Rush Hour Berlin: A Public Transport Survival Guide

Berliners love to complain about the public transport; it's in their blood. Within the city there are two major players: the BVG, who operates the buses, trams and UBahn; Deutsche Bahn, who operates the SBahn. The advice I am dropping here is, I hope, an invaluable survival guide.

Waiting

You can always tell the most experienced users of public transport because they strategically place themselves in the correct position to get straight onto the vehicle they are waiting for. When the vehicle arrives don't make too much effort to get out of the way of people getting off. Bonus points for standing front-and-centre of the door and blocking their way. If you see some idiots actually waiting at the side to let people off, don't wait or them. Ultra-bonus points can be earned for barging straight past them as soon as you can, more if people are still trying to get off.

Getting On

Now this is most important. Simply getting onto the public transport is so easy to get wrong. As you board your tram/train/whatever you should look around to see if there is some space for you to stand or sit in. Then (and this is most important) just stand there. Don't bother to move. Simply huddle by the door with all the other commuters. You get bonus points for blatantly ignoring space further into the vehicle and ultra-bonus points for blocking the entrance of another passenger behind you, who is also trying to get on.

Getting Off

It is rush hour so, inevitably, you vehicle is going to be busy. Don't let that bother you. When you arrive at your exit there is a simple procedure for disembarking. Firstly, don't bother to wait. What a complete waste of your time that is! Instead, start pushing your way to the front immediately. Don't bother to check if the person in front is also trying to get off. If someone is blocking your way, first you should check to see if they are even capable of moving for you. Yes? No? It does not really matter, squeeze past them and squash them into a uncomfortable position regardless.

Payment

This is one aspect of the public transport that most people fail to understand at first. In theory, you are supposed to pay. Many people actually get annual passes from their work or school. If you're one of the other folk that are supposed to pay, don't bother. Occasionally you might encounter someone with an ID and a tricorder who grunts at you. They probably want to see the ticket you do not have. No problem. Assume your finest non-German accent and in your native tongue (the further away from German, the better) say "Good morrow, sir. By happenstance I have just had my pocketbook purloined. Can you assist me with directions to the constabulary?"

Tarif Zones

Super-simple. Berlin basically only has two zones: Zones A + B and (confusingly) Zone C. Almost any ticket covers you for both Zones A + B. Zone C is special. Why? Because it is home to Schönefeld Airport and the mythical Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Both are side-by-side and are at the first stop in Zone C. That's right, you need the extra expensive ticket to go one stop when arriving/departing to the airport. Because: fuck you tourists. If you already have a valid ticket for Zones A + B (Why? Did you not read the previous section of this blog post?) then all you need is to buy an Anschlussfahrausweis. In the one stop between the airport and the freedom of Zones A + B you are almost guaranteed to have this magical little ticket checked. The correct procedure is to insert the ticket into the mouth of the person with the tricorder.

Ignite Berlin 5: The Video Evidence

Miss my talk at Ignite Berlin 5? Well here's your chance to see the recording. A quick reminder:

• 5 minutes
• 20 auto-forwarding slides
• An open minded crowd looking for interesting content and a little entertainment

This was a really difficult talk to prepare for. I would use this many slides in a talk that is waaaaay longer than 5 minutes. In this format, the speaker is basically forced to tell a 5 minute story and ensure ("hope") that the story progresses at the same pace as the slides.

If you head over to Peter Bihr's account on YouTube you will find all of the other talks from the same event. I highly recommend the talks from Claudia (on typewriters) and from Jessilyn and Neil (on how to ale long-distance work).

Also, in case you have not seen it, get yourself over here to see an article on the original concept art for Pac-Man. Cool stuff.

Ignite Berlin #5

Ignite is a really interesting set of events held in over 100 cities globally. Unashamedly aimed at geeks, speakers are asked to have a point to make, but make it quickly! 20 slides, auto-transitioning every 15 seconds to give a 5 minute talk. I gave a talk on Pac-Man and how a programming error made it impossible to win. I already had the content/knowledge and was inspired by a similar presentation I saw at Enthusiasticon. The evening was split into two halves: the first seven talks were a mixed-bag on topics as varied as bees (and beekeeping), pole dancing, love (and death) and, of course Pac-Man; the second set of talks related to the importance of typewriters, supporting kids as the next generation of hackers, why the future of innovation is not just "dinosaurs" and "unicorns"... and much more! Special kudos goes to the couple who gave a talk on how they maintain their long-distance relationship through music. Ignite 5 was a really fun event. Content came quickly and slickly. Audience of roughly 100 was very receptive given how wide-ranging the content was. I'd go along next time for sure. Given that it is a "mixed-bag" I'm not sure I'd actually like to know what is being presented in advance... Just turn-up and see what happens!

A Tale of Two Talks

My day-to-day contribution to Free Software has changed quite dramatically in the last couple of  years. I'm no-longer as involved with any one project than I used to be. Somewhat correlated with my declining active contribution to Free Software projects is my decline in public speaking.

You wait forever for a bus and then two come along at the same time!

I shall be delivering two very different talks in the coming months: one in which I will remind the audience that PacMan is a real asshole and in the other I will talking about documentation communities within Free Software.

"PacMan: The Original Troll", Ignite Berlin

Thursday, July 30th at 19:00. IXDS studio, Paul-Lincke-Ufer 39/40, 10999 Berlin

"PacMan: The Original Troll. PacMan is one of the best-known, well-loved and often-copied games of all time. But PacMan is mocking you. You cannot beat PacMan; nobody can beat PacMan. He laughs in your face."

I recently attended Enthusiasticon where one of the talks was about Pokémon and, more specifically, about how a programming error (almost certainly caused by an engineer wrestling with the GameBoy's very limited architecture) made the game bizarrely winnable. If you knew how. This inspired to get up and talk about PacMan; a game which has the opposite problem.

As an Ignite talk, I will only have 5 minutes. PacMan needs no introduction, so I can save some time there. So I will cut straight to the ghosts, the map and why you're doomed to never beat PacMan.

Spoiler alert: the "waka waka" noise that PacMan makes... that's him laughing in your face.

More of the event details can be found at the Ignite Berlin website.

"Judas Priest Ate My ScrumMaster", Write The Docs Europe

Monday, August 31st and Tuesday, September 1st at 09:00. Club Lavka, Novotného lávka 201/1, 110 00 Prague

"Community Management in Free Software communities is still an emerging field and has produced a spectrum of practitioners: from master-manipulators of social media, to those more focused on metrics and data as a means to driving process. Either way, the state of the art is still largely driven by the needs of technical contributors to projects. Good documentation is a crucial component in a software product and yet often technical writers are overlooked as important stakeholders of the process. Within the community, there are undoubtedly common problems between engineers and technical writers. Software Engineering is full of laws; can we show that these laws apply to technical writers as a means to help bridge the chasm between developers and technical writers?? In this talk Paul walks us through a selection of his favourite laws of software engineering and explores how developers measure them and if technical writers must also obey them. Or not. And what that means for the success of documentation in a Free Software project."

This will be the second time that I have spoken at a Write The Docs event. These are very friendly events and very welcoming given my "deliberate outsider" position. As a software engineer I think it is fun and useful to engage with events like Write The Docs in order to reach and say "here is how I think document writers and engineers can work together better" from the engineering perspective.

In this particular talk I will be exploring some of the rules and laws of software engineering and showing how I think these laws equally apply to document creation. Do these common problems create a bridge between document creation and coding? A common "platform" to work from?

Spoiler alert: 90% of this talk will be crap.

More of the event details can be found at the Write The Docs Europe website.

I Can Haz Internet?

The eagle-eyed of you might have noticed yesterday that I said my Bürgeramt ordeal is not over. As I said, the Bürgeramt was just a means to an end. They hand out a specific document and then I can get Internet (among other things, like paying taxes). Oh yes, the Internet. That concept has taken on a whole new meaning for me here in Berlin.

When Is BT Not BT?

The physical telecomms infrastructure in Germany is all controlled by Deutsche Telekom who also provide services on top. Other companies also have the ability to sell services on top of this physical infrastructure. Deutsche Telekom used to be state-owned/controlled.

Sounds familiar?

Both BT and Deutsche Telekom appear to have a very similar attitude and by that I mean that neither have learned properly that they have to compete on services and so they abuse their monopoly on the infrastructure to be a pain in the ass. Case in point... When you go to "the Internet" shop (it really does not matter which provider) and buy the Internet, you always end up dealing with Deutsche Telekom. In my case, I was told I would have to wait three weeks before DT we could around to my flat...

Interlude: On Speaking German

In Berlin it is fairly easy to survive on speaking a little German. I have heard stories of people having been in this city for years and basically making no effort with the language. Because, you really don't need to if you don't want to. Many Germans seem to be quite tolerant of this. It is a very nice trait of the local character. Before too long, I will make effort to learn German. For now, I am grateful to live in a town that is tolerant of my rudimentary German language skills.

Die Männer von Telekom: 1

So the three weeks pass and the first Telekom engineer comes around. He speaks absolutely no English whatsoever. No problem. I knew enough to grunt and point my way through the conversation. He took the main TAE Dose off the wall and inspected the wiring behind before hooking up the testing equipment. We then went all the way down into my cellar and he looked into the DT-owned demarcation point (a bad example fo which can be seen at the right hand side of he header image). He attached the other half of the testing equipment and grunted something at me. He waved some magic wand-like device around the demarcation point and grunted some more. Back up the 6 flights of stairs to my flat.

He knelt before the expose wiring again.

He looked up at me.

He shrugged.

He then offered me the only two words in English that he appeared to know...

"It's fucked!"

This appointment happened to be the day before I flew back to Scotland for the independence referendum. While I was away, my landlord sent around another engineer who told me what I suspected: that the wiring was all brand new and that there was nothing wrong at all. Specifically, he reported the problem was in fact that the line from my flat was not plugged into the demarcation point... As evinced by the large, loose cable with my address on it, in the basement. How had the first engineer (and me for that matter) missed this?

Die Männer von Telekom: 2

Earlier this week, after another long mutli-week wait, a second engineer visited. He came to my flat only to put the testing equipment in and then headed straight to the basement where he plugged my flat's cable into the demarcation point. He tested it (at least appeared to) and everything was OK. We climbed the 6 flights of stairs up to my flat, he double checks the line and off he ran! "Just give it 5 to 10 minutes", he said.

Nope. It's fucked.

Let The Finger Pointing Begin!

So now DT are blaming my ISP for the problems and my ISP are blaming DT. My next engineer visit is on Friday morning and my gin consumption is rising.

Going Bürgeramtal: Part II (Going Buggeramtal)

Oh yes, the Bürgeramt. Remember that? I sure as hell do. By now I'd love to tell you that the story is over... It isn't. But, before we get to the end of the story, I need to bring you up to speed on the "middle" of the story. Let me start with the birds...

Tomorrow? Back to the #Bürgeramt! This time armed with an appointment. #Berlin — Paul Adams (@therealpadams) August 14, 2014

The Conditions Were Perfect... I think

OK OK... So first I need to admit something. Many, many people had warned me that I should simply make an appointment at the Bürgeramt, rather than just turning up. After my previous two failed attempted, this was starting to make sense. But, you see, my motivation for getting in there asap was simple... I needed the Anmeldebescheinigung because this is the gatekeeper document. Without it you cannot get: bank accounts, health insurance, Internet (important for someone who works form home!) and various other things. Those people, the ones who told me to just make an appointment? They were right.

So... A few weeks pass. I am now well past the theoretical deadline for registration. Oh well. At least I have my appointment.

The skies were blue that morning; not a cloud in sight. The sun was warm, the air was cool and the birds were chirping merrily as I boarded the M13 tram to take the short journey to my local Bürgeramt. When I arrived at the office, my number was already displayed on the screen and I had four minutes to spare before my appointment.

My number is called.

I go in and sit down.

I introduce myself and ask (in my best, polite German, of course) if we may speak English.

We can.

The dream of the Anmeldebescheinigung is slowly becoming reality...

Max Mustermann (The Stereotypical German)

The very nice lady in the Bürgeramt took a look at my documentation and read through it diligently. At least so I thought... Eventually she asks me if I was the home owner and I confirm that I was renting. She asks me, therefore, why did I not complete the name and address of my landlord. Well, the answer is simple, nowhere on the form is this information asked for. Apparently this information's to go into the one box I've left empty. The box which had no label telling me what information I was supposed to provide in there. How was I supposed to know this?

"Did you not read the supporting documentation that tells you how to fill in the form?"

At the time, possibly the most German thing I had ever heard.

She placed the documentation in my hand and asked me to provide the information. When I pointed out that I had no idea who my landlord was, nor where he lived, I was in trouble. She politely asked me to leave and make another appointment.

Thanks to the ingenuity of a friend of mine, I rolled the dice and pointed out that I was being sent out without the ability to get (legally required) health insurance. She paused for a while and then asked me to simply get her the name. If she were British I would swear by her intonation that she was happy for any name.

So... OK. Pretend that I am looking for a real name and just make up a name. Simple, right?

No.

Imagine my situation: I'm in a ever-so-slightly-higher-than-normal-pressure environment, in a foreign land, I do not know the information being required of me, the clock is ticking and all I have to do is come up with a name. At this point, it is very difficult to come up with something that does not sound very stereotypical and, thus, a piss-take...

Lars Schmidt.

Jens Schmidt.

Helmuth Schmidt (Oh sweet Lord, no).

Anything with "Schmidt".

Max Mustermann!

Let me tell you, when the name Max Mustermann gets stuck in your head when you are trying to make up a German name it is very hard to get it out and it is very hard not to laugh.

Thankfully, while I was pretending to search for my landlord's name, I actually found it. #winning

Epilogue: If We Must Be Formal, Call Me "Mr. Adams"

While I was searching for a (fake) name to provide for my landlord, the nice Bürgeramt lady was filling in all my details onto a computer using my passport. UK passports do not contain titles, only the name. So imagine my surprise when I leave the Bürgeramt, the proud owner of an Anmeldebescheinigung, to discover that I am no-longer "Herr Dr. Adams" but simply "Herr Adams".

Probably need another appointment to get that fixed.