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shawwn/since2010.md

Created May 11, 2021

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"What happened after 2010?"
Raw
since2010.md

This was a response to a Hacker News comment asking me what I've been
up to since 2010. I'm posting it here since HN rejects it with "that
comment is too long." I suppose that's fair, since this ended up
being something of an autobiography.

--

    What happened after 2010?

A lot of soul searching. I was disillusioned from gamedev. My entire
life, from age 13 till then, was dedicated to the idea of being a
game creator. And I no longer found satisfaction in it.

I had it in my head that gamedev was somehow going to be "not merely
a job." After all, that's why we love the idea of making games,
right? There's something special about it, about being able to say
that you helped build a Dota 2 clone (Heroes of Newerth) or that you
made a clever graphics algorithm.

So when it turned out to be just a job, with a fair dose of company
politics / maneuvering, I questioned what I had spent my life
training myself for. Why had I done this?

A decade later, I still don't have a good answer to that question.
All I know is that I'm glad I did. I wouldn't have been any happier
if I had taken a standard path.

After 2010, what followed was a haze, a period where I simply drifted
without purpose. I'm sure that many people go through long stretches
like that, but it was my first experience with it. I got a job at
Scottrade, a finance megacorp that happened to have a massive office
in the midwest. I wound up there mostly because that's where the
talent company placed me. (I forget the term; you go in and say "Hey,
I'm a programmer," and they say "Sweet, I know like 17 companies;
we'll take a cut of your salary." They had some C++ test that you're
supposed to take at home, and no rules about how you're supposed to
take it, so I simply copied each question into Visual Studio and
chose the answer that the compiler produced. They seemed impressed
that I got a 100%.)

If I thought company politics were bad in gamedev, my experience at
Scottrade was a real wakeup call. Imagine spending all of your time
working very hard on something that you believed might be used, and
then concluding that none of your work will ever be used. I wound up
reading a lot of research papers. I wish I could say I felt happy
when the contract ended, but I don't think I was feeling much of
anything.

My next job was much of the same: Thomson Reuters, finance gig, rinse
and repeat. That one was sort of cool because I worked closely with a
single dev each day. He was decently talented and into racecars, and
it was my first experience chilling with someone whose life didn't
revolve around work. We got along and had a lot of fun designing a
messaging system that used Redis and python, which was my go-to tool
for "you need performance? this gives peformance. it's also simple."

Eventually I wound up in Chicago, and at the time, Chicago ==
tptacek, so it seemed reasonable to go get a job at Matasano
pentesting with him. I did get a job there, but tptacek had left by
then. He'd periodically drop by and show off whatever thing he was
working on. I remember him bragging that sama called him up and
wanted Starfighter to do YC, and that he said no. I looked at him
like he was crazy.

The rest of the experiences were no less surreal. I was basically
parachuted into ~57 codebases, sometimes alone, sometimes with
someone else, and your goal is to break their program in as many ways
as possible, sometimes in two days, sometimes in five. I took pride
in the fact that out of every engagement I was on, I found at least
one medium-severity flaw - or to put it another way, no program
survived my torture. I had an xss.txt file with something like 72
lines, each of which had worked. So I'd build up a bag of tricks, and
it'd get larger over time.

But I was still miserable. I ended up living a life that I thought
might be interesting, rather than seeking out an interesting life.
And although it was incredibly cool to see the classic movie-trope
style of hacker culture - to be an actual, legitimate hacker - at
that point, I was no longer building anything. I was breaking things.
And yes, you'd be able to occasionally write a tool to help break
things. But your day to day life ends up being - drumroll - someone
who writes reports. You know the scene in office space, where his
manager is hassling him about not having the right cover on his TPS
report? It was basically like that: 40% of the time was spent doing
hacking, and 60% of your time was spent writing reports.

It turned out that right up till then, I had been living my entire
life with undiagnosed narcolepsy. I remember getting dressed for work
at 8pm or so, setting an alarm for 7am, then laying on the couch,
fully dressed, not doing anything at all, until I finally fell
asleep. Then when the alarm went off, I jumped off the couch and
forced myself to run out the door before there was any chance of me
sitting down anywhere, since me sitting down = I would fall asleep
instantly, thus oversleeping the crucial engagement at a high-profile
Chicago trading firm you've probably heard of.

It would probably occur to most people that this wasn't a normal
routine, and that perhaps there might be a medical explanation. But
that was simply how I lived life, so it didn't occur to me that it
wasn't normal. I was completely mystified how anyone was able to
arrive at work consistently, every day, at a specific time.

When I overslept one too many times, with the very real possibility
of losing my job (and thus my wife's degree), I found a sleep clinic.
And I had the good fortune of finding a doctor in that sleep clinic
who genuinely cared for my wellbeing. Normally, doctors have a sort
of professional detachment, but after explaining the situation to
her, she looked after me like a mother hen.

I recalled from my first job that a coworker got a CPAP machine, and
it transformed his life. He said that he became a morning person
thanks to it. So I was hopeful that there was going to be a similar
magic solution for me: some sort of machine, some pill, or something
else that would make all the problems vanish.

When it was time to do the sleep study, it thankfully coincided with
one of the worst "I simply won't wake up" periods I've ever
experienced. You're supposed to go in and go to sleep, then they wake
you three times, and you go back to sleep each time, while your head
is wired up to this machine (literally a bunch of wires taped to your
scalp), and they analyze your sleep patterns. The moment they were
done wiring my scalp, my head hit the pillow, and I was out. (They
later noted I dropped into REM sleep within minutes, which they had
never seen before.) They woke me up and asked me to stand, but I kept
falling back asleep. Eventually I managed to stand, and do whatever
they wanted. My head hit the pillow again.

The second time they woke me up, it was far harder. I think they were
very persistent in trying to wake me up, but it almost didn't matter,
short of hitting me with a hammer. I finally - with much effort - was
able to get up, then my head hit the pillow.

The next thing I remember is waking up to "Ok, we're all done!"
Apparently they tried to wake me up the third time, but they were so
unsuccessful at it that they just let me sleep, deciding that they
had enough data.

Diagnosis: narcolepsy. And narcolepsy isn't something that can be
cured. So it was almost comical: boss wants a solution to the problem
of me coming in late; doctor writes a note like "Shawn has so-and-so
medical condition, and although there are ways to manage it, there is
no way to cure it"; boss finds solution: fire them. It was
interesting showing up one day and being told that it was my last day
there.

In hindsight, what a relief it was to be free. At the time, I was in
full panic mode, but it really was the best thing that could have
happened. We managed to find just enough money to not lose our
apartment, my wife got her degree, and I was able to slow down,
reset, and focus (with the doctor's help) on fixing me.

The core problem was that at every point in my life, I had been
unhappy. School was miserable, so I convinced myself that gamedev
would be better. My fist gamedev job turned out to be just a job, so
I convinced myself I got unlucky, and that a different studio
wouldn't be "just a job." My second gamedev job ended up being
magical - everything I ever wanted - for around 10 months, till the
owner decided to massively restructure the company and move us all
out to Kalamazoo, which ended up basically killing the company, so I
was unhappy. And then I went into finance to get some money (rather
than because it's what I wanted), and I was unhappy, but I thought
"Well, isn't work supposed to be unhappy? That's why it's work." Then
I latched onto someone else's dream and wound up in the security
industry, not building anything and writing reports, which wasn't too
happiness-infusing.

Remember how I was hoping that my problems could be solved with a
machine, or a pill, or anything at all? I was hoping for a magical
CPAP machine, but I wound up getting a magical pill. I don't know why
Prozac was so effective, but thanks to that doctor (bless her soul),
I was able to finally, for the first time in my life, relax and enjoy
life.

Happiness is a decision, but it wasn't until I started taking Prozac
every single day without fail that I was able to decide to be happy.
Three months later, I remember feeling confused, because it had been
a full month since I felt truly miserable, which had never happened
before. And then I started to internalize that everything was fine.

That was five years ago. I wrote https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id
=10984478 shortly after being fired, and shortly after I started
taking Prozac. It's interesting to me that from then till now, my
life improved dramatically. Day-to-day, I no longer felt like "The
world is going to end unless X happens," which is of course true. I
started working on things that I decided were interesting, rather
than because someone said it was interesting. And I suddenly found
this new superpower of "actually being quite happy, and looking
forward to waking up each day."

I decided I wanted a website like https://www.gwern.net, mostly
because I liked the idea of having a wiki with all kinds of neat
features (https://www.gwern.net/Design#features). I found an old fork
of gwern.net that someone happened to mirror (https://github.com/
gjord/gwern.net) but had lots of trouble getting it to work. I ended
up DMing gwern on twitter, and the rest was history. He turned out to
be awesome, and we ended up talking about all kinds of things. At one
point I asked for a list of all the Haskell packages he had
installed, along with their version numbers, and (to my surprise) he
sent it over. I was able to get my dream wiki set up (https://
www.shawwn.com/swarm) along with a way for other people to set it up
too (https://github.com/shawwn/wiki).

ML turned out to be fascinating, and gwern turned out to know an
incredible amount about it. He was also (sometimes to my annoyance)
almost never wrong. So I've spent the last year and a half absorbing
as much knowledge from him as I could. We made some neat things
together, like the model that powers https://www.reddit.com/r/
SubSimulatorGPT2/. Newsweek ended up writing an article about our
work, which was neat. https://www.newsweek.com/
openai-text-generator-gpt-2-video-game-walkthrough-most-tedious-1488334
And then Scott Alexander asked Gwern if GPT-2 might be able to play
chess, so we focused on that problem for a few days, and the answer
turned out to be yes (https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/01/06/
a-very-unlikely-chess-game/) which led to more news articles (https:/
/www.theregister.com/2020/01/10/gpt2_chess/). And it's been total
immersion ever since.

Narcolepsy being a lifelong condition, it's no surprise that it's now
4:30am on a Tuesday, so I'll end this here. I'm not sure who, if
anyone, will read this, or if there's anything to be learned from it.
But if you happen to be suffering from sleep issues, or you've been
unhappy for a very long time, perhaps this can be a reminder that (a)
things will get better, if (b) you focus on taking care of yourself.
Both (a) and (b) are easy to forget, because they're mistakes that
happen by default: http://www.paulgraham.com/todo.html

So, take care of yourself, pursue your dreams, and remember that it's
precious to be able to decide what to work on. Most people don't have
that choice. And those that do, as I did, often don't take advantage
of it, and live a life that someone else said might be interesting.

There's often an interesting life waiting for you, but only if you
decide to look for it. 2010 was when I needed to learn that, and 2019
was when I found it.

@dmurphydrtc
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dmurphydrtc commented May 12, 2021

Delighted you shared this. Great read. Thanks.

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@TheTuringExperience
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TheTuringExperience commented May 15, 2021

Thank you very much for sharing. I'm sure that learning from stories
like yours will help me live a much more fulfilling life. Thanks
again.

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@PraveenRaja42
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PraveenRaja42 commented May 19, 2021 *
edited

Thank you for sharing. Great read.

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@leonoverweel
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leonoverweel commented May 23, 2021

Thanks for sharing.

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@sebastianrosado
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sebastianrosado commented Jun 4, 2021

Thank you for sharing your story (and your wiki!)

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@riven314
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riven314 commented Jun 21, 2021

Thanks for sharing your struggle and how you got through this for a
new live!
I will definitely come back and read this again.

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@arjun-menon
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arjun-menon commented Jul 6, 2021

Thank you for sharing. You and gwern are an inspiration.

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@federicomoreno613
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federicomoreno613 commented Jul 8, 2021

Thanks for sharing !

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@clouedoc
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clouedoc commented Aug 12, 2021

Thank you so much for sharing this. I'll try to remember a and b

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@zachbellay
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zachbellay commented Aug 20, 2021

Hey Shawn, I've been going through a bit of a rough patch myself, and
reading this really helped me feel less alone, and also made me feel
like my concerns aren't just frivolous, but are legitimate. Thanks
for having the courage to post this, it takes a lot of guts.

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@dimitriadamou
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dimitriadamou commented Aug 21, 2021

Thank you, this was a great read.

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@divyaankt
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divyaankt commented Nov 6, 2021

Thanks for sharing this!! It was very inspiring!!

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@mylons
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mylons commented Mar 3, 2022

just saw this on HN today. thanks for the read and gentle reminder to
do something about it.

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@krippz
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krippz commented Mar 3, 2022

Thank you for your words!

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@robodan
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robodan commented Mar 3, 2022

You might look up Dr Gominak on YouTube. She's a neurologist that
turned into a sleep doctor, because that's what cured all her
neurology patients. The super simplified version is that getting
vitamin D up in the ideal range results in truly restorative sleep.
It worked for me. Her general stuff is online, but she also does
phone consultations for personalized care.

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@Klaudioz
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Klaudioz commented Mar 3, 2022

Thanks for sharing. I had some sleep issues in the past, so it was an
enjoyable read.

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@ronmoddesette
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ronmoddesette commented Mar 3, 2022

Thank you for sharing. In regards to Prozak, I've been reading how
magic mushrooms (psilocybin) is showing promise as a good alternative
to Prozak and showing less side effects.

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@brightghost
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brightghost commented Mar 3, 2022

This resonates very strongly with me as I tackle health issues which
I've ignored for too long. Thank you.

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@XAntonioLuna
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XAntonioLuna commented Mar 3, 2022

I didn't just read it but felt inspired by your experience, thanks
for sharing it!

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@renovateb0t
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renovateb0t commented Mar 3, 2022

holy s*** i think i might have narcolepsy

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@myatniy
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myatniy commented Mar 3, 2022

Thanks for your thoughts. It helped me a lot today!

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@Mikael-Lovqvist
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Mikael-Lovqvist commented Mar 3, 2022

Good read, thank you!

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@zitterbewegung
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zitterbewegung commented Mar 3, 2022 *
edited

Great to hear that your life has gotten better! I don't know if you
remember me but we met once at a coffee shop in Chicago before you
moved to Seattle. I was talking about using an RTX Titan while you
were looking into TPUs. I've been trying to make a Visual Novel with
Transformers and I gave a theoretical talk on how to make fake
tweets.

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@sert121
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sert121 commented Mar 3, 2022

Thanks for the lovely read :)

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@TaylorOD
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TaylorOD commented Mar 3, 2022

Thanks for sharing. Glad you found something that works for you.

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