Technophile Monkey

We’re about to start a blogging experiment at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Zurich (abbreviated HGKZ in German) where those of us who blog about work-related things add a matching category to their blogs. From there, posts in that category are aggregated into a planet, the address of which I’ll spit onto these pages as soon as it’s known.

The goal is, mostly, to let each other and the public know what we waste our time with at the office. Sometimes we do interesting and groundbreaking things that might be useful for other people to replicate, but no one ever knows — this has to change. A side effect is that the taxpayer can observe first hand what they pay us for. At least from my perspective, this kind of transparency is extremely important.

One problem for me is that I’ve only blogged in English so far, but most readers of Planet HGKZ will probably like German better. Since WordPress seems to only have suboptimal solutions for multilingual blogging, that will make my blog a bit messy in the future. If you don’t know German, just ignore the Planet HGKZ category and you should be fine.

Personally, I plan to use that category to blog about the issues I encounter day by day. Mostly things about Free Software, software licensing, cultural licensing (CC and the like), GNU/Linux system administration, heterogeneous networks and interoperability and the odd bit about cultural events in Zürich and around it. A solid, tight-packed bundle of boredom for you to enjoy!

Hurrah! “mad” from TheAlternative.ch created a fantastic precedent for us silly Swiss people: He sent one e-mail to Dell and immediately got a refund for both the unwanted Vista and the copy of MS Works included with his new laptop. He saved 15% on the laptop’s price this way, as well as getting rid of software he doesn’t use. Read his story in English or German.

This is fantastic news. I will personally have the opportunity to try getting a Windows refund in a few weeks, as my employer has allowed me to try getting the money back on the next laptop they order for me. The company who sells us these laptops has so far adamantly refused to take back the licenses, even though we never needed any Windows licenses (and their behavior is against the MS EULA). With this precedent, they will have a much harder time trying to argue their way out of the license agreement, which explicitly states that a refund for cash is not only possible but required if you don’t agree with the license. And we don’t.

If you look at my GIA Mirror these days, you’ll notice a new information bar at the top of every HTML page. Don’t worry, the files are all still in pristine condition, I wouldn’t go and add things to any of them. The message on the top is dynamically added to the page. But what’s probably more interesting is what the message says.

“If you feel like reliving your nostalgia, why not look at our forums? Any news about the mirror itself will be posted in the Meta forum.”

So there! I’m calling all GIA nostalgists and gaming nostalgians to bathe in their memories and mingle with the rest of us. And if you can handle an overdose, try this: Buy the newly released Final Fantasy VI Advance, if you’ve played FFVI back in the day. Ah heck, buy it even if you’ve never heard of it and don’t own a GBA. Then play until right after Narshe, right when all your memories are flooding back, right when you remember the puberty-driven silly names you gave your characters back when you played it the first time, when hearing the overworld music activates a part of your brain that hasn’t been exercised for a decade, bullied by worries about tax reports and juggling real life’s growing responsibilities.

Then read this review. Now cry a little tear for what has been.