas, people would probably need to see past the somewhat spiky exterior (Terry himself) to appreciate his work.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
seccess 12y ago
Reading this, I'm reminded of Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR (polymerase chain reaction). PCR is widely considered to be the most important discovery of modern biology, ushering a new era of scientific research after he invented it in the 1980s. He won a nobel prize for it. Kary was a bit off though (in this case due to intense drug usage, I think). Afterwards, he went on to deny that HIV is the cause of AIDS, tried to discredit global warming, and began believing in astrology and magic. In the end, its possible that a little bit of insanity is a good thing; that it can help someone make a profound discovery that no one else could see. Too much is obviously detrimental, however.
- Ollinson 12y ago
  Not exactly drug induced or a mental Illness but Ronald Fisher, arguably the father of modern statistics, went to great lengths to prove cancer caused smoking due to his personal convictions[1]. [1] http://www.epidemiology.ch/history/PDF%20bg/Stolley%20PD%201991%20when%20genius%20errs%20-%20RA%20fisher%20and%20the%20lung%20cancer.pdf http://www.epidemiology.ch/history/PDF%20bg/Stolley%20PD%201... Even when you're talking about geniuses it's important to separate the wheat from the chaff.
  - fragmede 12y ago
    > prove cancer caused smoking I thought you typed that backwards, but skimming your link, that is indeed what he claimed!
lmm 12y ago
The lionization of this guy reminds me of the reporting of the Charge of the Light Brigade. All those noble British soldiers, following orders even unto death, what courage, what majesty... when what should really have been said was: what a bunch of bloody idiots, who got themselves killed for no reason. And so the same foolishness repeated throughout the first world war. So let me say it: this guy, whether through his own fault or because of his problems, is acting like a dumbass. He's pouring a lot of talent into a pointless project that no-one will ever use or benefit from. He is not someone to look up to or admire, and certainly not to emulate. Do not romanticise his foolishness.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  It's essentially an art project. Which, for me at least, exempts it from evaluation on grounds of pure utility.
- nekopa 12y ago
  Hold on, let me get this straight: You think that someone who does what he does because he honestly believes he is doing god's work (because of a mental illness) is a dumbass? Next you'll call John Nash fucking retarded for being afraid of men in red ties.
  - lmm 12y ago
    Nash was great in spite of his issues, not because of them; his work was a real, useful contribution to human knowledge, because (in contrast to this guy) he worked with the wider mathematical community, which then in turn later built on his work. Being afraid of men in red ties is still a dumb thing to do, and won't make you a great mathematician. We romanticize the outsiders, but the great bulk of the mathematical edifice was constructed by relatively ordinary, well-adjusted people like Euler. If you want to be a great mathematician, it isn't Nash you should model yourself on.
    - _exec 12y ago
      What about Erdős :) ?
pjbrunet 12y ago
Looks like "folk art" to me. Like dropping an IBM PC on Gilligan's Island ;-)
api 12y ago
I consider this a pretty fascinating piece of art. It's like an artcar, but it's an artOS! It reminds me of Salvation Mountain in Southern California, but with preemptive multitasking. :) http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/17476 http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/17476
fuligo 12y ago
I wonder if he would get this much positive attention if he wasn't a Christian extremist. Would the article have conveniently left out his racism if he was, say, a militant antisemite instead of being focused on black people as he is? Would people admire his worship of a random number generator if he used it to spit out slogans of a religious text that isn't as revered as the Bible? While his schizophrenia probably comes with very bad episodes, there is absolutely nothing that can be found in his own words allowing for the conclusion that this view is just a tourette-like symptom. On the contrary. His violence-laden hate speech is one of the constant factors defining him. Contrary to what has been suggested here he doesn't use slurs randomly and generically, either. There's a story behind his views that is just as coherent as the cute "god's own programmer" schtick. Where his illness clearly manifests is the interpretation of random events all having a specific meaning. The radio talking to him, all the events in his life being just so that an invisible power is communicating with him, all the way down to literally a random number generator whose nature he cannot grasp. That's schizophrenia. If there was an adequate cure or means of suppressing it, this world view would completely go away. It's more complicated to separate the man from the illness when it comes to pretty much anything else. At the very least I would be extremely hesitant to call him, as people do in this thread, an "inspiration". I'm not even sure it's safe to be in the same room with him. Closing with a quote straight from his most recent account: "I spend my days clubbing retard-n$ggers. CLUB! CLUB! DIE N$GGER! CLUB! RETARD! N$GGER! DIE!! CLUB! N$GGER!*" HN's majority opinion of this guy makes me more uncomfortable than his comments by themselves. I don't get how we can label this guy as being "high functioning" and at the same time sweep 99% of everything he ever says under the rug. It's either or.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  He's 'high functioning' in the sense that he can produce elaborate computer software that runs fast, in other words he has impressive engineering skills. Socially he's pretty incapable. I think his offensive racist, homophobic and other offensive remarks are part and parcel of his condition because I've spent quite a lot of time reading his rants, and disagree with your claim that his use of slurs is not random and generic. It's not uncommon for him to claim that 'bill gAtes is an atheist nigger' and talk about hod God likes 'African musical rhythms and does not like white people so much' on the same day. Yes, he does seem to use the epithet 'nigger' more than all other epithets combined, which is understandably alienating for many people. But I don't think this is ideologically rooted because it is so randomly and inconsistently applied in his writing (where it makes up a small fraction of the overall output, rather than the 99% you suggest). Being an atheist, his output of random passages from the Bible is neither admirable nor otherwise to me - it's just statistically the most likely religious text for an American with a religious fixation to be fixated on. I've met mentally ill Asian Buddhists whose cognitive patterns are quite similar to Terry's even though the cultural referents are completely different. Extreme religiosity is very strongly correlated with some kinds of mental illness and I don't find it strange that Terry is fixated on Old Testament Bible stories where God puts in a lot of personal appearances. I could just as easily imagine him being obsessed with the Koran or some other religious text that's ubiquitous in some other part of the world. I can't agree that he's an extremist - his (inoffensive) 'Guidelines for talking to God' [1]are pretty bland and heretodox as he eschews questions of salvation, morality etc., in favor of keeping God company (which makes sense since God is apparently a fixture in Terry's life). According to Terry, God dislikes classical music, Shakespeare, French people, and Terry's drumming while exhibiting an inordinate fondness for elephants, bears, and 1960s pop singers. You could work these elements into some sort of coherent ideological position just as you could characterize his relentless automated Biblical quotation as Christian extremism, but I don't think either position makes sense. What's remarkable about him is not the endless stream of nonsense, much of which is offensive when it's even coherent; it's the fact that he manages to construct working things as part of his intellectual pursuits and carry on some kind of social life despite his mental circumstances. 1. http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/God/HSNotes.html#l1 http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/God/HSNotes.html#l1
cyphunk 12y ago
uncompressed http://cypherpoet.com/TempleOS/ http://cypherpoet.com/TempleOS/
pluma 12y ago
"Weird guy makes an OS because God told him so" sounds less hilarious if you're aware of why the Perl programming language exists.
- RaleyField 12y ago
  Go on.
  - gamegoblin 12y ago
    The parent may be (I have no idea...) referencing a line from the (hilarious) "A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages" [1]. The entry for 1987 is: """ 1987 - Larry Wall falls asleep and hits Larry Wall's forehead on the keyboard. Upon waking Larry Wall decides that the string of characters on Larry Wall's monitor isn't random but an example program in a programming language that God wants His prophet, Larry Wall, to design. Perl is born. """ [1] http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-m...
    - pluma 12y ago
      Although that's of course an exaggeration, there's this bit in his Wikipedia article [1]: """ Wall's Christian faith has influenced some of the terminology of Perl, such as the name itself, a biblical reference to the "pearl of great price" (Matthew 13:46). Similar references are the function name bless, and the organization of Perl 6 design documents with categories such as apocalypse and exegesis. """ Also in [2] he alludes to his faith having played a major part if not in the decision to create Perl then at least in the design decisions (e.g. TMTOWTDI) he made. He's not as overtly religious (and most definitely not as mentally unstable) as the author of TempleOS, but he's certainly far above the norm compared to other well-known creators of programming languages. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall [2]: http://interviews-beta.slashdot.org/story/02/09/06/1343222/larry-wall-on-perl-religion-and http://interviews-beta.slashdot.org/story/02/09/06/1343222/l...
andywood 12y ago
To anyone brandishing the word 'racist' here, can you point us to any instance where what Terry wrote was not merely a rambling screed with the n-word in it, but actually racist thought. Because to me, those are different things - the former likely an excusable symptom, and the latter, y'know, actual racism. Maybe you think it's the same. Maybe you're enforcing your zero-tolerance policy. If so, we disagree. To me it looks like a huge assumption, possibly more offensive than Terry's rants.
- ixtli 12y ago
  To call not being accepting of any incarnation of racial violence "zero-tolerance" has a really unfortunate air of dismissal to it. I, for one, am not a middle school hall monitor. There are things that a (relatively) advanced, civil society like ours should not accept. Just because you say something and may or may not mean what someone else meant does not remove the broader social context. The word is racist because of the social context and when you use it you evoke that context whether you understand it, agree with it, or not. Edit: to be clear, my point is that evoking such an idea or meaning is violent towards others and an individual doesn't get to decide that this isn't the case. Believing you can is a hallmark of privilege.
  - vezzy-fnord 12y ago
    Given that racism is a universal thing and often happens intra-minority (African-Americans and Jews are an (in)famous example), your statement would pretty much mean that just about every demographic exhibits a hallmark of privilege by sheer virtue of ignoring broader social contexts in a racial slur.
- kristofferR 12y ago
  I could - but I don't see the point at all. Blaming him for being a racist is like blaming someone with alzheimer for being forgetful.
  - andywood 12y ago
    That's my only point: that there's correlation between his condition, and his rants, therefore we don't say, "That guy?? He 'espouses racist ideology'!!* Screw 'im!" * (actual comment in this thread)
anon4 12y ago
Interesting that he says he talks to God through randomness. I heard an idea along these lines not long ago - the measure of entropy in the universe is constantly increasing. But entropy is also a measure of the amount of information stored in the system (if you take a file with low entropy, it will compress to a smaller file with higher entropy). So the weird world of quantum effects is basically caused by (or is the equivalent of) information being constantly poured in the universe. In a sense, God speaks new information and quantum effects happen.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
placebo 12y ago
>If he won the lottery three times, he asks, would she believe? I would... :)
deleted 12y ago
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davidgerard 12y ago
Still a better love story than Urbit.
jrapdx3 12y ago
Having treated thousands of individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar and other similar severe, chronic disorders I found the article to be fascinating. It succeeded in portraying the "mindset" of the creator of the OS and giving a glimpse into his experience. It made me believe Mr. Davis really did share his deep convictions just as he described. I've always thought having a mental disorder did not mean a person did not also have talents, just like the rest of us. "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid" is a phrase I heard many patients say. And of course they were right. In reading the comments posted here, one thing may have been missed. The TempleOS for all its eccentricity is also very beautiful and in its own way remarkable coherent. Mr. Davis demonstrates talent not only as a programmer, but also as an artist, points that should not be overlooked. Ultimately, the OS is a freely-given contribution to our world and adds to the important body of work created by people with psychiatric disorders. I think it should be appreciated in that context.
- themodelplumber 12y ago
  Thank you for your comments. > TempleOS for all its eccentricity is also very beautiful and in its own way remarkable coherent As a visual designer myself, his highly-symbolic visual language demonstrates what I understand as a telltale lack of nuance common to those suffering from certain mental illnesses, but the impressive part to me is that he really maximizes it. He seems to have access to an amount of "flow" that many people would kill to harness for their own purposes (of course without its drawbacks in this case). I was wondering if this may indicate that he is receiving a level of care that is fitting for his current needs. I would love to see many other concepts expressed and illustrated with his current visual vocabulary, but I guess limiting it to Israelite Vision is part of the tradeoff.
  - _exec 12y ago
    Would you please elaborate on this part "...his highly-symbolic visual language demonstrates what I understand as a telltale lack of nuance common to those suffering from certain mental illnesses, but the impressive part to me is that he really maximizes it"? I'm really interested in the intersection of mental health issues with various fields (I've commented elsewhere in this thread), and this is the first time I hear a review in the context of UX+{non-NeuroTypical}. While we're at it, by "flow", do you happen to mean flow in a "workflow zen" sense [yes, I'm aware that the word zen has been abused to death :) ] know ? Thanks!
jpgvm 12y ago
Sad that the debate got almost entirely derailed by people labeling Terry a racist. The poor man probably doesn't even realise he is offending peoples fragile sensibilities. I think people need to cut him some slack when it comes to language. They are just words, there is no intent.
- DanBC 12y ago
  We can condemn the behaviour while having sympathy about the causes.
  - jpgvm 12y ago
    Sure, but it's such a waste to even talk about it. There is so much more productive discussion to be had.
kaffeemitsahne 12y ago
Driving south with no clear destination, he says, "I was listening to the radio and it seemed like the radio was talking to me." I had delusions of reference once, it's such a strange feeling. Not necessarily scary.
jqm 12y ago
I have a theory that sometimes mental illness is manifestation of a naturally evolved attribute gone too far. Sort of a "cancer of thinking" if you will. In this case I would say it is the the ability to perceive and relate patterns. A powerful attribute of our species and one of the defining features of intelligence I believe. But then it gets out of control and the pattern matching starts matching things that don't actually match. Only a wild theory. I have no reference nor training in the subject. Just trying to match patterns:)
icedchai 12y ago
I ran into Losethos / TempleOS many years ago and installed it on a VM. I found it interesting. Something different that wasn't another spin on Unix. Terry is very clever, creative, and very opinionated. (Sorry, an OS needs basic networking if people are going to use it.) He has a mental illness... but, without it, would he have that creativity and focus to make something like his OS? I doubt it. Do I agree with the outrageous things he says on forums? Absolutely not. But I can respect him and his creation.
lexcorvus 12y ago
I'm reminded of this quote from Joseph Campbell: "The schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight." Terry Davis seems to be treading water—stuck somewhere between revelation and oblivion.
msie 12y ago
God, I'm a lonely programmer.
trit 12y ago
What's he up to now? Is he pushing out any new projects? I had that he was making miniatures, but haven't had a chance to read the article.
deleted 12y ago
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esaym 12y ago
I have never heard of this guy. His work and commentary are totally awesome! I have heard more original things and phrases from him in 30 minutes than in the last 2 years!
- esaym 12y ago
  Down voted for praise? Well...
firebones 12y ago
We have the ability to filter. Due to his condition, he does not. We should embrace the good and productive that comes from his work, without judgment, and use our filters to deflect and ignore the bad. (Note: this heuristic applies to almost any human, regardless of recognized DSM status. We'd be well-served to save our breath and embrace this outlook.)
buovjaga 12y ago
An article about TempleOS appeared in the Finnish computer magazine Skrolli earlier this year: http://www.skrolli.fi/2014.2.crt.pdf http://www.skrolli.fi/2014.2.crt.pdf (page 56).
minusSeven 12y ago
meh can't read it. Article won't display on firefox. On IE formatting isn't correct and half the article is unreadable. Can anyone post the contents of the article.

883 points by eli 12y ago

jason_slack 12y ago

Terry really is a gifted programmer.

kelvin0 12y ago
Since you seem to be on a first name basis with him, can you tell us more about him? His work, aspirations?
- jason_slack 12y ago
  I dont know him, I just know his name. I think we all know him here as Terry.
  - gojomo 12y ago
    In fact his chosen name here is his project name, 'TempleOS': https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOS https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOS It was previously 'losethos', when that was his project's name: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=losethos https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=losethos
    - LukeShu 12y ago
      He's got a couple of others too, but https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOSV2 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOSV2 is the only one I can remember off the top of my head. For a while he was using TempleOS and TempleOSV2 concurrently, but it seems he hasn't used V2 in over a year.
    - wooster 12y ago
      Also, previously, SparrowOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=SparrowOS https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=SparrowOS
    - Igglyboo 12y ago
      He's got a lot of accounts actually because they all keep getting hellbanned.
- kelvin0 12y ago
  Man, getting sick of being downvoted for asking questions ...
  - publicfig 12y ago
    I would think the downvotes were because his name was in the article and due to the fact that a good percentage of people around here know his name, people assumed you were being snarky with the question as opposed to curious.
    - kelvin0 12y ago
      The key here is : '...People ASSUMED you were being snarky...'.
      - publicfig 12y ago
        I was only explaining the reasoning, not defending or condemning it.

Gracana 12y ago

> As an undergrad he’d been hired at Ticketmaster to program operating systems. Ticketmaster, huh! Does anyone know anything about what they were working on?

TTPrograms 12y ago
Maybe he meant operating systems for automated ticket kiosks.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- OldSchool 12y ago
  That's correct as I recall.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mathattack 12y ago
In the early to mid-90s I saw a lot of strange systems building exercises. Large companies building their own email systems from scratch. Creating their own custom Windows widgets. Building their own databases from scratch. At the time IT was more of a white-glove environment. When the only people handling it were the tools makers themselves, a lot would get done by a couple smart people in some nook or cranny of the organization. Of course this didn't last, as state of the art enterprise software eventually over-ran them, and the experts wound up joining software firms.
OldSchool 12y ago
Ticketmaster in Phoenix, AZ - early times - here's a little anecdote about the bizarre culture I saw there circa 1989-90. I applied there, having an EE degree already and I was called in for an interview. The initial interview consisted of what was more or less a battery of IQ tests. There must've been 30 of us initially. Soon only a couple of us were left after everybody else was dismissed. Apparently having passed this somewhat offensive process, they took more of my time and scheduled me for a second interview another day. I don't recall any names or faces, but there they offered me a job and mentioned some "genius" guy I'd be mentored by. Before I had the honor of meeting this guy we started talking money. The "pay?" $8/hour... Even 25 years ago that was less than half what a freshly graduated engineer could easily get anywhere else in a corporate job. That alone was enough for me to politely decline the offer, but the management attitude and culture was also repulsive. I wouldn't be surprised if they were exploiting this guy at the time and he may very well have been their "genius."

redthrowaway 12y ago

Could we get TempleOS un-shadowbanned for this thread?

vichu 12y ago
I personally would love to have him host an AMA-style thread where we could ask him things about TempleOS and his illness. I'm tentative as to how that would turn out though.
- teraflop 12y ago
  In case you missed it, there's a link in the article to a sort-of-Q&A discussion he took part in a couple years back on MetaFilter: http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Songs-from-God#4538269 http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Son... (Back then he called his OS "LoseThos" and used that as his username.)
  - mattmanser 12y ago
    LoseThos was his username here for a while too: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=losethos https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=losethos
bithush 12y ago
He did an interview with The Setup http://terry.davis.usesthis.com/ http://terry.davis.usesthis.com/
vernie 12y ago
So that somebody can trigger one of his racial-epithet-laced tirades against the CIA?

Delmania 12y ago

Terry is technically brilliant, but I just don't understand TempleOS. I can't tell if he's serious, or it's a tongue in cheek concept.

eli 12y ago
I do not think it's a joke.
ludamad 12y ago
http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/Strategy.html#l1 http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/Strategy.html#l1 User interface aside, it's pretty serious work.
yzzxy 12y ago
It's very real. I've installed it in a VM and played around for a while - it's technically very impressive and has a HUGE number of utilities and weird little features.
- damurdock 12y ago
  Does it run in standard VirtualBox?
  - zenciadam 12y ago
    yes
jesuslop 12y ago
I skimmed at the source and it had functionality enough to be called an OS, boot sector, drivers, filesystem, etc all of great simplicity in the good sense.
Amezarak 12y ago
I don't think it's a joke. Terry has written before that he made many of the design decisions because he wanted it to be a simple OS anyone could tinker with and learn from, like he did from the computers available when he was younger.

danielweber 12y ago

Something about that webpage is making my computer slow to a crawl.

softdev12 12y ago
Same here. It must be overloaded from HN.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  That actually made sense for a moment. I think it's time for bed.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

dunstad 12y ago

I find this guy's moments of clarity amazing. I'm not very familiar with mental illnesses in any form, but it surprises me how clearly he understands how the rest of the world views him. It makes me think about what the world might be like if we reverse the situation, and the article were about the only man who can't hear the voice of God.

daveloyall 12y ago
> I find this guy's moments of clarity amazing. Oh, that's because: > I'm not very familiar with mental illnesses [...] :) Schizophrenics are frequently lucid. Well, a modified sort of lucid... It's as if they are rational folks for whom first principles or axioms have been shaken up, and indeed are malleable all the time. It doesn't sound like Terry would ever think that his dinner plate would sprout legs and walk across the table. But as he stated in the article, he has thought that some dinners were poisoned. See, the first one can't happen. The second one could technically happen. Schizophrenics aren't stupid, you know? :) But, their plausibility metrics are broken. Regarding the plausibility of a dinner plate walking across a table: Well, it could happen if the plate is some Transformers(R) style robot, or something. It could be, if those exist, right? When a schizophrenic tells you something is true but you think it is implausible, remember: it's not implausible to them, because they are rational folks employing a different set of base assumptions than you. Walking plates are normal in a world that has Transformers(R). Why would a rational person believe in fictional toy robots? Or even that someone wants to poison them? ...Well, once you believe in God, or time travel, or aliens, or that the universe is a simulation, or any number of "crazy ideas"... once you actually believe one crazy idea, it's all down hill from there. But, it is generally an otherwise sane individual that is running down that hill... Terry specifically mentioned a feeling or belief that God picks random numbers or events as a way to communicate with folks. "I can sit down with my parents and praise God and open the Bible randomly," he says, "and it will talk." All of those sorts of beliefs are rooted in some form of the following base principle: "The world is fundamentally not what the common man thinks it is." Once you think that some entity which has the power to alter individual atoms or the results of a coin toss (God, aliens, whatever) exists, then the belief that they would use that power to communicate is just a small logical step away. [EDIT: Indeed, I just found this quote from him: God controls ALL the random numbers in yer life [...]. Every [...] random number from when you awake to sleep [...] So in his world, if you run over a nail in your car and get a flat... Well, you did something to deserve it!] NOTE: Apparently some schizophrenic folks experience vivid, realistic open-eyed hallucinations sometimes (at the peak of a manic episode) or all the time. I don't have much experience with that. Sometimes those events coincide with seizures and events in which awareness and consciousness is lowered. I am guessing that my "these are rational folks" argument does not apply at those times (or to some people any the time).

m0th87 12y ago

What fascinates me about Terry is that his schizophrenia doesn't somehow prevent his ability to make something as complex as an entire operating system. Maybe this suggests that while schizophrenics look discordant to the rest of us, there's an internal consistency that very much makes sense.

dereferenced2 12y ago
A computer offers direct irrefutable feedback about your input. If you program something that doesn't work, you get a syntax error. The real world doesn't. If your beliefs about god, religion, etc are wrong, well.. it gets a lot murkier.

Torn 12y ago

I remember the somethingawful.com thread where someone tried to install his operating system. It got real crazy real fast. There was a HN thread here discussing it, and the top comments were people rightfully suggesting the guy needs serious mental help, not derision. The suggestion he had schizophrenia was thrown around a lot. Following the rabbit hole from 2012, it seems he was banned from SA, and shadowbanned here on HN, but are visible if you turn on 'showdead' in your profile options: http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Songs-from-God http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Son...

yzzxy 12y ago

I wonder if there is something the programming community could do to help him. I'm not sure what this could entail, but I'd hope there are people who would be willing to talk with him about his interests or attempt to set up some kind of assisted employment situation - he is by all accounts a very talented engineer.

GuiA 12y ago
Why are you under the impression that he is in need of help? It seems to me that he has no problem finding outlets to talk about his interests, and that he doesn't seem to desire assisted employment.
- yzzxy 12y ago
  I don't think there's sure evidence either way, but I did read this line: > Unable to work, he collects Social Security disability and spends most of his time coding, web surfing, or using the output... I have no idea if Terry would like to work or not, but I don't see harm in someone making it possible for him by extending an offer. In addition, I think it's hard to see the huge number of TempleOS posts and comments throughout the web as anything other than an attempt to talk about his interests with people.
  - mietek 12y ago
    Not everybody needs a job in order to live a fulfilling life. LoseThos is working—he is doing God's work, as he would gladly tell you.
    - yzzxy 12y ago
      It's as if you didn't read the comment above where I said that "I have no idea if Terry would like to work or not."
vinceguidry 12y ago
One of the wonderful things about Western society is that it's got enough social welfare structures to allow someone like Terry to exist, is wealthy enough to allow them to thrive, should they want to, and enough individualism to where he's not constantly being beaten over the head with other people's demands for him to change to fit their idea of what a person should be. As someone who has at times relied on this social largesse, I can say that attempts to do more wouldn't really have the desired effect. His is a wholly self-directed life, attempts to 'help' would take the self-directed quality out of his life that is being selected for. If you're worried for his well-being, I can say from experience that a person's subconscious mind is a lot more capable than we give it credit for. If Terry wants to work, he will find work. His subconscious mind will proclaim through God that he is to glorify Him through this new avenue, which just so happens to be in a company in return for a salary. If he wants to do something else, he will do that something else. He doesn't need us, and that's the real beauty of it.

zaius 12y ago

If you'd like to see his comments on HN, enable showdead in your profile and then go here - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOS https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOS

euphemize 12y ago

From the TempleOS: AfterEgypt video[1]: "Now you're supposed to do an offering before you talk to God. [...] just get conversation, maybe being witty and charming - or praise - like 'praise god for sandcastles and snowmen and bubbles and popcorn'...hum, I'm gonna praise him for something new, which is isotopes! Like you have Carbon-14 and stuff like that. I think that's pretty cool. Didn't have to be that way, maybe...Ok here we go!" Fascinating. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhRYGm_b9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhRYGm_b9A

Redoubts 12y ago
*hold court* "Woman commits blasphemy" *punish* "Child commits idolatry" *really punish*

TeMPOraL 12y ago

I really liked the article. It was very respectful towards Terry and shown a deeper understanding of his life and issues he faced. It was explaining, not judging. I now have a much more complete picture of the man I know only from shadowbanned comments here on HN.

zafka 12y ago

I really enjoyed this window into the life of "LoseThos". I am glad that he seems to be both relatively safe and happy. I think in the long run the value his life's work will be comparable or greater than the worth of most of his peers.

Nursie 12y ago
How do you figure that? I'm genuinely interested. He's made a network-less OS with a fixed, low-resolution display, that is of seriously limited utility in the modern world and (AFAICT) doesn't advance the state of the art, all as an act of worship. It's a curiosity, but of value? Not so much.
- esaym 12y ago
  Well that is a heck of a lot more than I can do...
- zafka 12y ago
  We don't have an argument here, but rather two different ways of looking at the same facts. For comparison, I was paid rather well to add diagnostic code to large PBX systems in the late 1990's, recently I have been working on a variety of embedded projects, some for solar, some for medical devices. In 50 years, my guess is that all of my code will have fallen out of use. Most likely, so will Terry's,but there is a small chance it will hold out as a curiosity. Now we are down to one of my hobbies: What is meant by Quality? What is Meant by Value? As a side note, I think the whole project is an interesting view into how the mind works. I am very much in agreement with theories that posit very high intelligence is often intertwined with what we call mental illness. The same reduced filters that can cause so much anguish give others the ability to see hidden facts in everyday objects.

MarkPNeyer 12y ago

i have had a number of experiences very similar to what terry went through. connecting computing to religion, seeing 'larger patterns' that weren't there, believing in conspiracies directed at me... it was rough. i was lucky enough to have a few people really step up and support me when i was at the edge. it's weird reading this and feeling like i know exactly what he means when he says this stuff that sounds crazy. here's a description of one experience i had in april 2011, a day before joining uber: http://www.reddit.com/r/BipolarReddit/comments/l7nij/interesting_humorous_not_tragic_manic_stories/ http://www.reddit.com/r/BipolarReddit/comments/l7nij/interes... this is something i submitted later to hn, while cto of a gaming company: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877483 i made it out of all that, though. thanks almost entirely to daily love and support from my now wife. if you have friends in a position like this - you CAN help them, it's just a crazy amount of work.

MrBra 12y ago
Didn't read the comments at reddit yet, but I wanted to say that a friend of mine, also in IT, had a similar experience where he started to see conspiracies everywhere, and "religion thoughts" kicked in for him as well. After some time on cure this regressed and he now even jokes about that period. He got to work again and has a completely normal life, but in a way I can still feel something changed inside of him... It'd be nice if I could talk about this more with you. I will surely read your comments.
- MarkPNeyer 12y ago
  sure - add me on facebook or through my blog or what have you.

noname123 12y ago

Although the guy lives arguably outside the fringe of society, I cannot question his commitment to his project. We tend to celebrate the successes like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg and then quietly go back to our daily lives, and compromise our creativity for family, wealth accumulation and professional advancement. The opinionated amongst us will debate which of their favorite value is the "right way," (If LoseTheOs got the help and settled down with his family, a partner or friends; If LoseTheOs found a job at Red Hat and channeled his energy towards Linux Kernel development...). But choices and our commitment to these choices are what defines us. TempleOS in this regard, seems more like a work of art in the medium of code. Of course, the merit of that art is up to the beholder (and tbh, I don't think I'd have appreciated Van Gogh a priori.) "The difference between genius and insanity is measured only by success," but is the guy who doesn't succeed by conventional sense but finds his own meaning and keeps going, insane?

mblevin 12y ago

Throughout the span of modern history, we've had gifted creators whose talent is at a minimum intertwined if not completely predicated on their mental illness. Whether it was Van Gogh or Kurt Kobain, we've seen it consistently. Terry is potentially one of the first if not the only creators of this type using a completely digital medium. TempleOS is essentially a 10-year art project.

lomnakkus 12y ago
Unfortunately, in years past, we only heard (in the mainstream) from the few that succeeded, not the huge numbers of individuals that just ended up in asylums or, worse, dead. That's not to take anything away from the "project" (as art), but let's be realistic about the possible gains we (as a society) can gain from this. My conjecture is that it would be better to try to get some help for this person.
- darkmighty 12y ago
  I find it very weird that his treatment is being viewed as unnecessary due to him producing something. Any other disease and this would be frowned upon. His disease is a sad and miserable existence. Being schizophrenic is like have everyone against you; religion is his coping mechanism not to freak out against everything, but who knows how long it's going to last. Anyone suggesting he could get be offered a job clearly never really knew someone with the condition. I think it could be possible if he worked remotely, though. I hate so much schizophrenia... being denied reality has got to be one of the worst conditions a person can find herself in.
  - mblevin 12y ago
    I don't think treatment is unnecessary at all - I assume if he was on medication he'd be gainfully employed writing code somewhere, and potentially producing even more interesting things. Rather I was highlighting that individuals possessing a certain artistic talent, potentially correlated with propensity for mental illness, when untreated may produce incredible works of art as a side effect. I'm not at all saying that him or society has a net benefit from that at all, but rather it's a second-order effect that is quite different from what we often observe (and stereotype) in terms of schizophrenia and mental illness. Purely an observation vs a judgment.

GuiA 12y ago

I'm a huge fan of Terry's work, because he works hard, has a clear vision for what he wants to do, and makes it happen. That's more than can be said of many self-professed hackers who never see a project to completion or are motivated solely by peer recognition. You may disagree with the logical coherency of his goals - I for one think the "temple for God" thing is pure kookery - but he is a master craftsman, and in this context it's all that really matters. There are people who devote their entire lives to pointless things. There are people who work on supposedly pointless things, which later turn out to not be so pointless. There are people who are supposedly working on world-changing things, which really are completely pointless. In the end, you can't predict the future. Just do honest work that you feel is worthwhile, and see what happens. (if you want to play the hypothetical game, who's to say that Terry Davis won't develop some extremely efficient low level algorithms/techniques never done before that will dramatically impact computing?) Every time his story comes up, there are people who respond with answers along the lines of "what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? can we raise money for him?" etc. While these comments are surely well intentioned, they end up being mostly condescending and out of place, as if talking about a completely helpless being. But Terry strikes me as anything but helpless - based on the various interviews he's given and comments he's posted, he seems to be quite content with his situation, and that "assisted employment" is the last thing he'd want or need. If anything, this is just a further argument for reforms like basic income and better treatment of mental conditions (e.g. with better early detection). There are also always comments expressing surprise at how one can suffer from such a mental condition and yet do complex intellectual work like low level programming. These questions are based on the premise that schizophrenia (or a similar condition) impacts your brain in such a way that would make logical reasoning impossible. But that's not how it operates - logical reasoning is largely unaffected. Like `daveloyall says in another comment in this thread [0], what's affected are a few key "first principles". For instance, if you're persuaded that you're being constantly tracked by the CIA, removing all your clothes or dismantling your car to make sure you aren't bugged are very logical, reasonable things to do. The problem is that when you're operating under premises that are shared with no one else, the resulting dissonance makes integration with the rest of society problematic. But with this in mind, it's easy to see why one could be schizophrenic and yet still be able to program or do math or weave baskets, especially if the skills were mastered before the condition developed. Terry is a maker of miniatures [1], and I'm happy we have such people walking among us. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8658958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8658958 [1]: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/10/in-the-reign-of-harad-iv http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/10/in-the-reign-of...

_exec 12y ago

I've stumbled upon Terry's work a long time ago...and suffice to say he's been a major inspiration. It's a shame the majority of netizens (Yes, HN and Reddit included) can't look beyond his eccentricity and mental health issues (then again, it takes some digging and google-fu to find out the full story / context behind the man...his posts don't exactly come with a disclaimer). Going down the rabbit hole of Googling, Redditing, finding out more about him and his story ("a one-man novel, modern x64 almost-but-not-quite-entirely-unlike-retro OS?" type of thing is catnip to my synapses), I've also come to understand a friend's schizophrenic relative a bit better. I've read accounts of schizophrenia and art intersecting, but did not understand what it is, what it's like, *, until I witnessed schizophrenia intersecting with IT, at which point the gates of empathy, admiration and fascination were flung wide open. [/r/programming's 637 comments thread from 2010] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/e5d8e/demo_video_of_new_operating_system/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/e5d8e/demo_vide... [another /r/programming thread] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/lhefd/losethos_64bit_operating_system_v707_released/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/lhefd/losethos_... His username on HN is / has been some variation on "TempleOS", "LoseThos", "SparrowOS", "TempleOSv2", etc. AFAIK all hellbanned due to un-PC comments posted in his, for lack of better phrasing, "Moments of Un-Clarity". The irony (perhaps using the wrong word) of being hellbanned when the story of of your life's work..your magnum opus (especially in this case, an objective article that places it in context and with some background) is featured on HN's front page, makes me sad. I consider his work to be a prime example of ["Outsider Art"] {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art} in our field. I wish to collaborate with him one day. Edit: Formatting, more caffeine.

nyolfen 12y ago
the dude is straight up racist and just because he's eccentric and mentally ill doesn't mean it should be tolerated
- jack9 12y ago
  > just because he's eccentric and mentally ill doesn't mean it should be tolerated So let's all be intolerant of the mentally ill? There's no celebration of his social contributions here, this is recognition of his technical achievement. Social behavior is orthogonal to the discussion.

MrBra 12y ago

so, how 'bout that :)

MrBra 12y ago
stupid hypercritical judgmental people downvoting did not understand the sympathetic reference.. and are probably the ones to know less here about this guy, oh well..
- a_c_s 12y ago
  FYI: Your comment is being downvoted because, well-intentioned though it may be, it doesn't contribute to the discussion.
  - MrBra 12y ago
    Also because they don't know what I am referring to.

blt 12y ago

I really like the "modern, souped-up, multi-tasking, cross between DOS and a Commodore 64" vision for TempleOS. The OS also has some innovative design choices like using the C compiler as the shell and compiling most programs on the fly. It reminds me of Lisp Machines in a way. A different vision of what computing could be like if closed-source binary-distributed software didn't exist. I wish the source code (http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineRep.html http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineRep.html) were easier to read though. It's very dense with a lot of abbreviated variable names and no comments. It's the main reason why I haven't installed TempleOS yet, because of course I'd want to hack on it, and the code seems tough to learn.

tredontho 12y ago
He has a YouTube channel where he has some "5 Minute" code walkthroughs where he analyzes randomly selected code and its context, and tries to explain it. The few that I've watched had a fair amount of rambling, and since it's random, it's obviously not a structured overview... but still interesting. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdX4uJUwSFwiY3XBvu-F_-Q http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdX4uJUwSFwiY3XBvu-F_-Q
jpgvm 12y ago
It also uses physical memory, not virtual memory and no protection to prevent 'userspace' programs from modifying the kernel. I quote userspace as it doesn't technically have the same distinctions that you are used to. This has some interesting performance implications. Specifically there is no need for a traditional "kernel bypass" when you want to work with hardware from userspace. For instance in Linux we have stacks like the Infiniband networking stack and some userspace TCP stacks (usually based on PF_RING) that are quite a hack to build in Linux that would be "just the way it is" in TempleOS. (though it's worth mentioning that TempleOS has not networking capability, apparently Gods decision) These sorts of operating systems were common before multi-user computing but died out because of the need to protect the operating system from it's users and the applications they may want to run. However the world is coming full circle again. Unikernels are back, sometimes they are written in C, sometimes in OCaml (MirageOS), sometimes in Erlang (ZergVM or something I think). TempleOS may actually provide insights for how to do these sorts of things as it's been built this way for a long time which can't be said of many other modern operating systems. Alas, people would probably need to see past the somewhat spiky exterior (Terry himself) to appreciate his work.

deleted 12y ago

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seccess 12y ago

Reading this, I'm reminded of Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR (polymerase chain reaction). PCR is widely considered to be the most important discovery of modern biology, ushering a new era of scientific research after he invented it in the 1980s. He won a nobel prize for it. Kary was a bit off though (in this case due to intense drug usage, I think). Afterwards, he went on to deny that HIV is the cause of AIDS, tried to discredit global warming, and began believing in astrology and magic. In the end, its possible that a little bit of insanity is a good thing; that it can help someone make a profound discovery that no one else could see. Too much is obviously detrimental, however.

Ollinson 12y ago
Not exactly drug induced or a mental Illness but Ronald Fisher, arguably the father of modern statistics, went to great lengths to prove cancer caused smoking due to his personal convictions[1]. [1] http://www.epidemiology.ch/history/PDF%20bg/Stolley%20PD%201991%20when%20genius%20errs%20-%20RA%20fisher%20and%20the%20lung%20cancer.pdf http://www.epidemiology.ch/history/PDF%20bg/Stolley%20PD%201... Even when you're talking about geniuses it's important to separate the wheat from the chaff.
- fragmede 12y ago
  > prove cancer caused smoking I thought you typed that backwards, but skimming your link, that is indeed what he claimed!

lmm 12y ago

The lionization of this guy reminds me of the reporting of the Charge of the Light Brigade. All those noble British soldiers, following orders even unto death, what courage, what majesty... when what should really have been said was: what a bunch of bloody idiots, who got themselves killed for no reason. And so the same foolishness repeated throughout the first world war. So let me say it: this guy, whether through his own fault or because of his problems, is acting like a dumbass. He's pouring a lot of talent into a pointless project that no-one will ever use or benefit from. He is not someone to look up to or admire, and certainly not to emulate. Do not romanticise his foolishness.

waterlesscloud 12y ago
It's essentially an art project. Which, for me at least, exempts it from evaluation on grounds of pure utility.
nekopa 12y ago
Hold on, let me get this straight: You think that someone who does what he does because he honestly believes he is doing god's work (because of a mental illness) is a dumbass? Next you'll call John Nash fucking retarded for being afraid of men in red ties.
- lmm 12y ago
  Nash was great in spite of his issues, not because of them; his work was a real, useful contribution to human knowledge, because (in contrast to this guy) he worked with the wider mathematical community, which then in turn later built on his work. Being afraid of men in red ties is still a dumb thing to do, and won't make you a great mathematician. We romanticize the outsiders, but the great bulk of the mathematical edifice was constructed by relatively ordinary, well-adjusted people like Euler. If you want to be a great mathematician, it isn't Nash you should model yourself on.
  - _exec 12y ago
    What about Erdős :) ?

pjbrunet 12y ago

Looks like "folk art" to me. Like dropping an IBM PC on Gilligan's Island ;-)

api 12y ago

I consider this a pretty fascinating piece of art. It's like an artcar, but it's an artOS! It reminds me of Salvation Mountain in Southern California, but with preemptive multitasking. :) http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/17476 http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/17476

fuligo 12y ago

I wonder if he would get this much positive attention if he wasn't a Christian extremist. Would the article have conveniently left out his racism if he was, say, a militant antisemite instead of being focused on black people as he is? Would people admire his worship of a random number generator if he used it to spit out slogans of a religious text that isn't as revered as the Bible? While his schizophrenia probably comes with very bad episodes, there is absolutely nothing that can be found in his own words allowing for the conclusion that this view is just a tourette-like symptom. On the contrary. His violence-laden hate speech is one of the constant factors defining him. Contrary to what has been suggested here he doesn't use slurs randomly and generically, either. There's a story behind his views that is just as coherent as the cute "god's own programmer" schtick. Where his illness clearly manifests is the interpretation of random events all having a specific meaning. The radio talking to him, all the events in his life being just so that an invisible power is communicating with him, all the way down to literally a random number generator whose nature he cannot grasp. That's schizophrenia. If there was an adequate cure or means of suppressing it, this world view would completely go away. It's more complicated to separate the man from the illness when it comes to pretty much anything else. At the very least I would be extremely hesitant to call him, as people do in this thread, an "inspiration". I'm not even sure it's safe to be in the same room with him. Closing with a quote straight from his most recent account: "I spend my days clubbing retard-n$ggers. CLUB! CLUB! DIE N$GGER! CLUB! RETARD! N$GGER! DIE!! CLUB! N$GGER!*" HN's majority opinion of this guy makes me more uncomfortable than his comments by themselves. I don't get how we can label this guy as being "high functioning" and at the same time sweep 99% of everything he ever says under the rug. It's either or.

anigbrowl 12y ago
He's 'high functioning' in the sense that he can produce elaborate computer software that runs fast, in other words he has impressive engineering skills. Socially he's pretty incapable. I think his offensive racist, homophobic and other offensive remarks are part and parcel of his condition because I've spent quite a lot of time reading his rants, and disagree with your claim that his use of slurs is not random and generic. It's not uncommon for him to claim that 'bill gAtes is an atheist nigger' and talk about hod God likes 'African musical rhythms and does not like white people so much' on the same day. Yes, he does seem to use the epithet 'nigger' more than all other epithets combined, which is understandably alienating for many people. But I don't think this is ideologically rooted because it is so randomly and inconsistently applied in his writing (where it makes up a small fraction of the overall output, rather than the 99% you suggest). Being an atheist, his output of random passages from the Bible is neither admirable nor otherwise to me - it's just statistically the most likely religious text for an American with a religious fixation to be fixated on. I've met mentally ill Asian Buddhists whose cognitive patterns are quite similar to Terry's even though the cultural referents are completely different. Extreme religiosity is very strongly correlated with some kinds of mental illness and I don't find it strange that Terry is fixated on Old Testament Bible stories where God puts in a lot of personal appearances. I could just as easily imagine him being obsessed with the Koran or some other religious text that's ubiquitous in some other part of the world. I can't agree that he's an extremist - his (inoffensive) 'Guidelines for talking to God' [1]are pretty bland and heretodox as he eschews questions of salvation, morality etc., in favor of keeping God company (which makes sense since God is apparently a fixture in Terry's life). According to Terry, God dislikes classical music, Shakespeare, French people, and Terry's drumming while exhibiting an inordinate fondness for elephants, bears, and 1960s pop singers. You could work these elements into some sort of coherent ideological position just as you could characterize his relentless automated Biblical quotation as Christian extremism, but I don't think either position makes sense. What's remarkable about him is not the endless stream of nonsense, much of which is offensive when it's even coherent; it's the fact that he manages to construct working things as part of his intellectual pursuits and carry on some kind of social life despite his mental circumstances. 1. http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/God/HSNotes.html#l1 http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/God/HSNotes.html#l1

cyphunk 12y ago

uncompressed http://cypherpoet.com/TempleOS/ http://cypherpoet.com/TempleOS/

pluma 12y ago

"Weird guy makes an OS because God told him so" sounds less hilarious if you're aware of why the Perl programming language exists.

RaleyField 12y ago
Go on.
- gamegoblin 12y ago
  The parent may be (I have no idea...) referencing a line from the (hilarious) "A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages" [1]. The entry for 1987 is: """ 1987 - Larry Wall falls asleep and hits Larry Wall's forehead on the keyboard. Upon waking Larry Wall decides that the string of characters on Larry Wall's monitor isn't random but an example program in a programming language that God wants His prophet, Larry Wall, to design. Perl is born. """ [1] http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-m...
  - pluma 12y ago
    Although that's of course an exaggeration, there's this bit in his Wikipedia article [1]: """ Wall's Christian faith has influenced some of the terminology of Perl, such as the name itself, a biblical reference to the "pearl of great price" (Matthew 13:46). Similar references are the function name bless, and the organization of Perl 6 design documents with categories such as apocalypse and exegesis. """ Also in [2] he alludes to his faith having played a major part if not in the decision to create Perl then at least in the design decisions (e.g. TMTOWTDI) he made. He's not as overtly religious (and most definitely not as mentally unstable) as the author of TempleOS, but he's certainly far above the norm compared to other well-known creators of programming languages. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall [2]: http://interviews-beta.slashdot.org/story/02/09/06/1343222/larry-wall-on-perl-religion-and http://interviews-beta.slashdot.org/story/02/09/06/1343222/l...

andywood 12y ago

To anyone brandishing the word 'racist' here, can you point us to any instance where what Terry wrote was not merely a rambling screed with the n-word in it, but actually racist thought. Because to me, those are different things - the former likely an excusable symptom, and the latter, y'know, actual racism. Maybe you think it's the same. Maybe you're enforcing your zero-tolerance policy. If so, we disagree. To me it looks like a huge assumption, possibly more offensive than Terry's rants.

ixtli 12y ago
To call not being accepting of any incarnation of racial violence "zero-tolerance" has a really unfortunate air of dismissal to it. I, for one, am not a middle school hall monitor. There are things that a (relatively) advanced, civil society like ours should not accept. Just because you say something and may or may not mean what someone else meant does not remove the broader social context. The word is racist because of the social context and when you use it you evoke that context whether you understand it, agree with it, or not. Edit: to be clear, my point is that evoking such an idea or meaning is violent towards others and an individual doesn't get to decide that this isn't the case. Believing you can is a hallmark of privilege.
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  Given that racism is a universal thing and often happens intra-minority (African-Americans and Jews are an (in)famous example), your statement would pretty much mean that just about every demographic exhibits a hallmark of privilege by sheer virtue of ignoring broader social contexts in a racial slur.
kristofferR 12y ago
I could - but I don't see the point at all. Blaming him for being a racist is like blaming someone with alzheimer for being forgetful.
- andywood 12y ago
  That's my only point: that there's correlation between his condition, and his rants, therefore we don't say, "That guy?? He 'espouses racist ideology'!!* Screw 'im!" * (actual comment in this thread)

anon4 12y ago

Interesting that he says he talks to God through randomness. I heard an idea along these lines not long ago - the measure of entropy in the universe is constantly increasing. But entropy is also a measure of the amount of information stored in the system (if you take a file with low entropy, it will compress to a smaller file with higher entropy). So the weird world of quantum effects is basically caused by (or is the equivalent of) information being constantly poured in the universe. In a sense, God speaks new information and quantum effects happen.

deleted 12y ago
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placebo 12y ago

>If he won the lottery three times, he asks, would she believe? I would... :)

deleted 12y ago

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davidgerard 12y ago

Still a better love story than Urbit.

jrapdx3 12y ago

Having treated thousands of individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar and other similar severe, chronic disorders I found the article to be fascinating. It succeeded in portraying the "mindset" of the creator of the OS and giving a glimpse into his experience. It made me believe Mr. Davis really did share his deep convictions just as he described. I've always thought having a mental disorder did not mean a person did not also have talents, just like the rest of us. "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid" is a phrase I heard many patients say. And of course they were right. In reading the comments posted here, one thing may have been missed. The TempleOS for all its eccentricity is also very beautiful and in its own way remarkable coherent. Mr. Davis demonstrates talent not only as a programmer, but also as an artist, points that should not be overlooked. Ultimately, the OS is a freely-given contribution to our world and adds to the important body of work created by people with psychiatric disorders. I think it should be appreciated in that context.

themodelplumber 12y ago
Thank you for your comments. > TempleOS for all its eccentricity is also very beautiful and in its own way remarkable coherent As a visual designer myself, his highly-symbolic visual language demonstrates what I understand as a telltale lack of nuance common to those suffering from certain mental illnesses, but the impressive part to me is that he really maximizes it. He seems to have access to an amount of "flow" that many people would kill to harness for their own purposes (of course without its drawbacks in this case). I was wondering if this may indicate that he is receiving a level of care that is fitting for his current needs. I would love to see many other concepts expressed and illustrated with his current visual vocabulary, but I guess limiting it to Israelite Vision is part of the tradeoff.
- _exec 12y ago
  Would you please elaborate on this part "...his highly-symbolic visual language demonstrates what I understand as a telltale lack of nuance common to those suffering from certain mental illnesses, but the impressive part to me is that he really maximizes it"? I'm really interested in the intersection of mental health issues with various fields (I've commented elsewhere in this thread), and this is the first time I hear a review in the context of UX+{non-NeuroTypical}. While we're at it, by "flow", do you happen to mean flow in a "workflow zen" sense [yes, I'm aware that the word zen has been abused to death :) ] know ? Thanks!

jpgvm 12y ago

Sad that the debate got almost entirely derailed by people labeling Terry a racist. The poor man probably doesn't even realise he is offending peoples fragile sensibilities. I think people need to cut him some slack when it comes to language. They are just words, there is no intent.

DanBC 12y ago
We can condemn the behaviour while having sympathy about the causes.
- jpgvm 12y ago
  Sure, but it's such a waste to even talk about it. There is so much more productive discussion to be had.

kaffeemitsahne 12y ago

Driving south with no clear destination, he says, "I was listening to the radio and it seemed like the radio was talking to me." I had delusions of reference once, it's such a strange feeling. Not necessarily scary.

jqm 12y ago

I have a theory that sometimes mental illness is manifestation of a naturally evolved attribute gone too far. Sort of a "cancer of thinking" if you will. In this case I would say it is the the ability to perceive and relate patterns. A powerful attribute of our species and one of the defining features of intelligence I believe. But then it gets out of control and the pattern matching starts matching things that don't actually match. Only a wild theory. I have no reference nor training in the subject. Just trying to match patterns:)

icedchai 12y ago

I ran into Losethos / TempleOS many years ago and installed it on a VM. I found it interesting. Something different that wasn't another spin on Unix. Terry is very clever, creative, and very opinionated. (Sorry, an OS needs basic networking if people are going to use it.) He has a mental illness... but, without it, would he have that creativity and focus to make something like his OS? I doubt it. Do I agree with the outrageous things he says on forums? Absolutely not. But I can respect him and his creation.

lexcorvus 12y ago

I'm reminded of this quote from Joseph Campbell: "The schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight." Terry Davis seems to be treading water—stuck somewhere between revelation and oblivion.

msie 12y ago

God, I'm a lonely programmer.

trit 12y ago

What's he up to now? Is he pushing out any new projects? I had that he was making miniatures, but haven't had a chance to read the article.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

esaym 12y ago

I have never heard of this guy. His work and commentary are totally awesome! I have heard more original things and phrases from him in 30 minutes than in the last 2 years!

esaym 12y ago
Down voted for praise? Well...

firebones 12y ago

We have the ability to filter. Due to his condition, he does not. We should embrace the good and productive that comes from his work, without judgment, and use our filters to deflect and ignore the bad. (Note: this heuristic applies to almost any human, regardless of recognized DSM status. We'd be well-served to save our breath and embrace this outlook.)

buovjaga 12y ago

An article about TempleOS appeared in the Finnish computer magazine Skrolli earlier this year: http://www.skrolli.fi/2014.2.crt.pdf http://www.skrolli.fi/2014.2.crt.pdf (page 56).

minusSeven 12y ago

meh can't read it. Article won't display on firefox. On IE formatting isn't correct and half the article is unreadable. Can anyone post the contents of the article.