Category: Allgemein

The Effects of Burnout – Personal Report About Navigating a Crisis

Robert Lohr4 Comments

If you are one of the few followers of my blog, then, first of all, thank you. Secondly, maybe you are wondering why I have not been writing about any programming topics lately, given the name of this blog. Perhaps you only started following recently and like the gaming content. Whatever your reason, my main focus has always been on software development topics of any kind, and this element has been lacking for quite some time.

Out of the 11 posts this year (at the time of writing), only five fall into the programming category. And if I’m being honest, I have spread two more extensive topics across those five blog posts to potentially get more clicks – although the separation also makes sense. Before I digress too much, the short version is this: I am actively neglecting the original premise of my blog, yet I still want to produce content. There is a reason, and despite that somewhat lighthearted title, it is a serious topic.

Note: Before I changed the title to what it is now, it was “Yo, CODE-Slinger! You Now a GAME-Slinger? No, I’m Having a Dance With Burnout“

Although this report is based on my personal experience with the subject, it is not about me. Nobody on the Internet is interested in me, and I am not delusional enough to think otherwise. Treat it as a biased case study that I sincerely hope can be a motivation for other people going through a similar thing. The light at the end of the tunnel can be an exit.

The following two sections elaborate a little on The Codeslinger origin story. If you are only interested in the meat, skip to “Dance With the Burnout”.

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How Corona Virus and Lockdown Affect Me

Robert Lohr1 Comment

I guess everybody has a story about how the current situation affects them. Since I share a few of my thoughts on the Internet and this one also has to do with technology, usually the main topic of my musings, I think this is something worth addressing.

I do not know if it makes any difference, but I will say it anyway for the sake of context. I live in Germany and of all the countries in the world we are in fairly good shape so far. We have had lockdown procedures for a while, but nothing so restricting that forbade leaving the house for anything other than going to work, the doctor or buy groceries. We could go for walks or outdoor sports if we were not meeting with other people. It was social distancing, but not hiding at home.

I work as a software developer at an IT company and my employer, like many others, relaxed the usual home office regulations month after month and basically the whole company started to work from their homes, me included. There are a few that do not like it and rather go to the office – which is safe, I presume, as there is basically no one there. I, on the other hand, prefer working from home and this is where the story of this blog post starts.

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The Writing Application Conundrum

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While I’m actively procrastinating on my backup application and finishing my MacBook Pro review, I was pondering on what tool I should continue to use or start to use for writing my blog posts. I’ve tried a few things in the past, one of them being Markdown in Byword way back in the early stages of my blogging efforts, Libre Office and the ODT file format sometime after that and more recently Microsoft’s Word using its DOCX format. To generalize it a bit: 

  • Markdown using any capable editor.
  • A full featured Word processor.

Both tools have their pro’s and con’s, but none of them are the perfect solution and I’m finding myself doing a bit of this and a bit of that, but never being really satisfied.

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Ode to my bed (Verse Two)

Robert Lohr1 Comment

The first verse is taken from here.

Verse One

Bed dear bed
how I loves thee.

In a cold winter’s night
thou keeps warm me.
I close my eyes, I go to sleep,
thou helps me dream
by counting sheep.

Bed dear bed
how I adore thee.

Every night I crave to be,
sung to sleep by lullabies from thee.

Verse Two

Bed, dear bed,
how I admire
the way you relax me
when I tire.

Every night
when I twist and turn.

Every hour
that I yearn
for a good night’s sleep
for some rest
I know you’re there
and do your best.

Bed dear bed
How I adore thee.

Every night I crave to be,
sung to sleep by lullabies from thee.

First Attempts at Drawing

Robert Lohr1 Comment

One of the reasons I bought an iPad was to read digital comics. Now, a year later I not only like reading them but appreciate the art of drawing so much that I started drawing myself. To be absolutely clear, other than art classes at school – which were of no interest to me and are long gone now – I have no experience whatsoever. So I started searching on the internet for resources on how to start. I found something on the iBook Store which in turn led me to a series of Youtube videos by Stan Lee and John Buscema on how to draw comics – The Marvel Way! These videos are so unbelievably old, they’re talking about pausing the tape in order to draw what was just discussed and shown! So I did as I was told and here are the results.

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