What Happened to Lee • Hacker News Board

Re: What Happened to Lee

#201

Post by elamje » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 2:15 AM UTC

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…

I don’t have the same issue with focus, etc. but I’m a couple years into my software career and have noticed a drastic shift in my cognitive abilities. Not negative per say, but it’s clear that being focused and working on a logic puzzle all day is changing how my brain is wired. You can imagine that our brain, after years of programming, starts to find shortcuts and such to make the tasks easier, but I find it’s coming at the expense of my ability to clearly communicate ideas and thoughts to others. I don’t like it, and I’m very curious if other people experience this.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#202

Post by duxup » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 2:20 AM UTC

Watching a family member fade and the glimpses of them here and there can be horrific.

My father died when I was 9.

Decades later I watched my mother in law dissolve (and she was very much aware / terrified all the time) over the course of a decade. I think it altered and traumatized my wife's entire family in a way I'm not sure they understand or have dealt with.

Sudden death seems so much more humane.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#203

Post by thephyber » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 2:23 AM UTC

kick wrote: post #7

This is horrifying. Conversations soon became impossible. Lee started chattering in repetitive, unceasing loops. He would tell Kristin: “We met at Cloudflare. We got engaged in Rome. We got married in Maui, Hawaii.” He repeated it hundreds of times a day. Then the loops got shorter, more cryptic. He spoke fewer sentences, instead muttering sequences of numbers or letters. At the same time, given the flashes of lucidi…

His old college roommate met up with Lee when the "looping thoughts" symptoms first started to present and the roommate (who had been overseas for 10 years before that) commented that he almost called 9/11 because he thought Lee was having some sort of a stroke. Lee's short term memory seemed to wipe and he restarted the same conversation 3 times in an hour lunch (this symptom is pretty common in my experience with other dementia sufferers).

I met back with them a year later and he was very dependent upon his cell phone to look up people on Facebook, places on Google Maps, movies on IMDB, etc. (basically all nouns) in real time during the conversation to fill in the gaps in his memories. I lived with him for maybe 5-6 years and he had to look up my Facebook profile and pictures to try to pick up on any nostalgia that might catalyze a memory.

I suspect there is an underlying current of frustration, but probably not a high level cognitive realization (at least not a sudden one) that his mind is degrading.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#204

Post by PaulStatezny » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 2:25 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #163

woah wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure he did a great job, but I’ve seen those things be a huge nightmare for anyone other than the irreplaceable genius code wizard who created them.

I guess you're using the word genius ironically, but I've also seen such things be radical in the sense that they're built in a way that no one else would have done, yet it ends up working perfectly for the business and being far more successful than anyone would have predicted. There's a certain type of mind that is immune to fashionable or normal technical choices, that often goes along with remarkable productivity…

I think there is a lot of truth to this caricature, but it rubs me wrong the way you are painting the "later" programmers as blinded by fashion or tradition. "Geniuses vs ignorant sheeple" is a false dichotomy.

Yes, in some similar situations, some programmers will see things that way. But have some faith and respect for individuals' abilities to reason and apply their experience. As you implied, these kinds of systems are often optimized so that one person could run them.

So it's often a trade off — "this would not be easy for a medium or a large team to work on, but it's the easiest thing for me as an individual to maintain by myself that gets the job done." And that's OK. And yes, it is natural to shift over time. But this is precisely because you now want 40 developers maintaining it instead of 1.

Overengineering is real. But architectural tradeoffs that don't work well for large teams are real too.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#205

Post by Galus » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 2:32 AM UTC

What a read.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#206

Post by XCSme » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 2:37 AM UTC

This was a sad article that hit pretty deep. I think those kind of stories are even more terrifying for us, programmers, because we can normally lose everything but as long as we have our mind intact we can earn our living and start from zero anytime.

For me the saddest thing in life is the loss of potential, when someone could have done so much more, actually wanted to do more and was even trying to do more, but then something tragic happens.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#207

Post by bawana » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 2:41 AM UTC

billti wrote: post #37

cryptica wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It was interesting to see for Lee how this seemed amplified after heart surgery. My Dad had really bad "post-operative delirium" for about a month after major heart surgery, and while he recovered somewhat, that was definitely the start of his major decline. That is a strange coincidence. Could changes in bloodflow have an impact on brain cells?

I researched it at the time (I'd not heard of it when it occurred) and it is apparently quite common. A quick search finds a few hits, e.g. from https://perioperativemedicinejournal.biomedcentral.com/artic... > Delirium is associated with negative hospital outcomes including a tenfold increased risk of death, a fivefold increased risk of nosocomial complications (Inouye 2006), poor 1-year functional recovery, and pos…

When you go on bypass(needed if the heart is stopped to replace a valve) air emboli (very small air bubbles) go into the brain and can get lodged in capillaries cutting of blood flow. Personality changes are documented to occur after bypass and correlate with areas of the frontal cortex that die. Typically though this kind of injury is not progressive.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#208

Post by kabacha » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 2:48 AM UTC

switchstance wrote: post #189

kabacha wrote: post #186

[flagged]

You left out everything that makes the story human and resonate with the reader.

That's your opinion and that's not the point of a tldr. I read the whole article and it's 2/3rds filler — including how many square meters the house had and tv brands they used. It's just bad writing.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#209

Post by warent » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:04 AM UTC

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 think the fact that you're reflecting on it means there's no actual degradation. Someone with Lee's disorder doesn't seem to be capable of self reflection at all.

To me it doesn't really sound like he's suffering, especially given the fact that he doesnt really have meltdowns and freakouts. It sounds more like he's just reverting to a state where his behaviors and consciousness coming from the cerebellum/brainstem, i.e. living much more instinctually and in the present, like all other beings in nature. Yes it creates a big disconnect between him and average human society, but at the same time it seems like he's also freed from a lot of the shackles that come with the human mind, free to live moment to moment.

Re: What Happened to Lee

#210

Post by lawrenceyan » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:08 AM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #160

madaxe_again wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Neuroplasticity is an extraordinary thing. With proper consistent mental exercise and training, you can improve your working memory and focus back to what it used to be if not better.