https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2024/10/01/life-death-and-retirement/ Random ASCII - tech blog of Bruce Dawson Forecast for randomascii: programming, tech topics, with a chance of unicycling [blog-header-from-p2090787] Skip to content * Home * About - Localization Failure: Temperature is Hard Life, death, and retirement Posted on October 1, 2024 by brucedawson I haven't been blogging much lately, and it turns out there is a very good reason. My last technical blog post was October 1st of last year. After I hit publish on that one I went to get ready for bed and found my wife lying on the bathroom floor in excruciating pain. I took her to the hospital. She was diagnosed with pancreatitis which is a truly horrible disease. Her hospital stay was an insane rollercoaster and she ultimately died nine weeks later. Heartbeat So yeah. It's been a shit year. After she died there were a lot of bureaucratic tasks to be done - at least doubled because of our dual US/Canada citizenships. Google gave me a month of leave and I took a month of vacation and I came back... not at all better. Grief is a long process, complicated by the fact that I'd only fairly recently moved back to Vancouver - I had practically zero close friends nearby. As I tried to piece together a new life I found that work - especially remote work, isolated in my home office - was not a useful part of the healing process. I had already dropped down to 80% time - just 32 hours a week - but even that felt like a burden. Work kept interfering with getting outside, spending time with people, and exercising. I decided to take a three-month leave of absence, both to focus more time on healing and to see if I would miss work at all. I did not miss it. Not one bit. Four years ago I was having fun at work, solving interesting bugs, writing tutorials, and generally living my best life. I published eleven blog posts that year. Even Covid didn't slow me down. Back then the idea of stopping would have seemed crazy. But my best work has usually been random discoveries - improbable bugs that were often polite enough to manifest on my machine before they affected anybody else - and there was always the risk that these random discoveries would peter out... and they seemed to be doing that. Maybe all of the bugs in Windows have been fixed now, or maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but even before the shit hit the fan a year ago I was already not finding as many exciting things to do. If you then layer on grief it's not surprising that my motivation dropped. It's not surprising that I started to resent every meeting that reduced my flexibility for playing tennis or other more fun and social activities. imageAnd so, after getting a thumbs up from my financial adviser, I decided to quit. To retire as soon as I got back from my leave. I gave notice on the 10th anniversary of starting at Google and my last working day is October 4th, 2024. I am taking my work/life balance and turning the dial all the way to "life". Maybe this will be my last blog post ever. Or maybe I'll investigate and write up a few issues that I have notes on. We'll see. And maybe my readers can help. I won't be finding crazy bugs at work anymore, but I've had a few blog posts that were triggered by somebody reaching out with a problem. I can't promise that I will investigate any particular thing, but if you have a performance or stability or floating-point problem that seems like it might pique my interest, and if you are motivated enough to either help me reproduce it or to send me traces, then, well, who knows? And, if you work for a company that has Windows performance problems and you want some private consulting, well, I can still be motivated by money, so reach out. Share this: * Email * Reddit * Twitter * Like Loading... Related [5046e4c] About brucedawson I'm a programmer, working for Google, focusing on optimization and reliability. Nothing's more fun than making code run 10x as fast. Unless it's eliminating large numbers of bugs. I also unicycle. And play (ice) hockey. And sled hockey. And juggle. And worry about whether this blog should have been called randomutf-8. 2010s in review tells more: https://twitter.com/BruceDawson0xB/status/ 1212101533015298048 View all posts by brucedawson - This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged death, grief, life, retirement. Bookmark the permalink. - Localization Failure: Temperature is Hard 48 Responses to Life, death, and retirement 1. [0039] Mordy Ovits says: October 1, 2024 at 12:20 pm I'm so sorry that happened to you and your wife. I have greatly enjoyed your output over the years and you taught me a lot. I wish you peace and happiness in whatever direction you take. Reply 2. [1041] Tom says: October 1, 2024 at 12:49 pm peace [?] Reply 3. [a5db] blahblahtryagain says: October 1, 2024 at 1:05 pm I'm sorry to hear the news about your wife. Nothing much to add other than I've enjoyed your blog for seemingly forever, and I wish you all the best. Reply 4. [3ed8] Leonard Mosescu says: October 1, 2024 at 1:08 pm Hi Bruce, I'm so sorry to hear about your loss! Please accept my warmest condolences. If you find yourself back in Seattle area and would like to meet for coffee, let me know! Reply 5. [262d] Helder Alves says: October 1, 2024 at 1:13 pm Dear Bruce, I feel just like Mordy. I can't imagine the magnitude of your pain... Your articles had always been a joy to read, over all these years... I never thought your silence was due to such event. We will miss you, but you already gave so much... "I wish you peace and happiness in whatever direction you take." [?] Reply 6. [97b6] Kevin says: October 1, 2024 at 1:17 pm Bruce, best wishes to you, sir. I've enjoyed reading your blog. Reply 7. [7600] Olivier Nallet says: October 1, 2024 at 1:25 pm Bruce, Wow. I am so sorry. I can't even imagine what you went through. I hope you will find peace. Olivier Reply 8. [6316] Scott says: October 1, 2024 at 2:40 pm Very sorry to read about your loss! I have enjoyed reading your blogs since you were at Valve and have enjoyed the quirky issues. It has been an inspiration in my own career. Wishing you the best in your next adventures. Reply 9. [2d6e] alex says: October 1, 2024 at 3:21 pm Inmensely saddened by the loss in your life. May your wife's memory be a blessing. I enjoyed reading your posts, which I discovered around 2017/ 2018. Since then I always separate some time in the day for reading what you have new. A very healthy distraction of the hardness of life having lost my father recently, and a few other loved ones, while also helping my wife with her chronic and acute health scares. Man, honestly there are no words. If you feel better dumping your feelings into these posts, we will be here for connecting and provide you with another emotional outlet. Reply + [5046] brucedawson says: October 1, 2024 at 3:53 pm Thank you Alex, and others. I do draw some comfort from these kind words, and I always like knowing that my words - technical or emotional - are reaching people. I'm sorry about the loss of your father. Oddly enough while my kids have had to deal with the loss of their mother I have still not had to deal with losing a parent, so I don't even know how it feels. Reply 10. [52d1] crd says: October 1, 2024 at 5:38 pm I'm so sorry to hear about your loss, Bruce. Thanks for sharing such a personal experience with us, and I hope the act of doing that brings you some additional relief. I'm also glad (and slightly jealous to hear that you're taking the opportunity to retire early. I hope you and your kids get so much more out of life that way. Take care... Reply 11. [] Jeffrey Stokes says: October 1, 2024 at 9:05 pm I went through this with my mother last year, I'm sorry to read this Bruce. Like others have said, thanks for sharing something like this, this personal. Best wishes to you. Jeff Reply 12. [b0f4] charlesjohnclark says: October 1, 2024 at 10:51 pm I'm sorry to hear about your wife. That's crushing. I've been dealing with some very difficult health issues with my daughter, so there is at least some understanding, and I'm heartbroken. I've loved your blogs, and you have always been an inspiration to me, ever since DigiPen. I hope retirement goes well, and am happy you are able to make it work. Hang in there, and maybe if you are visiting WA this winter, I'll see you at Crystal again. Reply 13. [c8ed] Dave says: October 2, 2024 at 12:27 am COVID-19 vaccine-induced pancreatitis probably? Sorry Reply + [23da] sicaine says: October 2, 2024 at 4:40 am wtf is wrong with you? Reply o [5046] brucedawson says: October 2, 2024 at 12:15 pm Indeed. WTF is wrong with you? On this blog we follow the evidence and saying that an individual case of pancreatitis is "probably" caused by the COVID-19 vaccine is both thoughtless and ignorant. While there appear to be a few cases where the vaccine is correlated with pancreatitis it is so rare that it is hard to pick out a signal from the noise. The two main causes of pancreatitis account for 80% of cases, and the COVID-19 vaccine doesn't even make the top-10 list. It's an extremely rare cause. And, critically, pancreatitis can also (rarely) be caused by viruses such as COVID-19, so it is even possible that the COVID-19 vaccine, on balance, _protects_ against pancreatitis. But here's the real problem. Normally when somebody comments on one of my blog posts with an evidence-free irrational solution ("maybe a slow disk is the cause of this CPU-bound problem") it is mostly harmless. But vaccine hesitancy - triggered by conspiracy-theory ramblings like yours - causes real harm. It causes death. There is no reason for measles (which wipes out your immune system's memory, BTW) to be making a comeback, but it is. Thanks a lot. Get vaccinated. It protects you and it protects others. Absent a medical reason to avoid vaccines it is both foolish and selfish to opt out. In closing, I know with a high-degree of certainty what caused my wife's pancreatitis. I will not be sharing. Reply 14. [290a] Dominik says: October 2, 2024 at 1:22 am I'm sorry about your loss. I always enjoyed reading your blog posts very much. Wishing you all the best. Reply 15. [7c05] Oliver says: October 2, 2024 at 1:41 am Hello Bruce, so sorry for your loss. My sincere condolences. I've been a reader on your blog apparently already before you started at Google and left my first comment a little over ten years ago on "Windows Timer Resolution: Megawatts Wasted". Thanks for all the time you spent to help educate others! I hope you know that you have already had an impact on many devs out there through this blog. Many times have I shared links to your posts. Sometimes older ones, actually probably mostly. And most have aged well, so they will serve people in the future unless you opt to take them down. I wish you all the very best on your path recovering from the grieving and finding happiness. Thank you! Reply 16. [pict] Nathan Frost says: October 2, 2024 at 7:07 am I'm very sorry to hear about your loss, Bruce. You were a legendary instructor back in your DigiPen-teaching years, and your blog posts have been uniquely entertaining and educating -- thanks for everything, and only the very best of wishes for dialing all the way to "life" and healing. Reply 17. [94ef] supernaturallyinternet9c18538707 says: October 2, 2024 at 10:50 am Bruce, my deepest condolences. I wish you peace. I'm a nobody that will likely never have the brains to do anything that was ever discussed here. Nonetheless, your posts have been thoroughly enjoyable and thrilling in a sense. I love weird bugs and "unorthodox solutions". And following your thought process in your posts was very entertaining and educational. So thank you. Best wishes to you. Reply 18. [4309] Hunter says: October 2, 2024 at 12:41 pm Bruce, so sorry for your loss. I have always looked forward to reading your blogs -- they are some of the most interesting content on the web. Your thought process is amazing and you can debug the craziest things. I've been reading them since I was in college. I'm glad you posted this. You lead me by quite a few years, but I always looked up to you as kind of a role-model (or perhaps, an example of excellence) for the prototype of the engineer I wanted to, and today strive to, be. This post hit me kind of hard. If it can happen to your wife -- to you -- then it can happen to anyone. It made me reflect on how I want my life to look in the future. How much I want to spend in my own world debugging and making things (which I enjoy!), and how much time I want to spend with the ones I love. Please enjoy your retirement to the fullest extent possible. I am again sorry to hear it will be without your wife. Reply + [5046] brucedawson says: October 2, 2024 at 1:22 pm Thanks for sharing. I'm glad that this post has struck a chord and I hope that it helps you figure out how to come up with your own work/life balance Reply 19. [180a] akraus1 says: October 2, 2024 at 12:41 pm Sorry to hear that you have been hit hard by life. Your posts were always an inspiration to dig deeper and to truly understand how things work. There are too few people writing abou this fascinating technology. I am now also looking into Linux and Kubernetes and find myself from a system profiling point of view back at stone age. Reply 20. [9cd0] arr says: October 2, 2024 at 12:59 pm I'm so sorry, Bruce. Thank you for helping all of us look at performance issues in a new way and sharing your insights when you find something interesting. I wish you peace going forward. Reply 21. [5cf6] slightlyoff says: October 2, 2024 at 2:41 pm Hey Bruce,Immensely sorry for your loss, but glad you're making whatever change will help you most. All of us in Chromium have benefited from your work, and your writeups have been a consistent technical highlight. Thanks for sharing over the years, and know that you've got fans and admirers all over. Best,Alex Reply 22. [03e7] Lin W says: October 2, 2024 at 7:55 pm When I just started out as a game developer, I needed to understand floating point for a bug. By chance, I came across your series on floating point numbers, which is still one of the best technical writings I've ever read. It taught me not only what floating point numbers were, but also how to investigate/ visualize them myself in a debugger. Your writings have helped so many engineers like me with real world problems. Thank you! Sorry for your loss. Hope you enjoy your retirement to the fullest! Reply 23. [f69b] KRISHNA YALAVARTHI says: October 2, 2024 at 9:13 pm Sorry for your loss Bruce. I truly admire the work you have done in windows performance, in particular. Its inspired me a lot to learn more around that. You are a real inspiration to me. Thank you so much for all the work you have done. I wish you recover fast and come out strong and have a great life ahead. Reply 24. [4f42] Peter says: October 3, 2024 at 1:15 am Sorry to hear about your loss. As Threshold sings, "Now it's time for you to fulfill another story". Hope you will continue to blog from time to time. Thank you for your posts. Reply 25. [061f] foobar says: October 3, 2024 at 1:35 am Sorry for your loss, Bruce Reply 26. [a5f8] Ali Amiri says: October 3, 2024 at 8:01 am Hi Bruce, I'm really sorry to hear about your loss. I hope you've been finding some peace over the past year. I've learned so much from you and I'm always grateful. You might not remember me, but you helped when I was trying to decide whether to leave my job at Google and move back to Canada (I'm in Vancouver now). Reply + [5046] brucedawson says: October 3, 2024 at 4:03 pm Welcome to Vancouver! When did you move? I was lucky enough to be able to move without quitting (only to quit 2.5 years later). The pandemic changes were sometimes liberating. I have been finding some peace. Friends, relatives, sports, and therapy all help. Reply 27. [9026] VZ says: October 3, 2024 at 9:11 am Maybe I feel it so acutely because I've had to deal with a sudden death of a close person myself recently but this is really horrible, my heart goes out to you. We all will be missing your posts, but this is obviously nothing compared to your loss. I hope time will heal it at least somewhat. Reply + [5046] brucedawson says: October 3, 2024 at 4:04 pm I think that those who have felt grief tend to then feel the grief of others more acutely. A friend of mind told me about the too-early death of the spouse of a friend of hers and I cried for this couple that I had never met. Previously I think I would have felt almost nothing. Reply 28. [b7bc] MATT DONALD VINSON says: October 3, 2024 at 8:01 pm You've always been very clever with words. I was hoping the title wasn't what it seemed. After reading your post and understanding what that title meant, I really feel for you. I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. I read her obituary and she seemed awesome. You're at rock-bottom and from What I know of you, you'll find a way out. Wonder if Riding that unicycle will help? Take care. Reply 29. [84a2] Tim Finer says: October 4, 2024 at 6:56 am Thank you for all of your insightful and interesting posts over the years (I started reading this blog when you were at Valve), you are an inspiration. I am so sorry for your loss and wish you peace. I am happy you are in the wonderful city of Vancouver and are tipping the scale from work to life. Reply 30. [33d0] BuZain says: October 4, 2024 at 12:25 pm I'm sorry for your loss Bruce. May her soul rest in eternal peace. We are very thankful for all the great posts you shared with us and we wish you the best with your retirement. Reply 31. [cbf2] mwkoehler says: October 4, 2024 at 6:21 pm I am sitting here completely shocked Thank you for all that you have shared. It has always been a source of geeky joy for me to read your posts. I wish you all the best in your future. Reply 32. [ad7d] Tarun Pothulapati says: October 6, 2024 at 5:54 am Sorry for your loss Bruce! Wishing you the best for the path ahead! Reply 33. [3442] Alex Clarke says: October 6, 2024 at 7:30 am Hey Bruce. Not sure if you remember me, but we met briefly when you visited the London office a while back. Anyway I just wanted to pass on my condolences and to say that I and my teammates have greatly enjoyed your blog posts over the years. I hope one day you'll feel inspired to write again. Reply 34. [2efb] David Wrighton says: October 6, 2024 at 7:56 am I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. I have been a long term follower of your writing starting when I spent time reading all the checkin comments you made when you were putting together the optimized crt assembly routines for the XBox360 trying to figure out how to make .NET run in the system. At the time I was working on the early stages of the XNA runtime, and was given full access to anything, but I was told I couldn't ask any questions of the dev team on the actual console team as they were in crunch time... So I read every commit by the teams working on the kernel and low level systems, and taught myself what I needed to know. I remember thinking that your writing there was rather better than most, and was absolutely delighted some years later when I found your blog. I hope you find motivation to write and carry on, as you've always managed to find the interesting truths in the most amazing of places. Reply 35. [5b22] Jeff Franchetti says: October 6, 2024 at 9:01 am I have followed your writing for years. Sorry to hear about your loss, but encouraged to see you continuing to push a positive path. I was sitting in a recurring Problem Management meeting at my company as we figure continuous "Windows Slowness" complaints and your writing on myths, deep analysis and root causes continues to guide me. Reply 36. [81f0] Nicolas Leveille says: October 6, 2024 at 10:16 am What an awful thing this must have been. As a stranger what I can say is thanks you for all these very unique blog posts all these years, they were a great help to me professionally. Reply 37. [bed2] Val V says: October 6, 2024 at 10:36 am So sorry for your loss. I don't know if you recall some of the courses you taught a long while back(2004-5?) in Redmond but they were a huge part in putting me on the path to where I am today. I don't know if it helps but I know you made a big impact on a number of my classmates as well. Reply 38. [e79f] mentorgh says: October 6, 2024 at 10:55 am As a random guy stumbling upon, I would say it is promising to read this and also read that you're making a comeback. Life is hard. Harder in your perspective. Condolences... Reply 39. [02b9] M Pawliger says: October 6, 2024 at 11:04 am My sincere condolences to you, Bruce. I've always known you to thoroughly put yourself into everything you do, and I expect your wife was loved that way as well. Grief is a very personal journey and it sounds like you are going at that hard as well. I wish you and your family peace in time. Writing can be cathartic. Do keep it up, even if only for yourself for now. Reply 40. [5cb8] puddingcat99 says: October 6, 2024 at 12:01 pm Hi Bruce. I'm just a random but wanted to tell you how sorry I am to read about your wife. I hope the future is better for you and your family. Best wishes, tim Reply 41. [7bc6] Rishabh Dangwal says: October 6, 2024 at 12:18 pm I am very, very sorry for your loss Bruce. I have been reading your blog for a long time, and you have been an inspiration. I hope this gives you an opportunity to enjoy your life to the fullest. I hope you find happiness, and comfort. Be well. Reply 42. [ec85] Ned says: October 6, 2024 at 3:07 pm Bruce, I am very sorry about what happened to your wife. I crossed path with you briefly but the way you approached debugging was inspirational to me when I was a much more junior dev. Best wishes to you to what come next! Reply Leave a comment Cancel reply [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] D[ ] This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. * Search for: [ ] [Search] * Recent Posts + Life, death, and retirement + Localization Failure: Temperature is Hard + 32 MiB Working Sets on a 64 GiB machine + When Debug Symbols Get Large + No Start Menu for You * Categories + AltDevBlogADay + Bugs + Chromium + Code analysis + Code Reliability + Commuting + Computers and Internet + Debugging + Documentation + Drinks + Environment + Floating Point + Fractals + Fun + Gaming + Investigative Reporting + Linux + Math + memory + metric + Performance + Programming + Quadratic + Rants + Security + Symbols + Travel + uiforetw + Uncategorized + Unicycling + Visual Studio + WLPG + Xbox 360 + xperf * Meta + Register + Log in + Entries feed + Comments feed + WordPress.com Random ASCII - tech blog of Bruce Dawson Blog at WordPress.com. * Comment * Reblog * Subscribe Subscribed + [croppe] Random ASCII - tech blog of Bruce Dawson Join 2,550 other subscribers [ ] Sign me up + Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now. * + [croppe] Random ASCII - tech blog of Bruce Dawson + Customize + Subscribe Subscribed + Sign up + Log in + Copy shortlink + Report this content + View post in Reader + Manage subscriptions + Collapse this bar %d [b]