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What Happened to Lee

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Re: What Happened to Lee

#151

Post by thaumaturgy »

rubicon33 wrote: post #107

Terrifying. As a software engineer, shit like this scares me. I've felt like I'm on a steady, slow, decline for the last ~4 years. Is it just burnout? Do I need a new hobby? I used to love programming... Spent 12 hours a day jamming on it. Now, I struggle to keep my mind on a line of code for more than 5 minutes. At what point is it just burnout, or at what point is it something more? That's what's terrifying to me.…

I bet there are some aspects to this that lots of people could self-identify with.

I have a bad habit of remembering a past that never was. I think, man, the code used to just flow so easily, and now it requires effort. But I'm just remembering the highlights; if I try a little harder, I can start to remember other days when it wasn't so easy. I forget my missed deadlines and remember my last-minute saves. Revisiting old code now and again helps to shake the illusion loose.

Arranging life to spend a little bit less time on things that feel like work and making a little more time for things that excite you is a good medicine for this feeling and probably something everyone should do anyway.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#152

Post by thephyber »

garganzol wrote: post #65

Could it be that Lee's productivity frenzy eventually led to this disease? I tend to practice the same style of getting things done during crunch time. I have the same behavior afterwards. Sometimes I can sleep a few days in a row after making a software release. And yes, taking a vacation with my girlfriend sometimes took the same shape: she was running circles in a new city while I was chilling at the hotel room tr…

Second had information from Lee's doctors suggest that there's a genetic component.

From what I remember, he was also born prematurely and spent weeks in a NICU.

Also worth noting that the disease didn't ease up after he stopped working, so the suggestion that "working less" might have avoided it is not clear.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#153

Post by dralley »

GCSAQCMIYI wrote: post #128
billti wrote: post #25

> The neurologists delivered their verdict: He appeared to have a textbook case of frontotemporal dementia—known by the shorthand FTD Oh man, was that a kick in the guts when I got to that bit. My Dad was diagnosed with that in the past year, (after obviously struggling for a while), and declined rapidly. He had a different variant, and indeed the one thing that DIDN'T change was his personality. In fact, that's what…

>For one thing, being in the U.S. healthcare system, if I did have the markers, would that then count as a "pre-existing condition" I'd have to disclose? I'm sure the people who pay premiums for health insurance would hope so. If you already know you have a condition that's going to cost a lot of money to treat, you're not looking for insurance. If you can't pay for it yourself, you're looking for charity.

> If you can't pay for it yourself, you're looking for charity.

I hope you don't believe in Karma, because you're tempting fate. I doubt you'd strike the same tune if you or your loved ones had a severe and/or chronic illness that threatened to bankrupt you through no fault of your own.

Also, in the US, your health insurance is probably tied to your employment. Expecting someone to stay at the same job (on the same insurance) for the rest of their life after learning about some illness, and calling anyone who isn't able to do this a charity-seeker, is asshole behavior.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#154

Post by caleb-allen »

basch wrote: post #45
mensetmanusman wrote: post #22

I come from a family of extremely gifted visual thinkers (PhDs from MIT/Stanford/etc) and in the last year one of us had a heart issue that coincided with a month long bout of psychosis, where dream-like real visualizations were overlaid onto the real world. I’m convinced that the genetic effects that provide us with extreme visualization and problem solving skills are related to this particular failure mode, where s…

The ability to make strong abstract connections transforming into misassociations? I think about this one a lot, how easy it is for pattern recognition to misfire and synthesize conclusions and connections that are partially rational and correct, but with one bad piece of input data skewing them into fantasy. Sometimes the conclusion may be right, but its magnitude, impact, or applicability are grossly overestimated.…

My father is an entrepreneur, with multiple successful companies under his belt. He's got a knack for seeing opportunities others don't, synthesizing those connections. Anybody who's had a conversation with him can tell you that.

His younger brother, my uncle, was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 20 after becoming severely erratic while away from home on an LDS mission. The diagnosis devastated their family, and has been followed by decades of difficult treatment and heartbreak.

What is it about my uncle that pushed him over the edge? Environment? Genetics? Pure chance? I wish I could know. My dad says that there's not much left of him except for a few moments here and there.

My dad had a big family, and he's said that his younger brother always showed the most promise, growing up. Smart, charming, super friendly. 30 years on he continues to greet everybody with a smile and hug, even if he doesn't know them!

It's sobering to see it in my own family, and it keeps thoughts like the one you articulated so well in the back of my mind constantly.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#155

Post by xupybd »

mynameishere wrote: post #140
jgrahamc wrote: post #132

I posted this hours ago and then stepped away. The story captures so much about the Lee I knew so well. I'll add one piece of praise for Lee's early architecture of Cloudflare. Everything was controlled by a single Postgres database that made very heavy use of stored procedures, that called other procedures, that called others. It was one giant program inside the database. It took me a while to comprehend what he'd d…

Working with stored procedures is just the pits. I wonder why you would describe that as "great". Maybe it's optimized, but so would be a giant executable written in assembly.

I've found the opposite. It can take a long time to get your head into that space but it produces much more maintainable and robust systems in my experience.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#156

Post by 7thaccount »

icedchai wrote: post #144
mynameishere wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working with stored procedures is just the pits. I wonder why you would describe that as "great". Maybe it's optimized, but so would be a giant executable written in assembly.

Last time I worked with stored procs with an Oracle 8 database, over 20 years ago. PL/SQL was awful.

I work with one extremely large application written in Oracle stored SQL procedures. It is a pain, but pretty efficient.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#157

Post by GCSAQCMIYI_2 »

switchbak wrote: post #145
GCSAQCMIYI wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and he's looking for it to be financed by other people while giving them nothing in return for it.

I live in a country where we gladly finance the health care of other people without looking for anything in return. I really don't understand the lack of compassion that can ground such an ideology.

I never suggested there was anything wrong with financing health care that way. I don't bring up that he's looking for charity to criticize him or anyone else in his position. I bring it up to point out that in our ridiculous health care system, health insurance companies are making a fortune acting like charities, and it's coming out of their customers' pockets.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#158

Post by empath75 »

dimxasnewfrozen wrote: post #135
rubicon33 wrote: post #107

Terrifying. As a software engineer, shit like this scares me. I've felt like I'm on a steady, slow, decline for the last ~4 years. Is it just burnout? Do I need a new hobby? I used to love programming... Spent 12 hours a day jamming on it. Now, I struggle to keep my mind on a line of code for more than 5 minutes. At what point is it just burnout, or at what point is it something more? That's what's terrifying to me.…

After reading this I had to do a quick self-assessment. For the last few years or so (I'm 33, also a software engineer) I've noticed a pretty big decline in my mental state. I can't focus. I immediately forget what I just looked at, read or did. I completely zone out when people talk to me. I am just not present in any situation. What is strange is that I can actually notice it, not in real-time however. It's been wo…

Honestly that just sounds like a mix of ADHD and depression. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#159

Post by s5300 »

andmarios wrote: post #150

The behavior described in the article can be seen in all dementia patients. The article is written like it is a rare and unfortunate story which we watch from the sidelines, but only the age of Lee makes it unique. Many of us will experience exactly the same with a beloved one ( probably a parent, maybe a significant other). Every single part of the story except the age, all the changes in the behavior —small and lar…

You should read this

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/magazine/why-was-their-br...

IIRC "dementia" is literally just a description of symptoms.

The real truth seems to be that we just barely have the slightest fucking clue most of the time.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#160

Post by xupybd »

madaxe_again wrote: post #79
meowface wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suspicion would be that the general anesthetic is the primary cause.

I have been sedated a few times for minor procedures, propofol, I think, with no issues, and I’ve had a general once, for a laparoscopic cholecystectomy - about as trivial as abdominal surgery comes, only a few hours under. It had side effects. For the better part of a year afterwards, I kept finding myself unconsciously substituting completely incorrect words into written correspondence, I was irritable almost const…

I've experienced this too. I had a tumor removed from my head. It was pretty serious. I'm not sure if it's due to the anesthesia, physical stress of the operation, changes to brain blood flow or radiation that my brain was hit with.

Either way my memory has not been great since. My wife is disappointed when I forget meaningful conversions from a week ago. I struggle at times to notice trivial errors, really struggle. I can look over the same email and miss several mistakes. Other days I'm clear, I don't make many mistakes and I can spot them easily.

I still managed to get an Engineering degree and hold down regular employment as a software developer. But there are periods of time where my focus and productivity are just not there. I suspect this will hold me back in my career. But I'm thankful I can function as well as I can and have survived to this point.

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