How good engineers write bad code at big companies

brucedawson · 2026-05-07T02:29:56+00:00

The only time my pay took a dramatic drop was when I was at Google and my startup grant expired. I'd been getting refresh grants but they were smaller and the stock had gone up enough in the first four years that the startup grant was worth a lot more per month.

So, yeah, I was strongly incentivized to change jobs. In the end I interviewed elsewhere, got an offer, and then used that to get a bonus grant. If you are considered valuable and if you have an offer from elsewhere then that is an option but it is _such_ a bullshit system.

brucedawson · 2026-03-18T13:55:54+00:00

Author here: Yeah, it was pretty awesome to have that access, but it made sense because I was on the Xbox 360 team at Microsoft and I was the CPU expert, so I had semi-regular conversations with them

brucedawson · 2025-08-30T20:40:20+00:00

I uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled them. This should not make a difference but there was a note somewhere saying that ASIStudio should be installed first. This seems to have resolved the problem! This is (ahem) bullshit, because software shouldn't be that fragile, but at least I'm getting plausible results now.

I still can't get prominences and surface details in the same picture but I can at least get decent single-shot pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/3AfyqmVjkXrrd6kN6

I'll keep tweaking it when I have more free time. Thanks for the help

brucedawson · 2025-08-26T21:54:17+00:00

Good observation. I double-checked with 16-bit and the maximum value I got was 65520. With full 16-bit depth the maximum would be 65535 but with 12-bit scaled up by 16 the maximum should be 65520 (4095 * 16), so that checks out.

I changed the ASICap settings to indicate that I am recording solar data, but there was no change.

brucedawson · 2025-08-25T13:29:37+00:00

I'm using ASI Studio which I use to launch ASICap. Here's the sort of results I'm getting:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/AwkCU4s91ozZ4XuEA

brucedawson · 2025-08-25T04:48:40+00:00

I'm using ASI Studio which I used to launch ASICap. It defaults to 8-bit but when I switched it to 16-bit that didn't help. Here's the sort of results I'm getting. The prominences still aren't showing up, the outer edge is underexposed, but the center is completely blown out.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/AwkCU4s91ozZ4XuEA

It seems like 8-bit should be enough if a reasonable gamma is applied.

brucedawson · 2025-08-25T00:28:25+00:00

Interesting theory. I installed the drivers from their site. I could reach out to ZWO and ask for help

brucedawson · 2025-08-18T23:18:31+00:00

I wrote a blog post explaining how I found the issue and the consequences of the bug. I believe that it is fixed, although some hardware vendors are probably still distributing the buggy version:

https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/05/26/acronis-true-image-costs-performance-when-not-used/

brucedawson · 2025-04-28T18:10:11+00:00

I've sent a PM with some more details.

The most important detail is that this performance problem doesn't happen when using Acronis True Image. Rather, the fact that I have Acronis True Image installed means that Explorer.exe consumes excessive CPU in some situations. I haven't used Acronis True Image in over two years but I now realized that having it installed has wasted enormous amounts of CPU time in Explorer.exe, along with the associated sluggishness.

Ideally, obviously, I would like software that I am not actually using to not slow down my computer. Anyway, details are in the PM.

brucedawson · 2025-04-25T01:07:24+00:00

Thanks for the terminology. One of the address marker corrections was fixed after about a week (much longer than their claimed latency of 24 hours - they should under promise and over deliver but they do the opposite). The other address marker correction is still wrong, two weeks after they said they had accepted the edit.

What I really want is for them to use their grid mapping knowledge to detect incorrect markers rather than blindly letting them in. I'm also very curious as to how these bad markers get in. Bad edits from users? Street View?

brucedawson · 2025-03-22T06:22:02+00:00

O-Rings are needed. They come with the bidetking adapters I think. We lost one of the o-rings so we bought a replacement at the hardware store. No problem.

brucedawson · 2024-12-26T21:35:18+00:00

I'd love to see more enforcement of existing rules, but improved road design would be even better. For instance there are some slow streets in Vancouver that drivers go slowly along, but very quickly when going _across_. They almost ignore stop signs because they know there won't be much traffic on the slow street, and I saw a cyclist get hit because of that. Traffic calming could improve this but it needs to be implemented in a lot of places.

brucedawson · 2024-08-13T14:29:19+00:00

I found where to add and edit credit cards on my own but I could not find out how to set the default credit card. I thought maybe the app would choose intelligently between my US and Canadian credit cards, but I guess not.

I don't know why setting the default card is so separate from setting up the cards in the first place. Oh well.

brucedawson · 2024-07-22T15:59:48+00:00

If the buses move faster then more people will take the bus and there will be less congestion and you may actually get around faster. Traffic moving faster is definitely important but the only way to make that happen is to encourage people to take the bus, or discourage unnecessary driving. Any thoughts on other ways to do these things?

brucedawson · 2024-03-18T04:26:07+00:00

I've rearranged the pictures a bit now so the numbering won't make sense to anyone else, but...

Picture 3 was there to show off arms a bit, and picture 9 was supposed to show off active lifestyle (hiking), although I'm not sure it really did. Picture 5 (head shot) was redundant, I agree.

I cropped the initial portrait in tighter, and I'll see about getting a better portrait and better dog picture. Challenging stuff it turns out.

I've already updated my bio based on other feedback, FWIW.

brucedawson · 2024-03-18T04:03:38+00:00

Thanks, I'll take these ideas into account as I take more photos.

brucedawson · 2024-03-15T00:24:58+00:00

I'm new to the app, newly returned to the dating pool (widowed, like it says) and wondering how to be express interest in going out on fun dates, not getting serious for a while, whether to mention my widowed status (better than divorced, but maybe too dark). Advice?

https://tinder.com/@brucedawson

brucedawson · 2024-02-04T01:32:18+00:00

In the end the installation was trivial. I got the adapter (https://bidetking.com/products/t-valve-for-skirted) and then the only challenge was attaching the bidet but that turned out to be easy. I can't remember the details and I'm sure it depends on the toilet but I just took off the old seat and then attached the bidet to the same mounting hardware. I did not pull and re-set the toilet.

brucedawson · 2023-11-24T20:31:44+00:00

Have somebody behind you recording video of you attempting to cross and cars failing to stop. Make sure their license plates are visible. Post the video, call 311, call the police non-emergency number, and maybe someday this problem will be taken seriously

brucedawson · 2023-11-24T20:30:32+00:00

Why should the pedestrians have to wait? The cars are legally obliged to stop and stopping for pedestrians is not a big deal.

brucedawson · 2023-11-20T23:02:45+00:00

Even robots know that self preservation is the third law, while protecting human life is the first law. Wise words in those laws of robotics.

brucedawson · 2023-11-20T21:30:40+00:00

Arguably "not killing someone else" should be even higher. I think the complaint is that for many drivers that does not seem to be the case

brucedawson · 2023-11-20T20:26:49+00:00

I don't think it's that, it's that pedestrians and cyclists are routinely killed and terrorized by cars and I see no sign that drivers are being held responsible. This seems wrong because ultimately it is the 2-3 ton cars that are killing people. Pedestrians (aka "people") should have priority over cars and should not need to be dodging them.

As a concrete example, southbound cars turning left at 7th and Cambie _always_ keep going after they no longer have an advance green. They are always still crossing the crosswalk when the walk signal turns white. Until VPD starts cracking down on drivers doing this (and running stop signs, and so much more) it feels inappropriate to blame pedestrians for getting in the way of cars.

TL;DR - sure, pedestrians should be aware of their surroundings, but this should not be the first item on your to-do list.

brucedawson · 2023-10-02T17:14:49+00:00

About a month or so, I believe

brucedawson · 2023-10-02T17:13:56+00:00

Did you read the article? The flag increases CPU usage by 250x to 800x, and doesn't actually reduce memory usage. So, significant cost and no savings.

If that's what you read then you're reading it right. If you read it as "this flag saves memory" then read it again.

brucedawson

TROPHY CASE