It’s a lovely afternoon here in Zürich. Birds are singing outside the office, trams are rolling past, and occasionally the coffee machine is clicking as it keeps the pot warm.
This morning I cycled to work. It’s a lovely feeling to ride beside the river. Sometimes working in the technology field means that we lose sight of nature.
Hm. Do we need organic PCs?
Alright, here’s my confession: I love dim sum. I know it’s not the most healthy food in the world. I understand that it’s making my stomach padded. But…gosh…it’s nice.
There is a little dim sum joint beside Zurich HB. I pass it every day on my way to the office. In the last two weeks I’ve given into temptation three times while coming and going. I couldn’t help it. I was powerless.
Sighs.
In other news, I’ve been using Quanta for a couple of days. I was previously playing with NVU but found it a little sluggish and buggy for my cut-and-paste, drag-and-drop mentality. Quanta is my ‘let’s alter Shane’s workflow and make him more effective’ alternative. So far our marriage is a little rocky but there exists the potential for love to bloom.
Today was busy. I was up at 5.30am and by 7.40 I was in a print shop getting posters and banners made for an anti-DRM protest outside the Dataquest store in Zurich. Dataquest are the main Apple reseller.
It’s been a while since I was at a protest and I had a lot of fun. I’m new to this city and I met the Free Software crowd for the first time. Everyone was taller than me. Why are people so tall in Switzerland?
The people passing our protest were really engaging. For the most part the average ‘person on the street’ was supportive of what we’re doing. I gave out a ton of leaflets and felt a particular type of victory for each person who picked up a leaflet before entering the Dataquest store. One guy picked up a leaflet, glanced at the content and said “this is why I’m not buying an iPod”.
After we had informed the good citizens of Zurich about DRM we visited the new FSFE office and then went to a nearby cafe. I had a very nice chicken sandwich and a reasonable coffee. One of the most striking things about this town is the quality of the food and drink.
It’s now 18:30 and I’m writing this blog entry while thinking about the new DRM.info website. It’s a pretty exciting portal. The FSFE and several partner organisations are sharing their views on DRM through this site and I think it’s going to be a major source of positive education. It also has one important extra feature; there is a photo of me: http://drm.info/en/img/20061003-zrh-004 Ah, fame at last.
I’d like to apologise for neglecting my blog for a while. I’ve got a ton of news to share with you and I’ll start with a post about my new role in Switzerland soon.