
Terry Davis Uses This - kmf
http://terry.davis.usesthis.com/
======
oofabz
I have a lot of respect for Terry and it's nice to see him included alongside
other developers. He's not the most likeable guy, but I doubt he's happy about
that either.

He writes software to be beautiful. He can take pride in his work because his
intentions are absolutely pure. When I program, I take shortcuts to ship as
quickly as possible, and then I throw some ads on the final product to make
money. I am a sellout, but Terry is not, and I envy him for that.

I especially like his HolyC language. It is simple, elegant, and comfortably
familiar:

[http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/HolyC.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/HolyC.html)

~~~
rsync
When we speak of TempleOS, and you mention "He can take pride in", I am
reminded of this wonderful thread at mefi from 2012:

Terry:

"The flight simulator reduces how far you can see into the distance and how
wide the display is. It's nothing to be proud of, except, it show the
potential for absolute control over the other cores from within a game."

Commenter, in response:

"bro i think you can be proud of the flight simulator you wrote for the
operating system you also wrote"

It made my day to see him on "usesthis".

~~~
msherry
That's always been my favorite response to him, as well. It made me tear up a
bit reading it.

Here's the thread, for anyone interested:
[http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-
Son...](http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Songs-from-
God)

~~~
phpnode
thanks for the link, that was a great read.

------
Kiro
Since TempleOSV207 is shadowbanned here's his response in this thread:

> Yeah, I did. Now, I use Linux. Normally stuff like this launched me into an
> existential crisis. "Oh, God, the stress! Why God!? My world has a MAJOR
> thing to worry about -- misleading people maybe or something like that." I'm
> not quite as much a coward. I think I had good reason. Cowardess is not a
> virtue. God loved King David. Damn, I look awful. Oh well. I've become a
> freak hermit-- don't know how to smile, anymore.

> You poor people don't know God. \-----

~~~
kordless
> You poor people don't know God.

This is a blaming statement and is misleading in and of itself. How can you
possibly know what I know or what I don't know?

~~~
skittles
Don't worry about it. He is schizophrenic and believes God talks directly to
him. If you had this problem, you probably wouldn't want to take medication
for it. He thinks he has been chosen. It really isn't under his control.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I had an uncle with schizophrenia (and a father with much less severe
symptoms). You are right that you wouldn't want to take medication for it. To
the schizophrenic mind, the benefits of schizophrenia far outweigh the costs
-- and besides, you can't really trust anybody else to be either competent
enough to medicate you, or to have your best interests in mind when
medicating.

------
pubby
This is my favorite Terry Davis quote (from his website):

\----10/02/13 02:34:50----

I used to drink when I was young. I would wake-up and think about my shameful
behavior and be stoic, I guess. Recently, I've been fighting hard to break-out
of my prison. Ten years? Insanity.

God is perfectly just. Sadly, it's not like I've suffered, exactly. When you
get out of control and call people "niggers", that can't be good. God talks.
I'm not exactly believed. Everybody is cruel and give no clue what they make
of me.

God is perfectly just. The countless generations before me? It appears that I
get my own little principality of which I sometimes seem supreme.

~~~
morbius
I always die a little inside reading this guy's stuff because it's so easy to
see how brilliant he is, and how much schizophrenia is affecting his talent.
The worst part is that even he wants to "break out of [his] prison," and it's
heartbreaking to see when somebody can't.

I've been following Davis' work for around 5 years now. What he has been able
to write, and the proficiency with which he writes it, has in my opinion
surpassed all the programmers whose Ruby/Haskell/Clojure dreck always appears
on the HN frontpage.

~~~
toyg
Do you know what he does for a living? Ticketmaster is mentioned here and
there but always in the past, it seems.

He'd be an incredible system hacker, if managed appropriately... but it's the
sort of bet only great souls could make.

~~~
morbius
Well, no. I'm not that close. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a job; one of
his pages mentioned he only lives on disability.

------
shaunol
Odd coincidence that I was just watching a video on TempleOS today. I had
heard about Terry Davis and TempleOS previously and his God-worshipping
operating system - but had never seen it in action.

This video gives you a glimpse into what he is like and what he has achieved
on his quest to build the operating system for God:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EViG0Q4lTeA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EViG0Q4lTeA)

Very, very bizarre yet mildly interesting. I was surprised to read he only
ever runs it in VMWare - I thought perhaps he was just running it on a very
specific set of hardware.

------
lclarkmichalek
> I am aware of a 70 core Knights Landing Intel CPU coming-out. That might be
> nice.

It seems that no matter who the programmer is, some constants remain: we like
big numbers.

~~~
frou_dh
Preferably power of 2. Get rid of 6 of them ;)

------
xwintermutex
That reminded me of "LoseThos". It would have been an interesting coincidence
if multiple people were asked by God to create a 64-bit OS, but it is the same
guy; he renamed it into TempleOS.

~~~
jhgg
It's the same guy!

------
pling
I am at the same time in awe at the technical accomplishment and cringing at
the religious twist. I've never seen the two concerns merged quite so tightly.

------
chubot
Doesn't running TempleOS in VMWare completely _ruin_ the aesthetic??? Pretty
surprised by that part.

When I heard about LoseThos I thought it was really bad ass. Like people who
build their own house from scratch and live in it. The idea was to strip it
down and get close to the metal.

But if you're running it in VMWare, you basically have an entire OS
underneath, a bunch of opaque code... doesn't fit IMO :/

~~~
chrismonsanto
It's very difficult to write an OS that runs on the bare metal of an arbitrary
computer. One advantage of virtualization is that hardware differences are
normalized, and you only have to write a few drivers.

If I was to write an OS for fun I would probably target something with fixed
hardware like the RPi.

~~~
a-priori
It's not terribly hard -- no harder than a platform like Raspberry Pi -- if
you're fine with sticking to a standardized subset of PC hardware.

That typically means using an older, slower standard for accessing the
hardware. For example, you might use VESA BIOS Extensions for graphical video
output, and be limited to a 1280x1024 framebuffer, rather than write device-
specific drivers which would give you access to all its GPU acceleration
capabilities.

------
SDGT
I'm going to assume Terry either found some moments of calm or changed up his
meds.

Either way, nice so see him in the public eye without all the vitriol.

~~~
gooseyard
same here- once or twice a year, for probably the last 12 or 15 years, I'll
google him to see what he's up to (it'll always be LoseThos to me :) ). About
6 months ago the stuff I came across got me worried for his well being- having
had a family member suffer terribly from schizophrenia it's hard for me to see
that kind of behavior as just wacky, and I hate to see anybody suffering in
that way. I think a lot of people who jump on him about the religion are
probably unaware of the mental illness.

------
srean
Could not help but wonder about this, if history was re-ordered appropriately,
operating systems hacking could have been a major organized religion
associated with all the heft, influence, funds and muscle that they are
associated with.

Many researchers believe that the religious episodes that prophets talk about,
their visions and hearings that led them to their religion, may have been
psychotic episodes. I find this hypothesis extremely believable.

I think for something to become an organized religion more deliberate and
political measures are required. Also needed: powerful people with axes to
grind, but the roots of theistic organized religion of our times could surely
have been aural/visual hallucinations and schizophrenia of their prophets who
could have been just as smart, interesting, and at the same time human as
Terry Davis.

[http://www.salon.com/2013/08/02/i_thought_i_was_a_prophet/](http://www.salon.com/2013/08/02/i_thought_i_was_a_prophet/)

------
bobsgame
Terry Davis is awesome.

------
jfields513
He really uses internet explorer?

~~~
toddan
So? What difference dose it make?

------
TempleOSV207
Yeah, I did. Now, I use Linux. Normally stuff like this launched me into an
existential crisis. "Oh, God, the stress! Why God!? My world has a MAJOR thing
to worry about -- misleading people maybe or something like that."

I'm not quite as much a coward. I think I had good reason. Cowardess is not a
virtue. God loved King David.

Damn, I look awful. Oh well. I've become a freak hermit-- don't know how to
smile, anymore.

~~~
proksoup
You look like the rest of us Terry :D

Welcome :)

------
TempleOSV207
You poor people don't know God.

------
curiousDog
As much as I feel sorry for this guy, can't look past his racist rants :(

~~~
phpnode
please do, they are certainly caused by his schizophrenia. In much the same
way a Tourettes sufferer cannot control their compulsion to say inappropriate
things.

~~~
sp332
But you can edit your post before or even a while after sending it.

~~~
thaumaturgy
It is much harder to edit the thinking that led you to write it in the first
place.

~~~
serf
While I understand the thought process behind giving the mentally ill a free
pass when it comes to saying things which seem inappropriate to the rest of
us, I also understand that those of us that suffer from those illnesses also
have valid political and social preferences and opinions.

I've met plenty of mentally ill individuals who were as kind as can be. I've
also met individuals that are filled with a special kind of hatred.

The question I have : Are there any documents or papers that Terry has written
that go against his insensitive and racist ramblings, and explain that his
inappropriate use of certain terms that the rest of us would never touch? If
there is no formal explanation of language, how can everyone be so sure that
the hatred is indeed generated by an illness rather than a hateful person with
an uncommon opinion?

I know, a formal letter from someone with a mental illness seems like a
stretch to ask for, but Terry has been extraordinary in every other facet.
He's a true hacker, OS author, and the creator of a language. He commonly
posts opinions he has on new articles on his own site, and the posts are
relatively lucid, as are technical aspects of his work. I don't think that an
explanation of his language use is unworkable, however I do not have any firm
grasp on how he interprets reality and can only judge the difficulty on that
job in comparison to the difficulty of the work he has already shown he's
quite capable at (his OS, for example).

I know everyone is going to jump down my throat about all of this, so let me
summarize at least what i'm try to get across for anyone that might
misunderstand.

1) schizophrenia and racism can exist individually. (however, Schizophrenia
can also form racisms.)

2) an individual looking in really has no grasp on what is or is not formed by
the condition rather than the individual

3) It's wrong to assume someone isn't something they practice, simply due to a
personal flaw. (Example: I'd hate to be the world's biggest racist stuck in
the body of a Tourette's patient, everyone would probably blame my rants which
I worked so hard on on the disease)

(to those of you in this thread that mention Terry doesn't use racial language
to describe race : please read more of his work, you're incorrect. Example :
[http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/Rants/TAD/2014/02/Ra...](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/Rants/TAD/2014/02/Rant140217.html)
)

~~~
thaumaturgy
I'm going to throw out your entire argument here and simply point out that
Terry doesn't get a "free pass". Every account he's created here, and there
have been a few, get insta-banned. Only people with showdead turned on can
even see what he writes.

The original comment was about not being able to "see past" Terry's comments.
Somehow this has devolved into an attempted debate about antisocial behavior.
But, you have to take people as entire individuals, the good with the bad.
Orson Scott Card is a talented writer, and a bigot. Tom Cruise is an amazing
actor, and a prominent member of a worldwide cult. Terry is a respectable
programmer, and mentally ill.

We all have different boundaries. If you really find it impossible to consider
Terry's work because of his behavior, then so be it; it's not up to me to
convince you otherwise. But, a lot of other people are quite capable of
discussing his work, respectfully, without getting hung up on his illness.

------
1945
Terry Davis has a mental illness, this isn't the proper forum to call
attention to it.

~~~
thu
We can draw attention to interesting bits, like this page:
[http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/TempleOS.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/TempleOS.html)

Reading the usesthis page, I was intrigued by the fact the author uses
Windows. Actually he tweeted about switching to Linux a few days ago:
[https://twitter.com/TempleOS/status/461423615582298112](https://twitter.com/TempleOS/status/461423615582298112)

I find also interesting that someone writing an OS is prevented running it
natively by Secure-Boot.

~~~
vidarh
He's reiterated that in a (dead) comment on this post:

> Yeah, I did. Now, I use Linux. Normally stuff like this launched me into an
> existential crisis. "Oh, God, the stress! Why God!? My world has a MAJOR
> thing to worry about -- misleading people maybe or something like that."

> I'm not quite as much a coward. I think I had good reason. Cowardess is not
> a virtue. God loved King David.

>Damn, I look awful. Oh well. I've become a freak hermit-- don't know how to
smile, anymore.

