Oh ED, you're a lifesaver! A general who lead an infantry division in Iraq recently said that of the 155 men killed in combat, 122 could have lived if autonomous robots were doing the shooting instead. (Strangely, the other 33 would have died whether robots were around or not.) Replacing infantrymen with robots is a no brainer if you want to save your own boys, but Smokey from The Big Lebowski would probably say if nothing did the killing, even more lives would be spared. [Wired]

Am I reading this right? Slashdot says the entire domain .se—a million souls, I mean sites—up and vanished from the internet. Some didn't deliver successful replies for more than a day. Maybe I need to call Tim Berners-Lee for interpretation, but I don't get why more people aren't freaked out that an entire country up and disappeared, even if it was just for a moment. [Slashdot]

[Edit: This has been one of the most traumatic moments in my life. J.D.]

Someone did a comprehensive study of 836 people to see how people managed to keep username/password logins straight in their head. The test noted that only 4.4% of people showed no "deviations" from the ideal password rules, deviations including jotting down the password, reusing it time and again, using a deliberately short password or—and here's probably where most people failed-having no mix of characters and symbols. Having "best practices" that insanely rigid probably upped the failure rate substantially, but I think the important thing here—as Ars points out—is that the username/password system is a joke to begin with. [Ars Technica]

The 23-year-old guy who founded the International Church of Jediism obviously needs to watch Star Wars a few more times. The other day, he wore his hood into a supermarket and got yelled at something fierce. His very Jedi response? To run to the press and cry like a little bitch:

They said: 'Take it off', and I said: 'No, its part of my religion. It's part of my religious right.' I gave them a Jedi church business card.

No lightsabers, no waving of the hand in the air, not even "Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!" Just a business card? He continues:

They weren't listening to me and were rude. They had three people around me. It was intimidating.

"Intimidating"? For a Jedi? Just remember, intimidation leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Don't look now, but I think someone's headed for the Dark Side. [Guardian UK]

Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Ifpi and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France...[Full version]

You can't really blame the ISP. Yesterday's rulings meant it faced $70,600 in fines if it didn't yank the cord.

And what of Swedish software outfit Global Gaming Factor? It votes this Thursday on whether or not to go ahead with its Pirate Bay buy out. But between all this, and its chairman stepping down, will it still go ahead with plans for a legal version?

If you're looking for help to get your torrent on in the meantime, check out the Pirate Bay clone, or our favorite 5 Pirate Bay BitTorrent Alternatives. [TorrentFreak]

A few days ago, amidst talk of how a new, improved, crowd-powered Pirate Bay would work should the sale go through, the trading of Global Gaming Factory shares on the Swedish Aktietorget exchange was frozen. Why? Its administrators found out that the CEO owes quite a few people quite of bit of money, including the government, for taxes. Today, the company's chairman has stepped down for no obvious reason, and the stock exchange has said that they're going to keep a freeze on stock trading until they figure out what on earth is going on. Something strange, is a good guess!

What does this mean for the Pirate Bay? Well, GGF's debt-ridden CEO has previously said that the deal to purchase the torrent site—which, remember, hasn't actually happened yet—would be "rubber stamped" by shareholders by Thursday. That date is pretty much out of the question now, and the whole plan is starting to look like it was doomed from the start. So what was the point? Was it some kind of weird share-inflating publicity stunt? An intentional distraction? An earnest bid to buy an illegal filesharing site, by idiots? As much as I like the last one, I don't think that's it. [TheLocal via Slashdot]

Eriksson, whose story reaches Mark Sanford levels of ridiculous, is famous for crashing a rare Ferrari, escaping at least one prison sentence, possibly having a movie made about him, leading some sort of mafia in Sweden in the 1990s and making a product nobody ever wanted, ever. Referred to in his native Sweden as "Fat Stefan," because he's fat, Eriksson will serve 18 months in prison for his multitude of mafia and gadget-related crimes. Eriksson is a hilarious dirtbag the likes of which we rarely see in the tech world and he'll be missed, at least theoretically, maybe. [The Local via Engadget, photo credit AP]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Designed by No Picnic, the consonant-heavy name Yggdrasil is actually the name of the "world tree" in Norse mythology, a sort of central holy place. The structure that carries its name presumably was inspired by the arborial myth, and will be erected in 2010/11. [Yanko Design]

Oh wait, yes I can. Say I'm downstairs reading and my wife is upstairs reading, and I'm all like, damn, this light is too dim! And then she's like, no, my light is now too dim. Pretty soon you'll either have a strobe scenario to rival the heyday of Club MTV, or you'll have two people yelling at each other in the dark.

But maybe that's it, the point of Share Aware and the other Aware products conceived by designers Karin Ehrnberger and Loove Broms (not "Love Brooms") of the Interactive Institute in Sweden is to bring this sort of thing to our attention: We do all share a finite amount of electricity, whether our lightbulbs show it or not. Still doesn't change the fact that I would be labeled a "light hog" in no time. [Dezeen]

Designed by Swedish designers Humans since 1982, the Clock Clock's 48 hands will never give you the correct time unless you take all of them in at once. But when you do... POW! Time to start telling time in convoluted a way as possible. [Dezeen]

Instead of collecting donations or paying the fee off themselves, Gottfrid Svarholm (anakata), one of the four Pirate Bay founders, has come up with the DDo$—not a DDoS as we know it, but instead, a Distributed Denial of Dollars attack. The plan encourages all people who use the Internet to pay a tiny "internet-avgift" (Internet fee) of $0.13, and send it to the Danowsky law firm, which represented the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in the Pirate Bay trial.

Because the law firm only has 1,000 free money transfers, if enough Internet users send a fee to them, it will actually end up costing the Danowsky firm and other music companies to handle and process all the payments. So not only will the Pirate Bay founders not have to pay the fine out of their own pockets, but also it could possibly play a role in the outcome of future pirating cases. [BlogPirate via SlashDot]

As you'll see in the clip below, the sculpture created a bit of a phenomenon, causing traffic jams and a small media sensation. But I included the video for the fun time lapse construction that you can see about a minute in. I just love watching a small army of people complete a several hour project over a matter of seconds. It feels like I'm getting a ton accomplished, just by sitting here. [CR Blog via The Daily What]

The guilty verdict handed down to the Pirate Bay leaders resulted in a huge amount of publicity and popularity for the Pirate Party, regardless of the fact that the two are not officially related. Membership has shot up to a record 42,000+, and a recent poll to check out the frontrunners in the E.U. election showed even rosier numbers.

The Pirate Party is now the second-most popular party for voters 18-30, and Swedish newspaper DN.se predicts a vote of 5.1% in the election, which will be enough for a seat in Parliament. Sure, it's a minority vote (and that's being generous), but a pirate can surely stand his ground. [DN.se (warning: Swedish) via TorrentFreak]

In 2007, a muscular robot programmed to lift heavy stones malfunctioned in a factory near Stockholm, Sweden, and some poor devil—who thought he'd turned off the power—nearly got himself killed when the robot grabbed his head and shook him around. He ended up with four broken ribs, but managed to "defend himself" and live. The judge awarded the guy 25,000 Swedish kronor, which sounds nice except that it's only about $3,000. The judge also reprimanded the guy for being at least partially at fault, if I'm reading the Swedish translation correctly.

My point is, if the guy had only had Old Glory robot insurance, he'd have gotten way more than $3K, and probably wouldn't have gotten that reprimand either, because we know how Old Glory feels about robots. (Sorry in advance to people outside NBC.com boundaries—the video below is damn funny.) [SvD via io9]

Some Swedish attorneys believe that Norström's membership of the Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property (where he is a board member) represent a full-on conflict of interest, a charge that, naturally, he denies. I won't pretend to know whether or not these accusations constitute full-on shenanigans (legal term!) under Swedish law, but the fact that a juror on the case was dismissed for membership in the same organizations should raise a few eyebrows.

So, there's a little conspiracy to mix in with your boiling indignation. Enjoy! [The Local—Thanks Jason, Buster, and John!]

Interestingly, the Head Pirates ask that users stop donating money for them to pay down the fines they've been slapped with: They don't intend to pay a single cent (or whatever the Swedish denomination may be) toward these fines.

We have seen that some people that we don't know have started collecting donations for us, so we can pay those silly fines. We firmly ask you NOT to do this. Do not gather or send any money. We do not want them since we will not pay any fines!

Instead, they request that users seed their torrents as much as they can, bring in new users/pirates, and oh yeah, maybe buy a t-shirt if you really want one.

They've also officially announced that they've started the appeals process, which they estimate will take 2 or 3 years, and all in all seem more convinced than ever that they're in the right. Agree or disagree, you've got to admire the chutzpah of these guys. [The Pirate Bay]

The protest is led by led by Sweden's Pirate Party, a political organization not officially affiliated with the Pirate Bay but whose interests coincide nicely: The day after the verdict, the Pirate Party's membership grew by 20%. Party chairman Rickard Falkvinge rallied the protesters in downtown Stockholm, saying, "The establishment and the politicians have declared war against our whole generation."

There has been as yet no word detailing precisely how many of the protesters just wanted to wear bandannas and yell "Arr!" [AP]

After a decidedly entertaining trial replete with posturing, theatrics and serious cockiness, the four co-founders of the torrent site were found to have been accessories to copyright infringement, each face a year in prison, and must pay $3.5m in damages to Sony, Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures and others.

Although he could be going to jail soon, Sunde is still quick to make a joke:

Really, it's a bit LOL. It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.

Ha? However, his casualness might be warranted, as the appeals process—which could bring the case all the way to the Swedish Supreme Court—is expected to stretch out for years. As for what will happen to the site? Sunde reassures:

Stay calm - Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or file sharing what so ever. This is just a theater for the media.

This hasn't been the best week for pirates, really. [TheLocal —Thanks, Jonathan!]

Yes, the land of IKEA, Volvos and meatballs has produced a heady combination of art, technology and the epitome of the mundane. I don't read Swedish so I can't tell exactly how far along the project is, but the project blog has plenty of chatter about it, dating back to late last year.

The artist, Mikael Genberg, plans to to this "as a symbol of what one man can achieve." I am sure the 14 roboticists at the Malardalens University who are working with Mikael were happy to hear about this one-man business. [News.com AU]

The drop was measured by Netnod, a Swedish web tracking firm, who found that traffic fell from 120GB/s to 80GB/s on the day the law went into effect.

Christian Engstrom, VP of Sweden's Pirate Party (love it) is not concerned, however. He told the BBC:

"Today, there is a very drastic reduction in internet traffic. But experience from other countries suggests that while file-sharing drops on the day a law is passed, it starts climbing again. . .One of the reasons is that it takes people a few weeks to figure out how to change their security settings so that can share files anonymously," he added.

The law is catching a lot of flak for effectively letting corporations enforce anti-piracy code with lawsuits, rather than leaving them to the police to deal with offenders on a criminal basis. Copyright holders can no go straight to the uploader's ISP, get his IP address and identity, and sue him up good.

From the country that gave us the Pirate Bay, though, I'm sure someone will figure out a way to subvert this. [BBC]

The Pirate Party, staffed entirely by volunteers, may have only gotten about 35,000 votes (0.63%) in Sweden's 2006 elections, but with the current uproar over the Swedish goverment's restrictive laws and the media sensation of our torrenting buddies the Pirate Bay, registration has swelled. With 12,000 contributing members, the Pirate Party is now larger than both the Swedish Green Party and the Swedish Left Party, and they're staking the future of their organization on a run for a seat in the European Union Parliament this June.

The Pirate Party doesn't have a lock on a seat; they'll need about 100,000 votes, which would require a huge jump from their previous total. But given the atmosphere, they've certainly got a shot at it. Check out their website for more information on their aims, which include not only copyright law but Internet privacy as well. [Wired]

The raid, launched on a server owned by the Nordic file sharing ring Sunnyvale, actually took place during The Pirate Bay trial of the epoch. The Swedish Anti-Piracy Agency says that by taking down that server, they caused the collapse of the entire 10-server Sunnyvale ring, which put out about 65 terabytes of pirated goods, from games to TV. The Anti-Piracy Agency claimed further they the Sunnyvale ring was in fact the source of all of The Pirate Bay's pirated material. Uh huh.

TPB's Peter Sunde says "it is possible that it's a major source" but is also dubious the Sunnyvale ring is the sole source of the material that makes TPB tick, since "more than 800,000 people have uploaded to The Pirate Bay."

So, uh, who do you believe? [The Local - Thanks Andreas!]

The trial has been going well for everybody's favorite Swedish internet pirates, with the prosecution showing signs of a lack of familiarity with the techie aspects of the case, and the dismissal of the term IRL. So to mark this triumph, the Pirates threw a big ol' party with free champagne for everybody!

Several local DJs presided over the festivities, with sneaky references to the trial's events thrown in. Streams of the IRC channel where torrents are uploaded were projected on the walls, and the Pirates bragged that local police had voiced support for their cause. They even received awards from political youth groups.

Even though the Pirates themselves were never in much legal danger, it's nice to see their spirits are still up. You can see more pictures from the party here. The trial starts up again on Tuesday, and we'll report any exciting updates. [Torrent Freak]