things to do in Dublin when you're idle

It's the last of the July, which means I've now been unemployed for a full month. This isn't quite as surprising as it might appear at first glance; beyond attempts at two high-profile companies, and a brief unhappy flirtation with an agency, I haven't really been trying to find new work.

One thing that's been bouncing around my head for the last month is to do something completely different. I'm not simply talking about getting out of computers and into, oh, basket-weaving; more contemplating liquidating what I've got and getting out of Dublin, maybe even out of Ireland, and finding something else somewhere else. It could well turn out to be computers in a different county or a different country, since whatever else I can say for myself, I'm good with computers. The "sell up and leave" aspect opens up more possibilities than anything else, since it removes concerns about rent and that sort of thing. And the things keeping me where I am right now are largely inertia and a good pub.

I'm not looking at this with rose-tinted glasses, mind. I went through this dance several years ago, and ultimately discarded all the options and stayed in Dublin, but back then I at least had a larger social circle to keep me occupied. Since then, most of that circle has dissipated for one reason or another; my closest connection from that group is several hundred miles and at least one timezone away. I guess the bottom line is that I may never have quite this level of detachment again (or I'd like to think that, anyway) so I should maybe grab it while I have the chance. I guess I'll stack it on the thinking pile for now, though.

wtf?

Apparently we're, like, totally the best karaoke singers ever. Yeesh. Almost as embarrassing as winning the Eurovision several years in a row.

possibly the stupidest "my editor is better than yours" argument I've seen yet

Emacs makes you more prone to RSI than vi, apparently. Funny, given that, for example, vi's Open new line (O), Append to current line (A), Change entire line after cursor (C), switch to ex mode (:), Paste before current line (P), Switch case under cursor (~), and Goto end of file (G) all require me to use the shift key, which is going to give me at least a similar amount of grief - and these are all commands I'd use regularly, not deliberately chosen counter-examples. For comparison's sake, the equivalent Emacs keystrokes would be C-o, C-e (moves cursor to end of line; Emacs doesn't do the "now we are typing/now we are editing modal stuff"), C-k, no equivalent, C-y, ESC-u¹, ESC->. If you're getting RSI from your computer, try taking a break now and again.

1. Actually, this may account in part for my lack of Emacs-generated RSI: I originally learned to use it using very, very dumb terminal emulators and thus never learned any of the Alt/Meta invocations, instead learning them as ESC-<character>. For me, this forces a sizeable move away from hands-at-rest rather than trying to hit a key that, on this keyboard, is actually under my palm, in combination with some other key. Of course, if I had ever learned to type correctly, I'd be holding down modifier keys with one hand and the, ah, modified keys with the other.