The train just had its stop in Bad Bentheim entering Germany. At that stop we usually get a short break, a new locomotive and the German border police checking the train. Border police? Didn’t the Schengen Agreement abolish checks at the signing countries’ borders?

It did, but these informal spot checks are still being held by some countries. Even worse, they are not random by any degree. The German Bundespolizei deliberately checks those with a dark skin and hardly any others. Normally such an observation could be attributed to me being cynical. Here it unfortunately cannot.

It is a practice being supported up until the administrative court of Koblenz where a case relating to this policy came to trial recently. The judge maintained the obligation of the police to use ‘situational insight’ and ‘relevant border police experience’ (‘entsprechende “Lageerkenntnisse” und “einschlägige grenzpolizeiliche Erfahrung” zugrunde zu legen’). Lawblog.de writes it up with the obvious title “Der Neger ist verdächtig” and the post has over four hundred comments.

I didn’t get checked this time but sometimes they do check my passport. It probably depends on how foreign I happen to look on a specific day or if I have shaven recently. I can shrug it off easily as probably most people can who don’t deal with racism on a day to day basis. But when I see a black family of four traveling and being checked as the only ones in the compartment, I wonder what kind of an impression that gives their children about the justness of the society they are growing up into.

Last week Peter Robinett sent me a link to this Times article that would seem a bit far fetched if it wasn’t mostly true. The headline (“a Limp Domestic Economy”) doesn’t really cover the article because it describes how massively things have improved in Germany. If I can believe stories, the situation here used to be far far worse. That however is no excuse.

Rule fucking (the Dutch ‘regelneuken’), protectionism and arcane laws still apply and add up to create:

This economy is overregulated, intended to insulate insiders from competition and deeply resistant to change.

But mostly we’re ok. And there lies the exact problem. If indeed the current positive climate preempts further reforms, that will be institutionally stupid.

I was mostly going to blow this off until last week upon returning from Spain I got a letter from the Finanzamt asking me why exactly I needed a Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer (USt-IdNr.). I had submitted a form for my personal incorporation here in Germany and checked the box that said ‘I need a USt-IdNr. for doing business within the European Union’.

Then, as if the fact that I checked that box would not be enough reason by itself, as if there is a scarcity of natural numbers (ℕ) in the German administration, as if both the people working at the Finanzamt as myself have nothing better to do than spend time on these minutiae I had to get in touch again to confirm that ‘Yes, I really want and need that number.’

This is shameful and if the German administration manages to complicate even the simplest of interactions, I don’t want to know what they do to the rest.

Last Wednesday I was at a gathering by the Institue for Internet and Society here in Berlin in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk called “Berliner Gespräche” about how the internet influences society.

What struck me mainly was that both a professor from the panel and a commenter from the audience held the position that the internet is in fact nothing new. That it is just another medium/channel for people to communicate through. Citing Clay Shirky, I would say that more and faster information flows are in fact different. More fundamentally the internet is the manifestation of a vast new kind of object that interacts with other objects (such as us) in a myriad ways. That alone makes it something new and very significant.

I was asked by somebody from Deutschlandfunk to comment on the proceedings of the evening and I gave them my superficial outsider’s view about privacy and journalism and how the status quo of both is vastly different in the Netherlands.

On the way home what stuck with me most is that every online entity comprises within itself a subjective view of how reality works and how it wishes to interact with that reality. Facebook has notions about the desirability of privacy that permeate through all of its interactions with its users. This is the same for any websites. They are simulations that run on a subjectively chosen subset of reality just like games do.

The tool that we often employ when talking about games is Ian Bogost’s concept of ‘simulation fever’ that says that subjective simulations cause people to either accept or reject the simulation based on their position. The critical alternation (or altercation if you will) between acceptance and rejection puts the user in a moral frenzy termed simulation fever.

The subjective values that websites impose most clearly on users right now are their views when it comes to privacy but there are a slew of other values that are inherent in any web application which users may or may not accept when using them. If you must generalize —as a populace— the Dutch mostly accept those subjective realities while the Germans mostly reject.

The Dutch use sites as means of communication and self-expression while grosso modo ignoring the consequences of corporate ownership. While Germans forced by social pressures to use sites such as Facebook, try to mitigate their complicitness by employing sabotage and other defensives strategies.

There is in both countries a minority of people who are aware of the issues and use these services critically. For any meaningful discussion about the internet, they the most likely people to turn to.

I’m revising my working theory for Germany based on experiences from last week and other things that have happened. My old one on Germany’s attitude towards modernity still holds, but talking with open government activists and my experiences with government here, have prompted the following.

One of the biggest mysteries for me is why Germany is so far behind when it comes to open government compared to the Netherlands. With Hack de Overheid we have been on a roll last year with nearly every institution coming forward and pushing towards more openness. We even got Minister Verhagen on television to pledge to our goal. All of this does not mean we have won yet, but it does show a momentum into the right direction.

The German situation in comparison beggars belief. The very fact that it is a good thing for government to open up their data in a machine-readable fashion, still seems to be up for debate in many circles. The open government movement itself is denied outright and not heard in official proceedings even when it would be total common sense to take their input.

I have no clue how in this day and age such an opinion is tenable, but I will wager two possible explanations:

1. German goverment is hideously complex. There are tons of layers of government because of the federal system and the scale of the country. There are also parallel governments and institutions that are similarly layered, so for each and every query you have, you may be pointed any way up, down or sideways into the hierarchy. This is a very easy way to get sent in endless loops and for the entire system to hold itself in gridlock.
2. This one is more subtle: German government is very bureaucratical. The promise of open data and open government is ultimately to replace well defined bureaucratic systems with automation. At a point it no longer matters whether you send a physical form into government for human processing or whether you fill something in online and a computer performs the same operation.
   Whether they realize it or not, by filibustering openness in government, the civil servants are ensuring that they will still have a job in twenty years’ time.

And before you say the above is an unfair characterization of the ruling elites in Germany, you only have to read this recent missive by CDU Bundestag member Heveling (outtakes by Peter Bihr here) to confirm the ruling class’s difficult relation with the internet. Heveling has caused quite the uproar here. Though I wonder if the German twittersphere may let themselves be baited too easily. If we in the Netherlands went batshit crazy every time somebody from the CDA said something stupid about the internet, we would get nary a thing done.

Going over the list of services that the municipality of Amsterdam offers this week, I couldn’t help but notice this:

the option to change your date of birth (without a foreign certificate)

This is a very interesting option. I am not aware of the reasons one could assert to change their date of birth, but the fact that the option is listed, says something. In any case, it shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with a reason that fulfills official requirements.

Why would you want to do this?

I am reasonably sure that most statistical inference methods on databases are pinned fairly rigidly on the fact that somebody’s date of birth never changes. The various parts of your name can be mismatched, but if you do not have an id for somebody (like a social security number), the date of birth is your best bet to reduce the number of possible matches.

If you manage to change your date of birth if only by a day and re-register with that everywhere, you will have shed your privacy tail and can start anew. That by itself, struck me as a hopeful thought. Now just to have somebody try it out.

Post scriptum: I talked about this with Rejo and he suggested I FOIA the number of times this occurs and the reasons why it happens. I put that on my list, for some time in the future.

Ik zou nog schrijven wat de conclusie was van het cameratoezicht op mijn gestolen fiets uit het vorige bericht. Daar stond al hoe je voor dit soort zaken van het kastje naar de muur gestuurd wordt. Ik had nagelaten dit op te schrijven door drukte en frustratie met hoe het gaat in de stad, maar gelukkig herinnerde Rejo Zenger van Bits of Freedom me eraan.

Bijkomend voordeel is dat ik met behulp van ThinkUp mijn tweets van toen kon terugvinden en het verhaal weer aan elkaar kon puzzelen.

Ik had het een beetje opgegeven. Ik moest mijn aangifte afmelden bij een hulpzame agent van het lokale bureau. Toen ik hem vertelde dat er een camera op het plaats delict stond stuurde hij even een patrouille langs die ‘eyes on the scene’ deden en navroegen bij Stadgenoot.

Kort daarna wist hij me te vertellen dat de camera wél van Stadgenoot is ondanks dat Stadgenoot dat ontkende. Alleen volgens Stadgenoot was de camera niet aangesloten en hadden ze dus ook geen beelden van de diefstal.

Daardoor konden we niet anders dan mijn aangifte onverrichter zake sluiten. Als je ergens een fixie ziet met een doorgeroeste Paddy Wagon wielset en eventueel twee spoke cards van de Pariah alley cat, dan is die van mij.

Vragen die blijven naar aanleiding van dit incident:

• Waarom vertelt Stadgenoot in eerste instantie onwaarheid over hun camera (tweet)? Is dat omdat ze niet beter weten? Hebben ze geen zin in gedoe? Of is het kwade opzet?
• Kan iedereen een camera plaatsen die gericht is op de openbare weg en dan erbij zeggen dat deze niet functioneert? Wie controleert dat de camera echt niet aangesloten is en blijft (tweet)?

Wat blijft:

Er is geen register van camera’s in de openbare weg en wie ze beheert. Dit maakt het makkelijk voor instanties om je van het kastje naar de muur te sturen zoals Stadgenoot deed.

Elke camera die op de openbare weg gericht is zou een vergunning en registratie moeten hebben of deze nu werkt of niet. Aangezien de functionaliteit van een niet door het normale publiek te controleren is.

Kevin Slavin klaagt op onnavolgbare wijze het bestuur van zijn universiteit de Cooper Union aan waar hij tegenwoordig ook les geeft.

De Cooper Union is een topuniversiteit in de Verenigde Staten waar het onderwijs altijd gratis is geweest (zie Wikipedia). Dit gratis onderwijs werd gefinancierd door donaties en rendement op het eigen vastgoed. Nu is door schimmige beleggingspraktijken en een intransparant en waarschijnlijk corrupt bestuur de voortzetting van dat gratis onderwijs niet meer zeker.

“So as an investor, I challenge you, President Bharucha, the Board, I challenge you to find the real and sustainable resources — transparency, communication, trust, and integrity — resources that can be renewed endlessly. I’ll break my back to build on those and I know that’s true of everyone here.

Do not allow our investment to fail.” —Kevin Slavin

Het lijkt er nu op dat vastgoed-hobbyisme niet alleen in Amerika een nevenactiviteit van universiteitsbesturen is geweest. Bij mijn oude universiteit, de Technische Universiteit van Delft is iets soortgelijks aan de hand. Het NRC bericht dat het goed mis is met de integriteit, de beloningen en de vastgoedportefeuille. De universiteit antwoord met ontkenning en spin (én slechte PR).

Het verbaast ondertussen niemand meer. Het gebrek aan integriteit en transparantie bij mensen die aan de top van grote instituties staan lijkt zich door de gehele samenleving te hebben uitgezaaid. Ik ben afgestudeerd en niet meer persoonlijk betrokken bij mijn alma mater. Maar jammer is het wel.

I’m incredibly proud of the team and events coming together in our organization of the biggest Hack de Overheid feature yet. Looking back on the past year, it has been an incredible ride with the various Apps for… competitions and no small amount of personal and professional changes.

At the end of this month, on Saturday the 26th, we’ll be holding a Hack de Overheid event like you’re used to with some notable additions that are going to blow everybody’s mind. The event is called Code Camping Amsterdam, it is part of the Apps voor Nederland program in collaboration with Waag Society and you can register on the bottom of the page.

We’ll be having three internationally renowned speakers whose work alone speaks for itself, let alone their presence on our event. Marietje Schaake is our most favourable representation in the European Parliament but as far as I know a politician of her stature has never before spoke in front of an audience of Makers in the Netherlands before. Marius Watz‘s visual art inspires awe and wonder and I have used his software on several occasions in my work for Monster Swell. Matt Biddulph‘s work and shipped products have been used by most of the people I know and inspired me and I think many more programmers to build more and better.

The location in the derelict Toren Overhoeks is a culmination both of convenience and inconvenience. Just across the central train station, but without any facilities left in the building it exemplifies a once and future state of our cities. Remnants of an age gone by where hackers gather with makeshift facilities to create something better.

After the event there is going to be a party by the Eddie the Eagle Museum a formation famous in their own right for holding the most out there awesome parties in the city. It is a privilege working together with people this competent when it comes to fun and so creative when it comes to convention. See their party description:

The future has found us! And its leader is a code. Our digitally hypnotised desire has led to a world without mistakes, governed by spyware and malware. Humanity is an experiment proved inferior. Let’s crack the code to correct it. Enter the Hackathon and exuberantly celebrate a world without errors! With high, low and no-tech, we are the new Trojan Horses marching in, ritually erasing the failings of the past. Let’s roughly and frantic lose our last human bit with a codefest in the Tower of the Shell.

Finally as I have hinted before, the currency for application contests is diminishing along with the consolidation of the open data platforms and the publication of more and more datasets. If after Apps voor Nederland is over, you follow-up with another cookie-cutter competition, that would be missing the point. That also means that this competition is the best moment to get your datasets out and get attention for them in the ecosystem as it is right now. What will be next? We have some ideas, but we don’t know anything for sure yet. The only thing that is certain: you’d better be there next Saturday!

Onlangs zijn de wielen van mijn racefiets gestript toen deze over het weekend geparkeerd stond op de Korte ‘s-Gravezandestraat in Amsterdam.

Ik heb aangifte gedaan van de diefstal en er staat een camera op het terrein van Stadgenoot gericht op de openbare weg waar mijn fiets staat. Ik probeer te achterhalen van wie die camera is om te zorgen dat die beelden bewaard worden en beschikbaar zijn voor het politie-onderzoek.

In principe ben ik tegen camera’s in de openbare ruimte maar als ze er hangen ben ik wel voor transparante en heldere informatie over van wie ze zijn en wanneer je bij de beelden mag. Dat het hier slecht gesteld is met die informatie bewijst de volgende rondgang:

Stadgenoot ontkent dat de camera van hen is en zegt dat bewoners niet zomaar camera’s aan hun huis mogen bevestigen. Ze zeggen dat deze waarschijnlijk van de politie is.

Het politiebureau dat erover gaat zegt ook niks te weten van deze camera en verwijst door naar de gemeente.

De gemeente weet na herhaaldelijk bellen en talloze malen doorverbonden te worden uiteindelijk te achterhalen om welk stadsdeel dit precies gaat en dat team handhaving van stadsdeel Centrum zou moeten weten van wie die camera is. Dit team is ‘s ochtends tussen 9 en 10 op kantoor waarna ze de straat op gaan. Dus morgenochtend wordt dit vervolgd.

I was at a meeting this weekend by the Pop-up City and the documentary displayed about urban development fits into a wider recent trend where people kick the creative class and blame them for society’s ills. Usually the dreaded specter of gentrification is pulled out to show how apathetic and different and outright bad the Creative Class are.

The documentary shown last weekend “Creativity and the Capitalist City” by Tino Buchholz actually showed an interesting and nuanced picture of urban development. Unfortunately this was marred by the rabid and insubstantial left-wing outings of the movie maker afterwards. That discussion did oust a lot of resentment that I think needs to be addressed more openly and more honestly than it currently is.

As was remarked in die Zeit recently about the same issue in Berlin: the only thing worse than gentrification is no gentrification. The debate is a lot more heated over there because of the massive influx of hipsters and their friends from all over the world into an impoverished city. A trust fund takes you a lot further in Neukölln than it does in Bushwick, but it also sparks xenofobic pamflets and immolation of vehicles.

I am a part of that same creative class —if you want to use a blanket term— and probably also a cause of gentrification. But I am sick of apologizing for our success. We picked a profession, we worked hard, we created value (we are not bankers) and now we are winning. Well I can tell you: it feels good to be winning.

It is perverse to rest the blame of society’s ills on those people actually doing something with their lives. I have had this problem before. If you’re a successful migrant in the messed up social debate in the Netherlands, you were nearly forced to apologize for your own success to the rest who were not. I sure as hell wasn’t going to do that. The only solution is to ignore the naysayers. It always is of course.

I can do what I am doing because of a lot of hard work and perseverance. The field of study I got a Masters in is definitely not one of the easier ones at my university but it does guarantee you a job in a wide number of techno-creative fields. For some strange reason people still are not lining up to go to technical universities, and most that do go do not finish it. Complaining to somebody else must be easier than actually working to secure your own future.

It is hard enough already in the attention starved world to stay up to date with your close ones without having to take into account every other person. Even more so if your outlook is international and you want to participate and compete on a trans-national level. A rare enough thing as it is. Should we do stuff for our neighborhood? Sure, but who should bear the onus? Shouldn’t the people who want to do stuff, maybe start something themselves and see where it goes?

Working in a creative profession is subject to taste but it is in many ways also highly meritocratic. Those with affluent parents and large networks will divide a larger piece of pie among themselves. But if you work hard and put in the effort with just a spark of vision, it will most certainly amount to something in the long run. If it doesn’t, change yourself and try something else. Keep trying until you find something that works. Is that difficult? Maybe, but it is also the only way.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.” —Thomas Edison

There are a ton of jobs in technology right now. Amsterdam cannot find itself enough interaction designers, interface designers, front-end engineers and programmers to fill current jobs. The shortage is large enough that a lot of growth opportunities are being hampered by it. Literally all comers will be able to get a job. So get at it. Teach yourself something, find a course and persevere for a couple of years. You may strike gold.

“You can tell yourself anything is too difficult, or you can just do it.
You just need to be hungry.” — http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/i-went-back-to-the-land-to-feed-my-family.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

We, the employed, already pay taxes. As a base that should be enough. If anybody out there is failing to keep up their end of the bargain, it’s the government we are paying the taxes to. They are bailing out the rich and keeping the poor ignorant with well meant institutional schemes that rarely amount to anything (just look at the Wire). Government should change and if the recent occupy movements serve as a wake-up call to do that, all for the better. Though experience does not make me very optimistic on that front.

If there is anything we shouldn’t do in the Netherlands, it is to pretend that things here are as bad as in the US or anywhere in Europe. We have the lowest unemployment in the Eurozone. We have an egalitarian society, cheap education, social security and mobility. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous and self-serving. You can do pretty much everything you want in this country and I say that not being white, not being privileged. I sincerely believe all it takes is for you to get out and make something. So do it.