geekosystem

Near the end of last year, the Language Council of Sweden released its list of the newest words added to the Swedish language, one of which is the delightful term "ogooglebar" -- seriously, just try to say it out loud without smiling -- a word that translates as "ungoogleable." Turns out, Google had a problem with that term, and just the idea that they might have to talk to Mountain View's lawyers was enough to get the language council to back away from "ogooglebar," denying it official status as a word in the Swedish language.

Need something to brighten your Monday morning? A seal pup's life basically turned into a Disney movie this weekend when the adorable critter got lost discovered in a Swedish forest, four miles from the open sea it calls home. Don't worry, though! A good-hearted hunter found the pup and returned it to its home, demonstrating that every once in a while, things just end up working out the way you hope they will.

When a ten-person strong team of Swedish police officers responded to an emergency call over the weekend, they didn't know what they were in for, but considering the details they had to go on -- the caller's description of the situation stated had included the sound of gunshots and frantic cries for help -- they can be forgiven for expecting the worst. Happily, rather than  gruesome abbatoir they may have anticipated, the officers were instead confronted with... a group of teenagers playing Call of Duty.

TV taxes, or license fees per television set, are pretty common throughout Europe, providing funding for many large public broadcasters across the continent, such as the much-loved BBC. This week, though, Sweden updated their structure for collecting the television tax to reflect how more and more people actually watch TV, which is not on their TV. With that in mind, the television tax will now apply to any citizen with a computer or tablet as well.

Sometimes riots happen. Sometimes Swedish teenagers send sexy pictures to each other. Sometimes riots happen because Swedish teenagers send sexy pictures to each other. That's what happened when a group teenagers swarmed the school of a girl accused of posting sexy pictures on Instagram. The riot also spilled over to a local mall, scaring unwitting holiday shoppers. Rioting teenagers in a mall is exactly what old people at malls are afraid of.

As if his new life in a Swedish prison for allegedly hacking the tax records of Swedish company Logica weren't bad enough, The Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg ("anakata" to his pirate friends) is now facing additional suspicions of aggravated fraud and attempted aggravated fraud. While the they are currently considered only "suspicions" and not "charges," that's all officials need to detain someone indefinitely because that's how they do things in Sweden.

Nuclear plant security is one of those things that pretty much everyone agrees on. In essence, it's probably a bad idea to let just anyone wander around a nuclear facility without proper clearance. Just wanting security to be without faults doesn't make it that way, unfortunately. After around 70 Greenpeace activists swarmed two nuclear plants in Sweden, six managed to avoid security overnight by hiding out on rooftops. In fact, plant owner Vattenfall claimed that all the activists had been detained and their security measures had worked.

There seems to be a trend going on where we'd rather our livestock electronically warn us of things rather than actually checking in on them. For example, sheep might soon warn their shepherds of attack via text. Not content to let sheep get all the cool gadgets, Swiss dairy cows are about to get in on the action too. Due to the fact that it can be difficult to discern when a cow is in heat, sensors attached should be able to take measurements and alert farmers by text so they know when to inseminate the critters.

If you've ever read comments on, say, a political website, it can appear that folks in general really aren't willing to see any viewpoint other than their own. They can almost seem incapable of fathoming how someone could hold an opinion opposite the one they have. As it turns out, people actually are a lot more flexible than that, and not in a yoga kind of way. Well, maybe also in a yoga kind of way, but not just. Researchers in Sweden managed to get people to support opinions opposite of the ones they originally held by tricking them into thinking they supported them in the first place.

Correlation is obviously not causation. That said, the suspicious series of events surrounding the arrest of Gottfrid Svartholm, one of the founders of popular torrent site The Pirate Bay, does give room to speculation. After his arrest, Sweden wanted to deport the man from Cambodia, but there's no standing extradition treaty between the two countries. The two apparently came to some kind of agreement, as Cambodia has since agreed to deport Svartholm. Fresh on the heels of this news, it's been announced that Sweden will provide a $59 million aid package to Cambodia for "causes of democratic development, human rights, education, and climate change for two years."

Gottfrid Svartholm, the internet's pirate king, was arrested in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on Thursday. Svartholm, better known by his handle, Anakata, is the founder of everyone's favorite torrent provider, The Pirate Bay. Mr. Svartholm, age 27, has "technically" been on the run since he was sentenced to one year in prison in Sweden for his involvement in creating The Pirate Bay. I say technically because Svartholm hasn't really been running; he simply refused to return to his ancestral homeland after receiving his sentence. Svartholm did not return to Sweden for his trial due to an illness that kept him bed-ridden in a hospital.

In case any of you have forgotten, the official Twitter account for the nation of Sweden moves from person to person each week. This week, we've been treated to the musings of "Sonja," who posed the above question to the world. As you can imagine, it doesn't get much better.

There's a pretty incredible story floating around the Internet today about a 45 year-old Swedish man who was rescued from his car after apparently being trapped inside without food for months. Some snowmobilers came across the vehicle buried in snow on a forest path, not far from the northern city of Umea. His rescuers were surprised to find someone inside, wrapped in a sleeping bag, and even more surprised when the man managed to gasp out that he'd been in the car since December 19th.

The Missionary Church of Kopimism, or in layman's terms, the Church of File-Sharing, was founded in 2010 by Isak Gerson, a philosophy student with a love of file-sharing that, well, bordered on religious. Now, after years of petitioning the Swedish government for official status, he finally got it. The idea was that through official religion, file-sharers might be able to find protection from persecution for their beliefs, which obviously include illegal file-sharing. But it wasn't just a bid for some kind of technical protection, as Gerson seems to take this whole religion thing kind of seriously.

This is just one of those perfectly serendipidious stories you love to hear about. In 1995, a Swedish woman named Lena Påhlsson set her custom-made white gold wedding ring aside as she did the traditional Christmas baking. Amidst the hustle and bustle the tiny treasure vanished, and after years of searching she and her husband Ola accepted that the ring was likely lost forever. That is until this year, when Lena found a surprise in her vegetable garden.