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c-base e.V. is a non-profit
Seventeen people founded c-base e. V. in the autumn of 1995. In the years 2002 and 2003 the BerlinBackBone project was launched to make available and promote free public access to the internet via wireless community networks. Also in 2003 the c-base association began staging weekly meetings of musicians, called Cosmic Open Stage, thus providing a platform for well known or unknown musicians to hold
c-base e.V. is a non-profit association
Association may refer to:
*Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal
*Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry
*Voluntary associatio ...
located in Berlin, Germany
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent ...
. Its purpose is to increase knowledge and skills pertaining to computer software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
, hardware and data networks
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
. The association is engaged in numerous related activities. For example, the society has had stands at large festivals, such as Children's Day
Children's Day is a commemorative date celebrated annually in honor of children, whose date of observance varies by country.
In 1925, International Children's Day was first proclaimed in Geneva during the World Conference on Child Welfare. Sin ...
, where they introduce young people to topics like robotics
Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...
and computer-aided design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
.
The association's headquarters, c-base station, is also used by other initiatives and groups in and around Berlin as an event location or as function rooms, for example the wireless community network
Wireless community networks (WCNs) or wireless community projects or simply community networks, are non-centralized, self-managed and collaborative networks organized in a grassroots fashion by communities, NGO's and cooperatives in order to provi ...
freifunk.net, the Chaos Computer Club
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is Europe's largest association of hackers with 7,700 registered members. Founded in 1981, the association is incorporated as an ''eingetragener Verein'' in Germany, with local chapters (called ''Erfa-Kreise'') in ...
and the Berlin Wikipedia group. Any group that identifies themselves with the purpose of the c-base are also welcome to use the premises for meetings and events.
History
Seventeen people founded c-base e. V. in the autumn of 1995. In the years 2002 and 2003 the BerlinBackBone project was launched to make available and promote free public access to the internet via wireless community networks. Also in 2003 the c-base association began staging weekly meetings of musicians, called Cosmic Open Stage, thus providing a platform for well known or unknown musicians to hold jam session
A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without exte ...
s or to give concerts. Since 2004 the premises of the c-base association are also used in cooperation by transmediale
Transmediale, stylised as transmediale is an annual festival for art and digital culture in Berlin, usually held over five days at the end of January and the beginning of February. Transmediale takes the form of a conference (sometimes called ...
.
c-base is recognized as one of the first hackerspace
A hackerspace (also referred to as a hacklab, hackspace, or makerspace) is a community-operated, often "not for profit" (501(c)(3) in the United States), workspace where people with common interests, such as computers, machining, technology, sc ...
s in the world. It, along with The Loft in San Diego, USA and Metalab
The Metalab is a hackerspace in Vienna's central Innere Stadt, first district.
c-booc: 20 years history publication of c-base
c-base e. V.: ''c-base. official handout v.6.0s'', Berlin 2004
c-base-Homepage
c-base at myspace.com showing videos and music of some members
Activities
Apart from the main purpose of the c-base association the members are also engaged in many other activities, for example Go (board game), Go and Jugger, the rules of which supposedly were gained through analysis of files on c-beam, the main computer in the c-base station. Once a year, @c-terra, an event organised by the c-base association, gives an overview of all activities offered. The premises of the c-base association host a lot of different events (parties, presentations, theatrical performances, concerts and art exhibitions), such as Cosmic Open Stage. The c-base society is also present at events of the Chaos Computer Club like theChaos Communication Congress
The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues related to security, cryptography, privacy and online ...
or the Chaos Communication Camp
The Chaos Communication Camp (also known as CCCamp) is an international meeting of hackers that takes place every four years, organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC). So far all CCCamps have been held near Berlin, Germany.
The camp is an ...
.
From September 14–16, 2006 the fourth Wizards of OS
Wizards of OS (Wizards of Operating Systems, or "WOS") was a semi-annual Berlin-based conference that was held four times between 1999 and 2006. Its topics were the cultural and political potentials of free software, software technology, digital ...
conference was held in cooperation with c-base.
Mythological self-image of the c-base
The location for c-base is accompanied by a myth. This myth says that there are remnants of a space station called c-base underneath the city centre of Berlin. The space station's antenna is theFernsehturm Berlin
The Berliner Fernsehturm or Fernsehturm Berlin ( en, Berlin Television Tower) is a television tower in central Berlin, Germany.
Located in the Marien quarter (''Marienviertel''), close to Alexanderplatz in the locality and district of Mitte, ...
, a large spire with a mirrored ball near the top and a distinctive landmark nearby.
History of the space station
According to the stories of the members of the c-base, the space station crashed due to unstable conditions in its orbit after exiting a time warp. At that time there was a number of highly technological advanced and heretofore undiscovered lifeforms aboard the station. Much evidence of its existence is said to be in and around Berlin, including the aforementioned antenna, which was (according to stories) unmasked byEast German
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
and Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
scientists. Other evidence, such as the multifunctional space station module, which ejected during the crash, is now under intense research and makes up the current premises of the c-base association.
There is currently only a printed edition of the collected knowledge about the space station, known as the "space almanack" (Ger.: ''Allmanach''). A project, called "c-pedia", is currently underway, attempting to make this knowledge available on the internet. There is also a reconstruction of station artifacts taking place.
Structure of c-base
The c-base is a system of seven concentric rings that can move in relation to one another. Each ring is considered a single module with a special set of functions. The rings are called (from the centre out) "core", "com", "culture", "creactiv", "cience", "carbon" and "clamp". The inner ring, core, provides a nonterminating supply of energy produced by aMöbius strip
In mathematics, a Möbius strip, Möbius band, or Möbius loop is a surface that can be formed by attaching the ends of a strip of paper together with a half-twist. As a mathematical object, it was discovered by Johann Benedict Listing and Augu ...
generator. The central computer of the c-base, "c-beam", is also located there. The second ring, com, harbours the space ports, hangars and communication devices including the interstellar communication module recently identified as Blinkenlights
Blinkenlights is a neologism for Blinkenlights#Actual blinkenlights, diagnostic lights usually on the front panels on old mainframe computers, minicomputers, many early microcomputers, and modern network hardware. It has been seen as a ske ...
by the Chaos Computer Club. The following three rings, culture, creactiv and cience, host devices serving culture, creativity and science. The latter ring is also the location of the Arboretum
An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...
. Accommodation for station crew members are found on the carbon ring. The outer ring, clamp, stabilizes the station.
Trivia
* On September 10, 2006, thePirate Party Germany
The Pirate Party Germany (german: Piratenpartei Deutschland), commonly known as Pirates (), is a political party in Germany founded in September 2006 at c-base. It states general agreement with the Swedish Piratpartiet as a party of the informat ...
was established at c-base.
* Episode 430, "Tödliches Labyrinth" and Episode 691 "Tod einer Heuschrecke" of German television series ''Tatort
''Tatort'' ("Crime scene") is a German language police procedural television series that has been running continuously since 1970 with some 30 feature-length episodes per year, which makes it the longest-running German TV drama. Developed by ...
'' was filmed at c-base.
* The Wikipedia local chapter has met at c-base regularly since 2004.
Literature
c-booc: 20 years history publication of c-base
c-base e. V.: ''c-base. official handout v.6.0s'', Berlin 2004
External links
c-base-Homepage
c-base at myspace.com showing videos and music of some members
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:C-Base Computer clubs in Germany Mutual organizations Hackerspaces Non-profit organisations based in Berlin Culture in Berlin Hacker culture