I’m currently traveling through Europe for a couple weeks and while in Berlin, I paid a visit to c-base at the suggestion of a friend. My travel plans just so happened to align with one of their monthly Hack and Tell events which I attended. It was a wonderful and very well-attended event and I thought I’d share some of the experience as well as specific notes with which to reflect on our own Hack Space.
c-base claims to be a 4.5 billion-year-old spaceship crashed on earth, consisting of the berlin Fernseherturm (TV tower) as its central spire and a several kilometer wide disk buried underground of which the accessible c-base space itself is only a small portion. The interior design definitely is consistent with this, especially in the members-only sprawling underground portion that I was fortunate to get a tour of. Everything is covered with complex technical grey panelling, dials, knobs, blinkenlights, spacetime rifts, biometric scanners, and anthropomorphic symbionts that convert waste into harvestable energy (so I am told - it looked like a washroom with caged aliens to me).
Photo: Just inside the entrance
Photo: beer crate and bottle programmable LED wall to rival our own. Currently showing a fireplace, it later showed a countdown during the talks
The event itself was very well organized, with a central podium and projector screen, spotlights, large and compact seating area, and extra TVs mirroring the slides for people on the sides. As a complete stranger, I was immediately met with the eager helpfulness, attitude of open planning, and willingness to share knowledge and encourage that I’m familiar with at our own Hack Space.
things that c-base has that we don’t (1/2)
- a spacious, permanent location ;_;
- a complete drinks bar, with counter, stools, beer on tap, and fridges stocked with cool non-alcoholic options
- A large, open floor space for hosting events and chairs to go around
- Recurring public events posted on Meetup
Photo: Ligi at the podium about to kick off
Before the talks started, I was chatting to somebody and sharing my most recent Geiger counter explorations, a little bit of which I’ve shared on the #science channel on Slack. They encouraged me to give a talk that night, which seemed nonsensical to me, but as I watched the first round of talks and got a feel for the gamut of welcome topics, I felt more comfortable and threw together what materials I had and wrote some quick notes. I ended up presenting “Geiger counter stuff” as the 8th and final speaker of the night, sharing the story of how I was gifted a Geiger counter and all the weird things and surprising alternative functions I’ve found. 5 minutes was a comfortable length and I managed to end right on time. Questions were on-point, somebody wanted to know if their uranium-containing necklace they were wearing was a safe gift for their partner and we measured it on stage and deemed it safe. The icing on the cake was the audience vote for their favourite talk (via a custom MAC-address-based anonymized voting web app running on a raspberry pi on the local wifi, of course) and my improvised talk was voted Hack of the Month!! Here it is, immortalized in sweet glory: Berlin Hack & Tell \#96 - Portal hacks
Photo: Hack and Tell trophy ceremony
I of course made sure to introduce myself as Tim from the Vancouver Hack Space and extended my blessings on the Hack Space’s behalf. I couldn’t realistically keep the trophy for more than a few minutes but they sent me home with my choice of a 5 cm tall 3D-printed version.
Afterwards, I and a couple others were given a tour of the underground portion of c-base, where photography was forbidden. Contrary to the signage, it was not radioactive. Amidst the darkness and haze dotted by blinkenlights was a lot more spaceship hardware, an analog library, a brain in a vat, emergency scifi weaponry, busted teleportation chamber due to angry resident alien (hence the stairs), and a member hangout lounge that I’d place somewhere on a line between Cyberdelia of Hackers (1995) and the Death Star’s main control room.
There were even some decently well-stocked maker facilities too, with a woodshop room and electronics room.
things that c-base has that we don’t (2/2)
- sound recording/mixing studios and full set of musical instruments
- vacuum former (used extensively for the spaceship interior panels)
- sprawling spaceship dungeon complex
things we have that c-base doesn’t
- good lighting and ventillation (I was told that they had recently forbidden smoking but it was hard to believe)
- machine shop and welding area
That’s about it from memory. In brief, it made me think about the theatrical wonders we could do with a permanent space, but that’s likely going to remain a daydream with Vancouver being what it is.
I’ll happilly give an updated “Geiger counter stuff” presentation at the next SHHH. 2 minutes to talk feels exceedingly rushed though, perhaps the total time could be divided according to the number of interested speakers?