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Terry Davis Confirmation: Man killed by train had tech following

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Re: Terry Davis Confirmation: Man killed by train had tech following

#21

Post by esaym »

jpeg_hero wrote: post #15
yellowapple wrote: post #6

Still no black bar. Disappointing.

He was shadowbanned here. So maybe the black bar is shadow banned. Towards the end he said some racist nazi shit. Hard for people to accept that was a symptom of his mental decline. Hard to be tollerant about that. I first discovered him circa 2006 when the OS was called LoseThos. I prefer to remember him from those days when he provided this community with such a breath of fresh air- rather than during his end days.…

>racist nazi

Just an fyi, there is a large conspiracy basically stating that he was "made" this way by internet trolling. Similar to the outcome of "Chris Chan".

Terry in many cases showed great fondness over several popular internet/youtube girls to which end he would live stream himself trying to email and make contact with them. And to this, trolls would spoof a response email somewhere along the line of "I only date black men with huge s".

You can see a similar situation involving Dianna "physics girl" here: http://ia800600.us.archive.org/31/items/TerryADavis_TempleOS...

It is very possible that through this trolling is what lead him to get kicked out of his parent's house and subsequently dying on a set of train tracks.

Re: Terry Davis Confirmation: Man killed by train had tech following

#23

Post by anothergoogler »

yellowapple wrote: post #6

Still no black bar. Disappointing.

Let alone a black bar, enough people have flagged the submission that it's #38 (off the front page) even though it has 120 points after 3 hours, and no huge comment count to trip the flame detector. It seems many would prefer that Terry Davis be forgotten.

Re: Terry Davis Confirmation: Man killed by train had tech following

#24

Post by sonupundir »

chongli wrote: post #18

I don't think it's really fair to characterize his death as a suicide. Given the nature of Terry's illness, he may have been unaware of what was going on at the time of his death. The police report just sounds strange. We'll never know what he was feeling that night. It's so sad that he's gone.

These were my first thoughts too.

Even in otherwise (mentally) healthy people such accidents happen with some regularity but with the history of this particular illness afflicting him and the nature of the incident (walking away and then turning back before impact) makes the police's statement sounds dismissive and reckless at best and a coverup for the train company and/or avoidance of some significant workload (investigation of an avoidable death by train company vs a suicide of a mentally ill person) for themselves.

People with such illnesses typically hear voices and at any given time they could be engaged in a rather deep conversation with them(selves). Even if he was not listening to music and such or was otherwise distracted by something else it would not be surprising for a person of his illness to not being able to hear the train approaching. When he finally heard it, he apparently did turn but it was - unfortunately - too late.

Someone with more insight into the manner of train suicides would hopefully weigh in with more informed opinion but as far as I understand the typical way is to jump (not always literally) in front of the train.

Simply walking away from the train provides ample opportunity for an alert driver to stop or slow the train both of which are undesirable for the suicidal person and one (the slow train running over you) could be much worse than the other options.

Rather it seems the train driver failed (some one with more technical train knowledge would correct me here if there are some other reasons for not applying brakes in train even after seeing an - apparently - oblivious man walking away from the train) to stop the train in time and prevent an avoidable death.

I could be wrong but there is the possibility that it would be much desirable for the train company and easier (given the history of his illness) for the authorities to dismiss his death as suicide rather than hold the person(s) responsible for the accident accountable for their actions.

Re: Terry Davis Confirmation: Man killed by train had tech following

#25

Post by [deleted] »

CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #14

To everyone who reads this on the Peninsula, this number should be in your phone's address book: +1 (877) 723-7245. That is the number for Caltrain Transit Police. To everyone who reads this in the City, this number should be in your phone's address book: +1 (415) 553-8090. That is the number for SFPD Dispatch. To everyone who reads this in the City, or the East Bay, this number should be in your phone's address book…

[deleted]

Re: Terry Davis Confirmation: Man killed by train had tech following

#26

Post by sam36 »

pen2l wrote: post #13
zxexz wrote: post #9

This is such a shame. I always loved watching his videos, and his website, and was always in awe at the source of TempleOS. The world, all of us here on HN included, could have treated him with more compassion. My heart goes out to his family and those close to him, including all those who offered him the housing he refused. Terry has achieved well more than most of us could dream of, and honestly has left more of a…

> RIP Terry. For some reason, and I don't know why I find this somewhat shocking, but of all prominent deaths in recent memory, his death leaves me feeling the most emotional. It hit me really hard too. I think it's because some of us witnessed that his spiral downward was partly because of him getting trolled by the 4chan crowd, we witnessed his helplessness, we witnessed him getting bullied. He was a star, but he h…

>He was a star, but he had his demons

His blunt honestly with stuff in his own life helped me in my own. We've certainly all screwed up.

Re: Terry Davis Confirmation: Man killed by train had tech following

#27

Post by esaym »

sonupundir wrote: post #24
chongli wrote: post #18

I don't think it's really fair to characterize his death as a suicide. Given the nature of Terry's illness, he may have been unaware of what was going on at the time of his death. The police report just sounds strange. We'll never know what he was feeling that night. It's so sad that he's gone.

These were my first thoughts too. Even in otherwise (mentally) healthy people such accidents happen with some regularity but with the history of this particular illness afflicting him and the nature of the incident (walking away and then turning back before impact) makes the police's statement sounds dismissive and reckless at best and a coverup for the train company and/or avoidance of some significant workload (inv…

>Rather it seems the train driver failed

Depending on the train, it could take over a mile to stop. In some cases a train never fully stops (even during shift changes) as to get it going again from a dead stop would waste time.

Re: Terry Davis Confirmation: Man killed by train had tech following

#28

Post by DoreenMichele »

anothergoogler wrote: post #23
yellowapple wrote: post #6

Still no black bar. Disappointing.

Let alone a black bar, enough people have flagged the submission that it's #38 (off the front page) even though it has 120 points after 3 hours, and no huge comment count to trip the flame detector. It seems many would prefer that Terry Davis be forgotten.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17912618

3 days ago

600+ points

200+ comments

Someone cared enough to post a link* to this article today to confirm it. I asked them to submit it as an article. When they didn't do so promptly, I deleted my comment and submitted it myself.

I never expected it to make the front page. I just hoped to get a few more eyeballs on it as a courtesy to the community.

I don't think he is being dismissed and forgotten at all.

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17938802

Re: Terry Davis Confirmation: Man killed by train had tech following

#29

Post by tdumitrescu »

henkdevries wrote: post #5

Article is behind a pay wall. Man killed by train had tech following By Neita Cecil As of Friday, September 7, 2018 A man killed by a train in The Dalles in mid-August had a Youtube following and was a “minor celebrity” in the computer world for doing the Herculean task of writing his own operating system, a fan said. Terrance Davis, 48, was killed Aug. 11 near West First and Terminal Avenue. He’d been homeless for s…

> sometimes he had things to say that were really profound. “The one that I keep remembering is, he said, ‘If you seek to lose your life you’ll save it, if you seek to save your life, you’ll lose it.’”

Profound and all but...that's just a Jesus quote.

Re: Terry Davis Confirmation: Man killed by train had tech following

#30

Post by Im_back_4_U »

meddlepal wrote: post #17
jpeg_hero wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was shadowbanned here. So maybe the black bar is shadow banned. Towards the end he said some racist nazi shit. Hard for people to accept that was a symptom of his mental decline. Hard to be tollerant about that. I first discovered him circa 2006 when the OS was called LoseThos. I prefer to remember him from those days when he provided this community with such a breath of fresh air- rather than during his end days.…

Agree. Black bar. His mental illness clearly impacted how he thought, wrote and spoke but we can't deny this guy is a historically important to CS and software engineering. RIP.

This is an interesting point. Was he historically important to CS and engineering ? I certainly understand the sentiment and appreciate his talent, but can somebody be important if their work is only useful to them, if the only benefit of of their accomplishments is for themselves ? I see why people might say yes, but that's a no for me,dog. Historical is about people, and his work was about himself.
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