first why 2025 post

content/posts/why-2025/why-2025-prep.md

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+date = '2025-08-08T02:00:00+02:00'
+draft = false
+title = 'WHY 2025 - Preparations'
+tags = ['travel', 'WHY 2025']
++++
+
+I am trying to write more, so I am experimenting with a travel-log style post.
+The resulting text is boring to read, the contained conclusions are obvious for anyone with two or more brain cells and you will just waste your time reading it.
+
+This is the first part, covering everything happening before arriving on site.
+I may update previous days, so you may want to wait until after the event is over to read a more polished version.
+
+### Expectations
+
+What Hackers Yearn 2025 is a so-called hackercamp. From the wiki:
+
+> At its core, a hackercamp is a self-organized space where hackers, makers, artists, activists, and technology enthusiasts come together to learn, create, and celebrate technology. The landscape comes alive with colorful LED installations, interactive art, hand-built sculptures, and high-tech experiments happening in every corner.
+>
+> [wiki.why2025.org/Newcomers_Guide](https://wiki.why2025.org/Newcomers_Guide#The_essence_of_a_hacker_camp)
+
+As is tradition with the CCCamp, the event takes place every four years, which means overall there is one "big" hackercamp every two years.
+It's one of those events where your do not have to worry about stuff being stolen from your rent as much, but where you should install any available security patches beforehand.
+
+While much of the infrastructure is semi-centrally managed, part of the fun is exploring the assemblies, villages and self organized sessions.
+As many of the talks are recorded and can be watched on [media.ccc.de](https://media.ccc.de/c/WHY2025) afterwards, I was mostly interested workshops and the social aspects of the event.
+
+For me, this was the first hacker event in the Netherlands, the second hacker *camp*, and the sixth hacker event overall.
+
+### Tickets
+
+Compared to the Chaos Communication Camp 2023, where it felt like getting a ticket required a good internet connection and solving a captcha quick enough, you could just go to their website and complete your purchase. The tickets did sell out in the end, but according to the public stats that happened over the span of days, not seconds.
+
+By planning ahead, I was able to convince myself that taking a train very early in the morning was a good idea as the arrival time was more manageable.
+While I did say I "planned ahead", that did not mean I committed to this early.
+
+I booked my train ticket only a few days in advance, which meant that the FlexPreis (a ticket that is valid for any connection instead of a specific one) seemed like a good idea. I later noticed that when traveling over the border, seat reservations are required, defeating the whole purpose of buying the more expensive ticket for that part of the journey. Booking late also meant no bike tickets were left for the good connections, so I left that at home (I would have had to fix a flat first anyways).
+
+Because I have a *Deutschlandticket* I can ride any regional trains for free. What that also means though is that your rights regarding connections are limited. Because of that, I usually take a train earlier so I do not miss my inter city train. In that case it meant getting up even earlier just so I could wait at Ostbahnhof for an hour.
+
+### Packing
+
+As usual with events like this, I pushed any packing and so on to the last hours of the day before. Of course work also took longer than expected.
+Luckily just the weekend before, I was at the wonderful Brimborium, a tiny festival near the border to Poland, so I did not bother to store away my camping gear. That meant the basics were still scatered around on the living room floor and just had to be put back into (or attached to) the backpack.
+
+I packed both way too much stuff and not enough. Whenever I thought I was done, I remembered something essential that was missing.
+
+Because I had to carry all of this, I weighed what I wanted to take with me. Overall I had over 35kg of stuff. Though I did know that was too much, it was too late to send anything by mail or re-pack everything. This was now a problem for future me. Do you notice a theme yet?
+
+### Getting there
+
+Boy did I regret all my decisions when my alarm rang. Going to bed at the usual time and just waking up really early did not get me started in a good mood.
+
+Apart from some last-minute adjustments, I still had no cash, nothing to eat and nothing to do in the 10 hours of train travel I was going to do.
+
+At the *Späti* (kiosk that never closes), I had the idea of buying some cheap headphones, as my five year old ones gave up only half a year ago and I did not get around to compare the gazillion options till now. I always wondered who buys stuff like that, now I know. First I was surprised they only cost 10€, but I found out why after getting them out of the package. They weighed nothing, which meant the badly fitting ear pieces were pulled out by the cables all the time. Before even boarding the first train, one of them fell apart because of a manufacturing defect in the molded plastic, revealing one of the two cables inside was not isolated at all. The sound was even worse than expected, producing a loud hiss while audio was playing. That made listening to podcasts especially annoying as after each sentence, the noise would stop for half a second, only to start again when someone continued to talk. The good news is that I did not have to endure that for long, as both earpieces fell apart while boarding my first connection and I was not able to fix them while on the train. 0/10 stars, worse than not having anything. Samsung, you should do better or not sell this crap at all.
+
+As I did have a longer wait at Ostbahnhof, I was finally able to get some food and coffee. You should have seen me juggle my giant backpack, the big duffel bag, the food and a hot cup of black coffee. What had to happen did happen, and so the rest of the day I walked around with a big stain on my shirt and a slightly burned chest.
+
+The actual train ride was comfortable and had a delay of only 30m, which is *fine* for a days worth of travel. My biggest complaint is that none of the toilets I checked had soap. If I had not packed as much stuff, it would say it was a better experience than getting there by car. I think it was funny that there Dutch crew stressed the point that you do not have to take a specific train in the Netherlands, even with the SparPreis, eliminating the last possible reason to have bought the expensive ticket.
+
+From the train station, the event provided a free shuttle service to the camping ground.

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