Topicless thread

[NejinOniwa]

I usually go to cons on my own...however, swedish cons are so damn small and have such a relatively small audience so you can't escape meeting acquaintances. -.-

[IanDanKilmaster]

Changing gears now... I feel like I've gone ten rounds with mighty Thor, and then mauled by Jesus.  Well, not really, I felt a lot worse yesterday - I'm just tired now.  Could still use some "miracle cream" now... or some equally miraculous substance.

[Seamore]

You're not the only one feel tired. The last two weeks really busy for me. Even busier than working.
My big sister have to be hospitalized because of her eye and have to get a surgery, thank goodness her surgery went fine and she is on the way to recovering. Although I'm the one who have to help her recover (all my family member busy right now). And just not long after that, my little sister have to be hospitalized. But not because sick, she is pregnant. It's just because her husband on duty far from home, I also have to take care of her for a while.
And to make matter worse...WHY ON EARTH THEY CHOOSE THE SAME LAME HOSPITAL WHEN I'M HOSPITALIZED? They don't have connection (connection if for VIP only), and the doctor and nurse have no sense of humor. I kinda feel sick of that hospital and kinda want to nuke it to oblivion ;006
Well, at least both my big sis and little sis are fine.

[NejinOniwa]

Today, /osc/, I have lost faith.
In my nation, that is. And the judicial system.
What is a nation worth if it cannot stand against the interest of the entertainment industry? I mean - Entertainment Industry. Just those words make me laugh inside thinking they would have any sort of power anywhere. Irony is enormous, making them a power large enough to steer an entire continent towards censorship, restriction and abolishment of freedom - of speech, of information exchange.
Read this and this and grieve with me.

But naturally, there are upsides too.
January last year we (The Pirate Party of Sweden, of which I am a member) had around 7000 members, making us the largest party outside the parliament. However, the last year has held a lot of controversial anti-piracy, anti-freedom of speech and so on laws, which have worked the populace greatly in our direction. As of yesterday we had over 14k members - way above the well established Left party (11k) and Green party (9.5k), making us the 6th biggest party in the nation.
However, the TPB trial scandal has wielded a greater impact than anything else - perhaps except the equally controversial TPB raid in the summer of 2006 which led to this, and gave us 3800~ new members in a short time. Today at 11.00 the TPB team were sentenced - together, despite their varying amount of actual relation to the crimes they're accused for - to 1 year in prison and total fines of 30 million swedish kronor (3,547,237.08 USD). Compare that to 250k and 8 months for gangrape and lower for other crimes, and you get the outrage of this. The swedish people feel the same - and as I post this we have 17502 members. (we had 17400 some ten minutes ago, btw. Shit is going LIGHTSPEED, on crack.) The majority of the party's homepage servers are so heavily loaded they're down - but a small backup page that allows for some basic functions (and most importantly becoming a member) is still up.

The Liberals have 17800 members, and the Conservatives have some 22500. I've got few doubts that we'll be marching away from them quite soon. And what more, the elections to the EU parliament is coming up very soon (7/6), and next year holds the public elections to the Swedish parliament. The strategic importance of these events cannot be stressed enough.

Or to cite The Flight of the Conchords:
It's business time.

*bows*

Added after 11 minutes:

This statement is now incorrect. The current member count is 17629.

LIGHTSPEEDOOOOOO~

Added after 8 minutes:

Now it's over 17700.

Srsly when one can just sit on the webpage and update and every like 5 seconds at least one new member trickles in, something's screwed up...^^

[VonDaab]

yarr.

[NejinOniwa]

BRB, FIFTH LARGEST PARTY OF SWEDEN COMING THROUGH
>:3
17802

[Smokey]

Right, as i said it is more of a political statement than an actual act of justice, but you can expect such things if you cost the industry millions and millions of dollars... And although Sweden is lax in such laws it can't protect it's residents from the international laws forever, because they will be as a nation be reprimanded for it...

So yeah, even though the (term used liberally ->) wrong people were sentenced (they should have gone after those at home who share tons of material and/or sell it, BTW i also read that TPB was making profit), it was to be expected when you're ripping the industry off...
Hell, i've seen class/schoolmates getting sentenced for high-profiling their illegal warez, and i didn't shed one tear for them, nor did i lose any sleep over them, even though they were bankrupted before they were adults...

And if your party does acuire power in sweden, that doesn't mean that i won't be opening a beer and toasting to ya... Because that would just be funny as hell...

[NejinOniwa]

Thing is, right now it's Brussels we're aiming for.

And that's just even more awesome.

Add in the usual slouch around the EU elections among the old people, to the fact that LOADS of young people are gonna go vote and vote pirate...

IT'S BUSINESS TIME.

Oh and 17918 btw. Did I mention lightspeed?

[Smokey]

Yes you did, and i think Brussels may be a bit out of your reach, since they'll come up with a way to outlaw your party... Been done in our country too with the pedo-party...

[NejinOniwa]

Well, if they outlaw a party promoting freedom of speech and integrity...then Europe needs some remedy for the corruption that's risen...

AND THE BRUSSELSPROUTS WILL BE EXTINCT.

[Smokey]

No they can outlaw a party if it's breaking the law, no matter how hard they emphasise freedom of speech... like i said 't's been done before by the pedo-party, they were all freedom of speech and freedom of beliefs, and such, but they still promoted something wich was against the law and were outlawed unless they dropped it from their program...

[NejinOniwa]

Well, the Pirate Party isn't for illegal filesharing as policy...instead, we're for reforming the law to incorporate similar solutions...I'm pretty sure we'd been stomped down on already if there was a way for them - considering our opponents in this case.

[Smokey]

Oh, we already have a (sort of) solution for that... The law only prosecutes people who are high-profile sharing or selling copywritten software...
If your an average Joe who's just downloading for him/herself, you've got little to worry about...

[NejinOniwa]

Yeah, and so did we until like last year - since before the IPRED, filesharing was illegal - but the IP numbers necessary to prove someone's guilt are only allowed to be given out in case the crime committed has a possible sentence of over 1 year in prison - and the pilot case just got fined and so it went.
Until 1st of April this year, the joke being that while the cops can't, private copyright owners can demand IP numbers from operators as they see fit.


Shit is fuckded up.

[Smokey]

Still, the industry wouldn't prosecute people who can't pay their fines, wich are mostly those average Joes who are just downloading for personal use...