{"id":3077,"date":"2018-10-01T17:44:01","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T20:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/?p=3077"},"modified":"2018-10-01T17:44:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T20:44:08","slug":"hiatus-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/2018\/10\/01\/hiatus-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiatus: why?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As I&#8217;ve said <a href=\"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/2018\/09\/30\/legacy-notice\/\" target=\"_blank\">yesterday<\/a>:<br\/><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>My software development activities are (now, officially and indefinitely) on hiatus.<br\/><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The dictionary says:<br\/><strong>hiatus\u00a0|\u00a0h???d?s\u00a0|\u00a0noun\u00a0(plural\u00a0hiatuses)<\/strong>\u00a0<em>[usually in\u00a0singular]\u00a0<\/em>a\u00a0pause\u00a0or\u00a0gap\u00a0in\u00a0a\u00a0sequence,\u00a0series, or process&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me tell you about the \u201cwhy\u201d first. Thanks to all of you who immediately asked if I&#8217;m OK, by the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Short answer: yes, I&#8217;m OK, though not as OK as in the past \u2014 but then, that&#8217;s to be expected, with all these anniversaries streaking by. Not helped at all by miscellaneous stresses originating in Real Life\u2122. But: see below. ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Longer answer: in the past several years, my eyes have been getting progressively worse, to the point that reading on paper now works only with excellent illumination. OK, paper is not something I have to do on a daily basis nowadays, but reading on a screen also no longer works at the \u2014 admittedly, very small \u2014 font sizes I was used to. Jacking up the font size worked up to a point but my coding habits call for a huge amount of text visible at the same time. Stopping work altogether to wait for an improvement has, retrospectively, killed all my momentum. (I&#8217;m still waiting for that improvement, unfortunately.) Also: see below&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Medical answer: during a <a href=\"https:\/\/erinias.net\/tag\/bhutan\/\" target=\"_blank\">trip to Bhutan<\/a> (highly recommended!) in 2014 I suffered a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Posterior_vitreous_detachment\" target=\"_blank\">posterior vitreous detachment<\/a> in my right eye; no doubt due to day-long van trips over their highways-in-progress. A couple of months later, a beginning\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Retinal_detachment\" target=\"_blank\">retinal detachment<\/a> was fixed by laser surgery, and everything seemed OK for a time. However, visual contrast worsened until, in 2016, I had to have <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cataract_surgery\" target=\"_blank\">cataract surgery<\/a> on both eyes; this was when I stopped working altogether, waiting for my eyeglass prescriptions to stabilise. While that took longer than expected, I also found that there seemed to be no combination of monitor brightness\/contrast that made working longer periods tolerable. To make things worse, the vitreous detachment seems to have left a scar on the right retina, causing a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Epiretinal_membrane\" target=\"_blank\">macular pucker;<\/a>\u00a0surgery on that (a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Vitrectomy\" target=\"_blank\">vitrectomy<\/a>,\u00a0yikes!) is now scheduled to happen before the end of this year. My eye surgeon assures me that should take care of everything&#8230; digits crossed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Needless to say, all this has been somewhat disheartening, and \u2014 as far as coding and blogging are concerned \u2014 I seem to have joined the <a href=\"http:\/\/amultiverse.com\/comic\/2013\/01\/07\/the-procrastination-monks\/\" target=\"_blank\">Procrastination Monks<\/a> for a few more years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the meantime, other things have happened, some quite positive! Stand by for more news&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;ve said yesterday: My software development activities are (now, officially and indefinitely) on hiatus. The dictionary says:hiatus\u00a0|\u00a0h???d?s\u00a0|\u00a0noun\u00a0(plural\u00a0hiatuses)\u00a0[usually in\u00a0singular]\u00a0a\u00a0pause\u00a0or\u00a0gap\u00a0in\u00a0a\u00a0sequence,\u00a0series, or process&#8230; Let me tell you about the \u201cwhy\u201d first. Thanks to all of you who immediately asked if I&#8217;m OK, by the way. Short answer: yes, I&#8217;m OK, though not as OK as in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[34,48,22],"class_list":["post-3077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dev","category-meta","tag-eyeglasses","tag-hiatus","tag-xcode"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Rainer Brockerhoff","author_link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/author\/rbrockerhoff\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1q3Zc-ND","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}