#215: who says investors are killing?

If you wanna escape your regular routine, come to our coworking session on Monday, 26th of October at the Delta. You will meet new people, get some work done and experience a nice coworking location.

Another interesting Berlin project. Hier Baut Berlin is a map-based tool that aggregates construction projects, development plans, public-participation procedures and city building announcements by neighbourhood, pulling data from official planning and permit sources. I was looking at some entries and failed to find real-life evidence of things being done. 😅

The coalition talks finally started between Linke, Grüne and SPD. Also because of the agreement on a joint line against antisemitism and organised crime. CSU is calling the negotiations "an absolute scandal." Apropos organised crime, Issa Rammo publicly defended Koçak and said he's thinking about a political career of his own.

Hard to believe, but the Tiergartentunnel is closing for long stretches most days this/last week because the city can't find people for the tunnel's 24/7 monitoring post. They have eight positions, but only five are filled, with two employees on long-term sick leave, one still in training and one newly off sick. So we currently have two people running the tunnel daily used by 50k vehicles. I couldn't find the job links, but Tagesspiegel says you can earn between €3.2-4.6k gross with 30 days off + add-ons.

The (controversial) Bund der Steuerzahler's annual Schwarzbuch latest report includes the BER government terminal (it projected cost has grown from €344M to as much as €2.5B). They also listed €45k "Cooling Point" heat shelter in Mauerpark and the €760k "VeloFlow" cyclist traffic-light display.

What? Deutsche Umwelthilfe obtained internal Senate files showing transport senator Ute Bonde overruled her own experts to swap Kantstraße's protected bike lane for parking, aiming to finish before the 2026 election. Well, they failed, and a court order keeps the lane in place for now.

When it rains, it pours. We are facing a compensation bill running into the millions, at minimum, over an August hack that stole more than four terabytes of data. They were later published on the darknet. Its still not clear how much data was taken and how many people are affected.

I wonder how many of Handpicked readers are in these stats: Berlin has recorded a net immigration surplus of 330k from abroad since 2018, according to the Berlin-Brandenburg statistics office.

Stats: Berlin's street-cleaning service BSR has started its annual leaf-collection campaign with 2.4k employees, 550 vehicles and an expected yield of 36k tonnes of leaves.

Circula (Berlin, expense management) was acquired by Munich HR-software company Personio.

Tagesspiegel: Google's lease at the old Kreuzberg substation ends in January, so bUm, the free social co-working space Google provided there for 50+ initiatives, closes on 17 December. Google keeps its Mitte office [more, €].

Langdock (Berlin, AI software) has grown to €50M in annual recurring revenue.

Superhuman (US, productivity software) opened its new Berlin office at Das Center on Potsdamer Platz, a former cinema.

rbb24: a new investor is stepping in on Berlin's stalled Monarch high-rise at Alexanderplatz, after Russian sanctions froze the project [more].

Ryanair (Ireland, airline) is closing its BER base on 24 October and cutting about half its routes, including Gran Canaria, Palermo and Thessaloniki — it called BER "Europe's least successful airport".

Deutsche Bahn (Berlin, rail) is raising its office-presence requirement to three days a week. Staff are revolting on the company intranet.

McKinsey (Berlin, consulting) is being taken to court by three employees of its Berlin office trying to force the firm to set up a works council.

Tagesspiegel: the BVG notes 1.6k blocked-bus-lane cases a month and is launching a new campaign against illegally parked cars [more].

Tagesspiegel: VBB announces changes to S-Bahn lines for the December timetable change [more].

rbb24: a new M20 tram line will connect the former Tegel airport to central Berlin — here's the planned route and timeline [more].

rbb24: one in six Berlin buses now runs electric, putting the city 14th in a national comparison [more].

Berlin's direct public-sector employees must now work at least one day a week on-site; most state-owned companies follow a 50/50 split, Wasserbetriebe allows up to 60% mobile work per quarter, and the BSR has no mobile-work limit.

DIW Berlin launched a fuel-discount monitor to track whether the government's three-month tax cut on petrol and diesel (in effect since 1 October and worth about 17 cents a litre) is reaching drivers at the pump [more].

Tagesspiegel: Hertha BSC becomes the latest club to ban commercial stadium vlogging, saying the matchday experience belongs to the fans [more].

rbb24: a rainbow-painted bench in Tiergarten commemorating July's CSD attack has become a symbol of a "culture war," repeatedly vandalised but not removed [more].

rbb24: Berlin's Kältehilfe says it's getting harder each year to find suitable properties for homeless-shelter beds, and wants lower hurdles to open more [more].

Berlin researcher Peter Hegemann won this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine.

An MP asked if the smell from snack stands at U-Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten is unacceptable: BVG says a snap inspection on 17 September found nothing unusual and the standard grease-extraction filters are up to code, though it will keep monitoring and check again in the coming weeks [more].

An MP asked how Berlin's beavers are doing and how the city protects them: the population has grown steadily over the past decade and should hold roughly stable over the next five, and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf plans an underground tunnel under Saatwinkler Damm so beavers crossing to Volkspark Jungfernheide stop getting hit by cars [more].

An MP asked when Neukölln's High-Deck-Siedlung will be asbestos-free: HOWOGE plans to renovate its 1,916 units over the next 10-15 years, Stadt und Land's share finishes by 2029, and one building was suddenly evacuated as a precaution after asbestos turned up in a hallway during ongoing construction [more].

I always admired Serious Eats, and of course they have an article on resting meat. For everyone serious about science-based cooking.

Failing is Common, Trying is Rare by David Cain. Most people avoid genuinely attempting their goals, rationalising away real effort once it gets uncomfortable, which makes trying far rarer than failing. I am guilty of the same: giving up on some things, hobbies or projects way too early.

The pleasures of potential. Baron Ryan strikes again. There is a lot of pleasure in potential. So much!

Reddit: A redditor asked about a fence on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz that's been up since August with no visible work. Sometimes, the work is done underground. It's a nice example of coming to conclusions way too early…

… if anyone remembers my “these freshly painted posters are fake” saga: I was completely wrong. I caught people actually doing it. I apologise to everyone affected.

Don’t ever forget that they are reading your chats. A Florida woman (who else) used Claude as a diary, and then Anthropic reported one of her entries to the police.

As promised last week, here's Penguin Enemy — one of the Perry Bible Fellowship comics I started following twenty years ago and recently rediscovered. I am not sorry for wasting 30 min of your time, because they are fun!