Answer to unrelated question: Losethos is a developer of a quite unique operating system, http://www.losethos.com/videos.html which he has been developing for the past 10 years.
I reached out by e-mail once, out of similar curiosity to the parent, and got a string of replies that made about as much sense as his comments here. The mails kept coming, several minutes apart... I was actually worried I'd stepped into a situation I didn't want to be in. I'm convinced there are some real psychological problems there that startup advice won't help with...
> I'm some kind of terrorist lab animal, in jail--shrinks abuse me and shit.
> All I can do is post to HN News and yell at my shrinks.
> I get fake downloads and no emails. Total terrorist lab rat abused by shrinks.
From his comments and yours, here is what might have happened:
He developed an operating system by himself, spent a lot of effort in it.
Despite spending a large part of his life on this project, not many people are interested.
In despair, and alone, all he thinks about everyday is losethos, as you can see in each comment. In his mind, everything links back to losethos in someway.
`I could do USB but keyboard and mice aren't any better, possibly worse from a compatibility state. Memory sticks would be really nice. Now, we're in the domain of distinctive drivers for similar pieces of hardware. Can't do that. Might be able to.`
He seems to have related this article to how he didn't implement drivers for those accessories in his OS. (Schleps)
I am guessing he was sent to a clinic by his parents.
`I don't know. I don't even care. I don't care about one person. Parents are enemies. I pay them $600 they take care of me, but abuse me, I prolly abuse them.
This is heaven -- argument clinic and I'm telling truth all the time, except for wild speculation. I don't know shit about reality.`
His frequent references to God suggests someone close has given him a bible, in an attempt to help him.
He is able to comment on HN probably because he still has access to his computer and internet.
Pouring your life into a project, only after finding nobody cares much about it, while living alone for years... I can see how I'd become mentally unstable too.
I always assumed it was some spam bot that had been set up by a moron, could it really be the case that somebody is genuinely writing them out sincerely?
Sometimes the first lines make some sense. Sometimes he talks random things about his operating system. Then there's the God says part where he generates random blabber from Bible or something. I'm pretty sure this is caused by mental instability, not any kind of spamming/harassing purposes.
Wow, this is both very touching but also very intriguing. In my mind I have romanticized it into a tale of an online version of a mad, solitary genious.
A couple of years ago i stumbled upon this guy who was acting as the entire community of a pokémon forum all by himself. He was mentally ill, and often posted threads about his and Nurse Joys marriage. It was very sad, but he seemed happy in his own little world. It's interesting to see how technology/internet and mental issues interact. We get a small peek into their world. It's touching.
Could someone shed some light on the quality of his OS, and point out some interesting details? I know very little of that kind of thing, but the Youtube comments suggests it's skillfully made.
I don't think it has commercial value, simply because of the OpenSource competition. But it's nothing short of amazing the sheer amount of work he has done.
If this guy was born long enough before the Internet age, he'd probably be a historical figure of computing. His seemingly lacking social abilities would have been mostly a non-factor.
I never noticed those before. As far as trying to help, I would think it's a bit beyond the capacity of a well-intentioned stranger. From my untrained perspective, I'd worry about doing more harm than good.
One of his last sane comments were when he asked startup advice here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1782800 and got zero responses.
Sometimes it passes my mind that maybe someone on HN should help him. It's quite obvious he has lost his mental health.