Pirate Times Intros

Posts about why people joined the Pirate Times team and how they hope to help. These intros will be more formalized later once website is launched. Good with a place for new people to read about their new team. People added in alphabetic order.

---

Current team members

Allan Melo

Hi guys,

My name is Allan Melo and I'm journalist, actually working as editor at TechTudo, one of the most popular tech-portals in Brazil. I'm also in GTC, the group responsible for PR of the brazilian Pirate Party. I don't know if you already have members here, but if you need something in Rio de Janeiro, where I'm based, you can count with me. My English is not perfect, but I'm able to write any article, take photos or make videos from here, if you need.

So... that's it. Hope to help your team soon.

Regards,

Allan Melo

Andrew Reitemeyer

Hello everyone,

My name is Andrew Reitemeyer and am a New Zealand citizen living in Germany. I am a programmer and bilingual in English (native speaker) and German. My marital status is a widower, am 57 years old and live with my daughter, who will soon be starting her final school year.

I joined the Pirate Party in April this year after having learned that I do not need to be a German citizen to do so. I have been active in the founding of the local chapter of the Pirate Party of Lower Saxony - the Piratenpartei Osterholz and am a board member of that organization. On the political spectrum, I come to the pirate philosophy from the libertarian left.

I am also in close contact with the New Zealand Pirate Party although I currently cannot join as to the length of my absence from my native land precludes me from being a registered voter. This will change at the end of 2013. I intend to return to New Zealand permanently as my daughter will have graduated high school and started her university studies.

As a programmer and have, because of my native ability, gathered experience in the writing and translation of technical documents. I would welcome the opportunity to expand the range of subjects I can write about to more than software handbooks and manuals.

I am happy to write in English and translate German to English but not the other way around. Also I can proof read English texts and check DE -> EN translations.

I will be glad to expand on my introduction and answer any questions at the mumble meeting on Thursday.

Cheers, Andrew

Anton Nordenfur

Hi all,

My name is Anton Nordenfur, and I live in Linköping, Sweden. I'm a board member of the Swedish Pirate Party as well as president of the East Sweden chapter of our youth organisation. I have studied Chinese language and Asian politics, and I plan to start with science and engineering this autumn.

Politically I am mostly interested in subjects relating to science and education, and I currently focus specifically on promoting open access. Outside of politics I enjoy reading and writing, both fiction and non-fiction.

I hope to contribute to Pirate Times to whatever degree I am needed to, be it proof reading, writing or translating current Swedish/Norwegian/Danish/Chinese news.

Basically, just contact me if something is needed, and I usually either have the time or take the time for it.

-- Anton Nordenfur

Anouk

So this leads to my introduction, I am Anouk alias mrNatural on most PP forums. I'm a male, 48 years now, native Dutch. But my English is almost as good and since 2001 I live permanently in France. So my French is also not that bad :) On top of this I watch free German satellite TV because the French programs really suck (sorry if I offended anyone) and only the Germans broadcast films on the free sat channels. Since everything in Germany is voiced/dubbed over I also understand a fair bit of German now. I'm not web master or anything like that but I do have computers since Sinclair made them, use preferably open source and am on the internet since the early nineties. So about the WWW and slow connections I've seen it all. I am autodidact, open-minded, philosopher and have a free spirit. In my young years I was a punker and call myself an collectivist anarchist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivist_anarchism. After a huge demonstration against nuclear energy and weapons in 1981 Amsterdam (400.000 protesters) and the following year NOTHING had changed, I got so disillusioned that I left the politics for ever. Until I discovered the Pirate Party, yeah. I call this phenomenon the third rise of the collective conscience. The first was flower power, the birth, only PEACE AND LOVE TOGETHER will cure it all. But it was too naive became too egoistic and we got sold out to the decadence. The second wave was the response to this and coming in terms with it. The NO FUTURE-generation where I grew up with, from punk to raver, selfish and abusive behaviour. I AM alone in the crowd. I noticed already since a couple of years that there is something in the air. I pray that it is true but what I see happening in society emerging spontaneous is that this generation is performing the third wave: Let us COOPERATE to achieve at least some peace and love in the world.

I don't know what will happen next but I can assure everybody I'll be sticking on to the Pirate Party for a long time to come.

alias mrNatural (certified MIG-welder, qualified optician, coffee-shop manager in Amsterdam- retired  :)

Brad Hall

Hello.

I am Brad Hall, chairman of the Florida Pirate Party. I am also the PPI delegate as we're an official observer member to the PPI.

What else can I say? I'm a substitute teacher, I'm a writer, and am the editor behind the USPP's No Safe Harbor book. We're working on a second one right now, so if anyone would like information on how to contribute to that, let me know. I've been a journalist since I was in 8th grade and actually first "joined" the party in the US under the guise of an embedded journalist, I figured it'd be a good idea to document the rise of the party, figured there was a story in it. Somehow that idea got left behind and I've embraced the Pirate Party as a member. I've not left behind my journalistic roots. Of course it is a bit hard to be objective when you're a part of the movement you hope to document.

I aim to be useful.

Brad Hall

Bruno Riguzzi

As requested by the email response sent, here is a brief introduction etc.

I will try not to be cliche, so the intro will be rather short. I would not be signing up to contribute to this page if I did not truly believe that file-sharing (or how the ignorant refer to it, piracy) is actually beneficial for society. I have participated in various movements to promote online file sharing etc. I live in São Paulo, Brasil, a city that despite the size, is only getting introduced to the online infrastructure (the digital era) in the last 5 years. I study in a American School, and have always fought to the best of my abilities in order for us to use more p2p and 'online interactions'. I believe that our society (Brazilians) are rather uninformed about what is really going on, and easy manipulated by the corrupt government; so I am very interested in translating articles into Brazilian Portuguese. I would also be willing to help proof-read articles, if that is still needed. It would be a honor to work with you. Regards, Bruno Riguzzi

Carl Frederik

Hi,

I'm a Swedish pirate party member and medical student. I'm interested in copyright and do a bit of work on Wikipedia, mostly researching and uploading works that lack copyright or are CC-BY-SA licensed, which is partly where my interest for pirate ideology comes from. On top of this I also do a bit of editing and writing there. I'm interested in starting off proof-reading any and all articles, which is where I think I can contribute most, at least for now.

Apart from this I'm fluent in both English and Swedish and can participate in any translation-work needing to be done.

Sincerely, Carl Fredrik

Christoper Engelhardt

Hello my name is Christopher Engelhardt I am currently a student in the United States, unfortunately at this time there is no pirate party officially established in my state of residence. I have an interest in programming, web design, robotics and IT. I speak English and a little German. I am working toward my CCNA.

Cullen Matthews

I am a Website Designer and Graphic Designer for Pirate Times. Born and currently residing in Johnsburg Illinois. I graduated McHenry County College with an Associates Degree in Digital Media and I'm continuing my education in Website Development at DePaul University. I am also a supporting and active member of the US Pirate Party and I am the Illinois Pirate Party Chairman. I also work along with the American German Pirate Party Partnership or AGP3 as a website designer. I volunteered my talents to the PirateTimes team for the soul purpose of their success. I believe the Pirate Party has good values and will succeed in their diplomatic mission to protect the internet from being censored and to reform the use of copyright laws.

David Ormeño

hi, i'm David from Chile and i want to be a translator i speak spanish - mother language - bye

-- David Ormeño R.

Ed Geraghty

Good evening, all!

I have been directed to give an introduction thingie on here.

I'm Ed, I'm one of the UK Pirates. I do stuff and things. I'm one of the UK's spokesman and I generally proof-read the press releases which go out.

If you want to know more about me, please ask - I'm looking forward to working on your team :)

Ed

Fabián Plaza Miranda

Hello!

I wanted to introduce myself to the list as a new member of the Pirate Times team. My name is Fabián Plaza, and I'm a member of the Spanish Pirate Confederation; I usually work with the Galician and Catalan Pirates (I've been an election candidate in both regions).

I'm also a Lawyer and a writer. As a Lawyer, I'm specialized in International Law and Spanish Internet Law. I'm a fighter for human rights and believe in peaceful conflict resolution. I speak fluent Spanish, Catalan, English, French and a quite decent Italian. As a writer, I was finalist of Andromeda (2008) and Minotauro (2010) Awards, with works centered on political science-fiction. I've published several books, short stories and opinion pieces.

I hope you find my contributions useful. I consider the Spanish Pirate movement is very active and I'll try to write about what we do here. Please be kind with me if I make any mistake, since I sometimes get lost with the Pirate tools. :)

As a beginning, I've written an article explaining the corruption scandal that has appeared in Spain this week. I know it's not a "Pirate topic" per se, but since it involves transparency, I thought it could be a good idea. Plus, it's becoming an international "hot topic". I hope you enjoy it, or if you don't, that you tell me how to improve future articles. ;)

BTW, the article needs some proofreading. I may have missed some of the style policies (which I didn't know when I wrote the text). It also needs a picture.

Thanks for everything!

Un abrazo, Fabián Plaza Miranda.

Felicitas Steinhoff

My name is Felicitas Steinhoff, I currently live in Hildesheim Lower Saxony ,where I work for our Pirate Party Fraction in city council. I joined the Pirates in March, when I moved back to Germany from Boston.

I do have some contact to the Pirate Party in Massachusetts.

I am German, but got my BA at St. John's College in Santa Fe, and then my MA in International Relations and Diplomacy at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco where I lived for two years.

Professionally, I am currently a fledging English-tutor, translator, and prepare exchange students for their year in Germany.

I think this transnational newsletter is a wonderful idea and would love to contribute by writing pieces and translating things (English to German et v.v.)

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to participate in the TelCo (I just moved, German Internet providers take long to install phone lines, hassle, etc), but I'll check out the pad before and after and look forward to twitter and email updates:)

-- Felicitas Steinhoff

Finlay Archibald

Ahoy!

Finally getting round to writing my introduction. Here goes:

I'm Finlay, I've been a PPUK member since 2010. I've been an election candidate in the past, and am currently on the PPUK press team. I've been interested in helping start some kind of international pirate news service: Josef will remember me from the 2011 PPI conference in Friedrichshafen. I'm glad that the Pirate Times has got off the ground now, and although I haven't been able to contribute as much as I'd like, I do intend to do what I can to help.

I have experience within the PPUK press team of helping put out press releases, and even got quoted in a national newspaper once myself (woo! :D ). I hope to be able to submit regular pieces: I am trying to get into writing for other issues to, such as my university's science magazine, and blogging.

I have also an idea for an article. PPUK leader Loz Kaye is standing in a by-election due to be help in November. I will be travelling down to help with the campaign, and attend the vote count. Due to the UK's election system it isn't expected that he will win the seat (you would need a plurality of the vote), but we could hopefully get a good result. More than 5% would be notable. I would like to collate stories from the campaign, and write an article with the results (including some nice pics/video).

Anyway, thanks and I look forward to working with you all :)

-- Finlay Archibald

Florian Farge

Hello,

I'm Florian from France (Rhône-alpes section of Parti Pirate exactly → pirate map http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/fr/map/presence-pirate_3173#8/45.366/6.512 ) I'm 26 years old. I could give a hand on the translation from English to French.

Florian Farge aka Otourly

Gefion Thuermer

Hi all,

My name is Gefion Thuermer, I come from Germany and live in the UK. I have joined the pirate party Germany in 2009 and the PPUK in 2012. Since 2010 I am editor in chief of the German newsletter "Flaschenpost", which some of you might know. I was a member of the national board in Germany last year and built up the teams who take care of all PR and related tasks, so have quite a good network all over the place. At the moment, besided the two newsletters, I am also building up the PPI Press team. I have tried to establish international news for the Flaschenpost for some time now and thereby came across Joseph. We planned to set something up together for ages (since 2010?) and I am excited that it finally gets rolling now! For the Pirate Times, I am the team leader. I try to make sure that all of you feel good within the team, have access to all you need, know what to do and how. I want us all to have an overall productive atmosphere so the project can flourish. I also try to keep track of who is on board and (especially important when being around internationally) which timezones you guys are in and which language capabilities we have.

If you have any questions, concerns, or just like to network - let me know!

Best regards, Gefion

Guillaume Soulet

Good evening everyone !

I'm Guillaume Soulet, french from Paris, and pirate since '08. I'm currently coordinator of the French-speaking pirate organisation known as "Parti Pirate Francophone". So, I help the promotion of pirate news and event, even if I don't have the time to animate this correctly.

As a professional, I used to work for Apple for a year, in Ireland, and for some Cie (french, mostly) as EMEA supervisor. I'm currently working for two organizations: Agence²² for two years, French NGO, and SL CDI, French Cie, for one year.

Agence²² is an NGO specialized in development in Africa, Non-profit structures in France, and the mail goal is to reduce poverty and discrimination.

SL CDI was founded last year, in order to accept projects that Agence²² cannot accept, as helping profit Cie to raise or providing advices for innovative projects.

My work consist mainly in finding solutions for organizations issues, as power supply or computer security for examples, but also explaining very hard stuff with simple word, as reducing 3000 words to 100. Quite hard.

With PirateTimes, I would like to share with pirates arround the world the knowledge I acquire, my experiences, and (I hope I will be able to) make some interview with interesting people.

You can adding me freely on skype, or in facebook.

NB: You will find the Agence²² ecological program "Ecosite²²" attached to this email.

Guillaume Soulet

Harpreet Singh

Hello, my names Harpreet and I would be very willing to help with proof reading before the articles are published. I feel I am hard working as well as determined to do my best in any field of work!

Thanks for this opportunity... I look forward to working with you

Harpreet Singh

Heather Denny

I would be interested in participating by the Pirate News as proofreader. I am a native English speaker as well as professional Intercultural Competence and Global Business English trainer in the Nuremberg area of Germany. My original educational and work background is in mass media and advertising. If you have any further questions, please contact me; I would be glad to hear from you.

Heather J. Denny

Hugo Ferreira

Hi, my name is Hugo Ferreira and i'm a Portuguese software developer living in Ireland.

Government transparency, civil liberties and the removal of an abusive patent/copyright system fueled by greed that prevents or slows humanity's advancement, are themes that are very relevant for me.

I can help out by writing and proofreading articles especially, but not limited to, technology .

I'm looking forward for helping the Pirate Party in making a difference and hopefully a better world.

All the best, Hugo

Jan

Ahoy everyone!

I just joined the Pirate Times as enjoying to write every now and then. I'm a recent graduate from Germany, 20 years old, studying Public Administration in the future.

Yours sincerely, Jan

Janita

Hello everyone,

I'm new to this list so I will introduce myself. Some weeks ago I was in Hanover for an international workshop from the PP Niedersachsen, where I got to know some of the PT team members. The idea raise to contribute an article on web-accessibility, which was published this week. I would like to do more, so decided to sign up.

I'm a member of the Dutch Pirate Party, and active since the national elections of last summer on local level. I coordinated signatures and campaigning in Groningen, where I live. I don't have much political experience yet, but I do have a lot of experience on international level organizing (youth) exchanges throughout Europe and Caucasus. This started with environmental topics, but soon became more varied. So the idea to exchange information and to write articles to create more awareness on certain topics we all are working on, really appeals to me.

Looking forward to cooperate,

Greetings, Janita

Jon-Laurence Esnard de Cespedes

Hello Everyone, My name is Jon-Lawrence Esnard de Cespedes. I am a Spanish-American living in South Beach, Florida. I speak, read, and write English fluently and i speak, read, and write Spanish almost fluently. I have a B.A. in Religion, Philosophy, and Pop-Culture and am about to go back to school in order to complete my Masters in Human Services Management. I would love to join you guys in order to assist in writing articles, graphic/web design, photography/artwork (if needed), proof reading, and translating to and from Spanish (though i am better qualified at translating FROM Spanish than TO Spanish). I am already close friends with your editor, Michael Wartenbe, whom also lives in the Miami-Dade County area and hope to work in conjunction with him in the near future. I have a full time job and will soon be a full-time student again, however, i plan to dedicate as much time and effort to the Pirate Times as i am able to. Thank you for accepting me. Jon-Laurence Esnard de Cespedes

Josef Ohlsson Collentine

Hi team,

I'm a 26year old Swedish/American with a bachelor in PR and Marketing. I have a blog at http://collentine.com where I focus on three areas that particularly interest me: transparency, social media and cultural patterns. I have a creative soul and constantly work on new ideas and projects.

Currently I'm the international contact person for Piratpartiet in Sweden. Despite this (it's a global world) I'm living in Mexico city with it's 22million inhabitants since January. Currently looking to start up a career here in the area of PR, Marketing or international relations. Being here half a year means I've become fairly fluent in Spanish which I hope I can use to connect European pirates more with South-American and Mexican ones.

Earlier I had another newsletter project called ChangingPirateParties. It was a project for one of my courses and gathered a small but very influential following where many top people within their respective country was receiving the newsletter. Not marketed or spread much because of several reasons: infrastructure lacking, me working on my own with it and because it was mainly used to test different concepts to see what I could build from it. Now it's mainly alive via the twitter account @ppnewsletter

These ideas around spreading pirate news globally led me to bring together Gefion, Justus and Daniel to help me create Pirate Times. Right now I'm working as the organizational leader for Pirate Times, meaning I do a lot of tasks make everything work smoothly. Feel free to contact me if any questions or ideas around this arises!

With this international news service I hope to spread awareness of pirate activities between countries, increase cross-border communication, inspire pirates and help to influence pirate parties through making news accessible. With the emergence of Pirate Times I believe the pirate movement will become more united and stronger. There is a lot of good and positive progress in different countries that need more highlighting. I'm very grateful for everyone that feels a need for Pirate Times and follows the newsletter or joins the team to make it better.

Kindly, Josef

Justus

Moin team!

I am also 26, a German living in Hanover, Germany, finishing my master thesis. I am quite interested in travelling, international networking and interculturality in general, having lived in the US, the NL, Czech Republic and Poland during my studies. I will hold a degree in Euoculture from the Universities of Göttingen and Cracow once I am done, which should be in about a month (well, the degrees will waiot a bit longer, but still).

This means I will be quite busy until then and will only be able to contribute sporadically, unfortunately, but I hope I can be of value to the team nevertheless.

Having joined Piratenpartei in 2009 I quite soon noticed that international matters interested me more than regional or national ones, so I became active on the PPI, and later the PPEU mailing lists, trying to focus on networking. I think it is important to provide a better information flow on the international level, hence my involvement in this project.

I am fluent in German, English, and Dutch, and have basic skills in a number of Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages. Other than my involvement here I am involved with local politics in Hanover, the young pirates in Hanover and Lower Saxony, the international coordination team of PPDE, the creation of PPEU, and coordinating part of the German help to the elections in the NL, though at varying degrees due to the thesis being more important.

I look forward to working with you all and to making this important project happening!

Kind regards, Justus

Kristinn Örn Viðarsson

Dear All,

I´m Kristinn from Iceland currently studying at the Cooper Union: a free engineering/architecture/art school in the East village, New York, for architecture, and everything else. Only here with an interest in writing about other people, “communications” that interest Pirate Times and create/establish/maintain relationships within this global network. All together writing is the only line of work that is of interest, but if there is anything other available that is a possibility, as well as design related projects. You can email me here from now on and I will be sure to update you when there is a 'pirate times' email address you can reach as well.

-köv

Koen Devoegt

Hello All,

My name is Koen De Voegt, I'm a 32 year old engineer from Antwerp, Belgium. I joined the Belgian Pirate Party in October of 2011. Around that time I was one of the first members of the Ghent branch. In January 2012 I founded of the local branch of the PP in the city and province of Antwerp. I'm also travelling to international PP meetings, sometimes as delegate. I find the international nature of the pirate movement one of it's great strengths.

I'm interested in helping out with the Pirate Times. I will however not commit to writing regular articles on my own. I'm more interested in working together on articles. I have a mild dyslexia. So I would definitely be more confident in my work if things get proof read.

At this moment we're trying to set-up a more coordinated writing squad in Belgium. I'm also interested in seeing how you guys work and maybe use some ideas on our national/regional level.

I see that there is a mumble meeting tonight, I will try to join you to discuss further.

Regards, Koen

Laurent

Good morning,

As I am invited to ;) here is my short introduction to my humble person ;)

Pirate I was, Pirate I am , still the question remains , what kind of pirate should I be in the coming years ?

I have been involving myself within the French Pirate Party a few years ago, even participated to PPI at relative same time. And also been involving myself in local elections (that was the first time FR Pirate Party was showing on mainstream at this state).

I am already regular reader of Pirate Times, I'd like to contribute by translating some relevant article into french, and why not, writing them (in french / English ). If there is already existing teams, I would be happy joining them (if they agree of course ;) )

For further informatioin, feel free to contact I do not bite (often) :)

Regards,

Cwicket

Libor Spacek

Ahoj fellow Pirates!

Allow me to introduce myself and to become a member of the Pirate Times Team:

I was born in Brno, Czech Republic. My first taste of centralised unaccountable power came early, in the form of the Soviet invasion of my country. Soon after, at the age of 18, I emigrated to England, in order not to have to compromise with, and tacidly support, the regime installed by brute force.

There I worked in the computer industry and I studied mathematics and computing. I hold a PhD in Computer Science. I worked in a tenured academic position in a UK university for 30 years.

Recently I took an early retirement and returned to the Czech Republic, where I joined the Pirate Party.

I have come to realise that many power structures share, often in a more covert and sophisticated form, the same goals and tendencies that I was lucky to glimpse so clearly early on in my life. Consequently I always stood against centralisation and collectivism in all their forms. I see them as the roots of many problems. Be it in politics, business or computing. I have been a supporter of free and open source software for a long time.

I feel that the time has come for me to put the pen to the paper and to help others to do the same.

Shiver my timbers!

Libor Spacek

Loïc Grobol

hello, all :) I am Loïc Grobol (Evpok), from PP-FR, I am also involved in PPI TTF and PP-EU program group, plus the Free Culture translation team Framalang. The press review team at PP-FR has just hatched but I'll be part of it, and I routinely browse many news, if only to translate them.

As for July 2012 I am 20, a student in Mathematics and Linguistics and I live in Orléans, France. I discovered the Pirate movement in late 2011, and subsequently adhered to PP-FR, but I have been a Free Software/Culture advocate and contributor for years. These are my main political interests, along with European politics, especially EU construction and EU Federalism.

I expect to have much to do in the next months, and maybe in the next years, but I will try to dedicate as much time as possible to Pirate Times.

Thank you for having me, and now let's work.

LG

Luca Rubinato

Hi everybody!

My name is Luca Rubinato. I'm a 37 years old, Italian activist, and I'm quite happy to join you.

Mainly I'm a sociologist, working on the subject of e-democracy with an Italian think-tank of 20 researchers from different fields (www.edgeofdemocracy.org: the site is still offline, but we're working on it). As I said, my main field of interest is e-democracy. I'm especially interested in building a theoretical framework for it, combining the results of Complexity Science with Game Theory, Psychology, Sociology, Political Science and Economy. I do think all of these disciplines are needed to correctly approach a subject as complex and relevant as e-democracy. I also do think that the reason for the very existence of so many different movements asking for direct participation in politics these days (from American Occupy to the Spanish 15M, passing trough the Pirate Party, of course) has something to do with the paradigm shift that occurred in science through the exploration of complex adaptive systems. I do think that this paradigm shift is generating a new domain – to use Brian Arthur expression – and that todays movements are manifestations of this new domain, even if in many cases they're unaware of this.

For sure it's not an easy job, but I do think the lack of theoretical exploration on the subject is what is holding a lot of movements back. I do think only approaching e-democracy (both direct or liquid) from bottom (theory) - up (practice) is really possible to build useful and powerful practices and tools for combining local intelligences into a global one. We have to find better ways to use our collective intelligence than standard representative democracy: not only there's really no reason for this to be impossible, but there are very strong evidences that this is desirable, both etically and rationally.

Having saying that, I think my main contribution to your effort could be to write about this subject. I do know that this is not exactly what you're writing about. Actually, this can't be labeled as “news”, but I do think is a very interesting field to explore for a movement as the Pirate Party. Useless to say that the choice is yours.

English is not my mother language, so I'm afraid I wouldn't be a good proof reader, but aside from that, I will be happy to help you in any way I can: article and interview development, translation from English to Italian, proof-reading Italian articles, news-gathering about Italian politics, etc.

To end this long presentation, let me say I'm thankful to you for what you're doing, and I would be honored to contribute.

Of course, if you have any question I'll be more than happy to answer you.

All the best, L

Luis Cuerdo

Hello all!

I am a member of the Spanish Pirate Party and also a member of the Pirate Party from Madrid, I am publishing some articles for the latter and one of them was a translation from the Pirate times. I usually live in UK but I am right now in Spain, I am afraid that I cannot offer much more than translations into Spanish, maybe also act as a reporter in Spain or UK. I would like to be informed about your activities to see if there are any other ways to help.

Kind regards,

Luis

Luka Dujmovic

Hello fellow Pirates!

My name is Luka Dujmovic and I would like to introduce myself to all of you who contribute for the Pirate Times.

I'm from Croatia and I'm a member of the Croatian Pirate party since november 2012. I have a bachelor and master degree in political science (specialisation in European studies and public policies, management and development) and last year I've written and defended a thesis called "Open source democracy - the internet, social networks and representative democracy", which is soon to be published as a scientific article I hope (for now it's only in Croatian). Apart from my mother tongue I speak English fluently and I have a moderate knowledge of Spanish.

I'm interested to contribute to all sorts of topics, from the political theory of the pirate movement to providing local news about the activities of the Croatian pirate party. Also, I will help in any way I can in all required topics within my abilities and free time.

If any of you have any questions, suggestions or just want to say hello, feel free to contact me.

Cheers!

Luka

Marc Shepard

Ahoy there mates.

My name is Marc Shepard. This fall I participated in my first "official" assignment for the Pirate Party. I helped man a table at the 23rd annual Boston Freedom Rally. It was inspiring to connect with the public about our causes. It did however leave me wanting to learn more. I picked up a hardcopy of No Safe Harbor. Finished it the next day then immediately lent it out. I was hooked.

Most of my previous activism has been working toward drug-policy reform. In fact for the past few years I have been a regularly appearing personality on the Boston Pot Report. https://www.facebook.com/bostonpotreport

I do have a somewhat of a writing/media background. My first job was data entry at my town's Board of Education. Since then I have been a burger-flipper, a disc-jockey, an antique-hunter, a tech-supporter, a tele-fundraiser, a pizza-deliverer, and for the past ten years a bicycle-courier.

I would be most interested in editing, proofreading, and research assignments.

At your service, ~Shep

Marianne Diaz

Hey, people. I've just suscribed to the list. I'm Marianne Diaz, a lawyer, writer and activist from Venezuela. I am currently working on the topics of freedom of speech, digital rights and access to information in Latin America, founding an NGO intended to be a monitor for Internet access in Venezuela, and trying to help founding the Venezuelan Pirate Party. I write for Global Voices Advocacy on the topic of online freedom of speech. You can read some of my work here: http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/author/marianne-diaz/ I'm @mariannedh on Twitter. I would love to help write and edit articles for the Pirate Times, even though, obviously, English is not my first language. Best to all,

Marianne

Mason Williams

My name is Mason Williams, I am a digital activist and wish to assist or revive the Texas Pirate Party. Since Wikileaks began it's release of US Classified documents I have followed an array of News not typically followed by most. I came across Smari McCarthy. He has taught me a great deal. Because of him and watching what impact he has on his society I have been inspired to do so as well by him and others I have come to study through his work. I hope to learn and watch until I obtain skills to assist. I study a great deal about social cybernetics. I am pursuing the goal of educating the masses. Finding ways to represent everything through media. I recently typed this. http://piratepad.net/ep/pad/view/ro.eIZvbD285mA/latest

Matic Urbanija

Ahoi!

My name is Matic Urbanija and I am international coordinator at Pirate Party of Slovenia. I have BA in Sinology and Theology, currently I write Sinology PhD thesis. I'm fluent in English, Chinese and Serb/Croatian language. I can read German and understand few words of Japanese (biru beeing the most important one ;) ). I'm also involved in noise sound art project Theremidi Orchestra (http://wiki.ljudmila.org/Theremidi_Orchestra).

I'm member of Pirate Party of Slovenia since 2009 when we had first meeting of Pirates in Slovenia. Although our Party is currently still not officially registered, I think that 2009 can still count as a year of our Party's establishment. As a writer for Pirate Times, I would like to cover news about Pirate movement in Slovenia. We are planning to (finally) register our Party in autumn so there will be much fuzz about this process. Because of my studies I'm also interested in East Asia. That's why I would also like to cover the PP situation and general political/social situation there. And of course, I'm also interested in EU and PPEU situation.

Hopet that I'll be useful to our cooperation!

Matthijs Pontier

I have always had an interest for privacy, digital freedom and copyright reform. I actively Twitter about this subject, publish opinion articles and perform in the media every now and then. As a scientist, I worked to enable robots and computers to make moral decisions, and currently I am trying to bring morals and integrity back into politics by advocating transparency and citizen participation. I gave up my position as number one on the candidate list of the Pirate Party Amsterdam to be a candidate for the Dutch Pirate Party in the European Parliament.

Mauro Pili

Hello, my name il Mauro (my full name is Mauro Pili, and my nick is Mauro Pirata). I'm a member of the italian Pirate Party, I work in the editorial staff of the official site of the PP-IT http://www.partito-pirata.it/ and I also translate on a regular basis the posts from the Pirate Times for the italian site: http://www.partito-pirata.it/category/postdalmondo/

I'd like to write about italian Pirate Party in Pirate Times.

Thank you Mauro

Michael Moroni

Hi you all, I'm Michael, 23-year-old Italian member of Italian Pirate Party. I study mathematics in Milan and I'm a member of the LGBT* association NovarArcobaleno. I'm interested in politics, LGBT-rights, free software, Finland (yes, I'm strange), and many other topics I don't list here. Other info in my D* profile. I'm sincere: I never wrote a (official) newspaper article but i can do it. I'm good at translations (it, en-2, eo-2, fi-¼) and managing social network accounts. I can't help in design and proof-reading.

Michael Wartenbe

Hello everyone at Pirate Times, My name is Michael Wartenbe and I'm a member of the Florida Pirate Party and a PhD student at Florida International University in Miami. I have a lot of experience with writing and research, so I think I can contribute with writing, editing, and proof-reading. I began some articles as I was trying to get members of the Florida party to contribute to a blog (attached is the first article that is mostly finished if anyone is interested). I am interested in news, but as an academic our skills usually come about a while after the news breaks. I also have an interest in the podcast mentioned on the birthday article, if there is anyway I could help.

My academic fields are in International Relations and International Political Economy as well as some branching into ideology, so I hope I can bring that to the table. My dissertation topic looks like it will be the political power of the MPAA (within the broader context of intellectual property and neoliberalism), which is perfect since there is so much cross-over between my work and pirate party topics!

I look forward to meeting you all and working with you! --Michael Wartenbe

Mikhail Volchek

Hello Piratetimes Team,

Some words about me. I'm from Belarus, Minsk. I'm interested to develop in the piarte project:

1/ to work with data (for example to process data about social network pirates activity), 2/ sometime to write articles (interviews, reports, video) about pirates agenda in East Europe region (or translate it from slavic to english), 3/ to post information about belarusian pirates activity to piratetimes.net 4/ to do online audio(video) bridges with different pirates about actuall issue

I'm a web-developers. I have skill in lamp, my specializaition the Drupal CMS, but i worked with WP and Joomla too. Now I also study in deparment of law (Belarusian States University) now.

My facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikhail.volczak Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikhail_volchek

If you have any questions please ask me.

Have a good day and happy New Pirates Year! Mikhail Volchek

Mitja Makuc

My name is Mija and i'm from Slovenia. I'm attending an classical high school.I'm interested in free software(free as in freedom),free speech and open governments.In my free time I like to read,write and listen to old music. I joined the pirate movement because its the only political system that can survive in today's time

Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer

Hey all,

Some of you may know me already, some of you may have heard my name mentioned, and some may have even read some of my articles. A quick look at the Team shows me I've already talked to several of you at some stage.

My name is Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer and I'm currently the Deputy Secretary at Pirate Party Australia (since July 2012). I have also been the Press Officer of Pirate Party Australia since late 2011, and a former member of the PPI Court of Arbitration (April–September 2012). Josef tried to get me involved in the formation of Pirate Times last year, but while I could give my support, I was very limited with time considering the positions I was holding. Now I have a little bit less responsibility and therefore more free time.

I have a Bachelor of Music (with a sub-major in English) and currently work as a freelance writer/editor. I'm hoping Pirate Times might benefit from my skills as an editor/proofreader. I am also happy to do reviews of Pirate-related materials.

Besides that, there's not much too it. :-)

— Mozart.

Norm Roulet

A short introductory email to the mailing list so others know that I am here. Norman Lawrence Roulet III - Professional Mission: To collaborate with intellectuals to optimize the value of information technology on Earth for all. Member of the Board of the Ohio Rights Group, forwarding a cannabis rights amendment to the Ohio constitution, which combats GMO. Running for Mayor of Cleveland, 2013, to forward better rights for Ohioans. Decades of experience working with and consulting on all aspects of information technology, up to Fortune 50 CIO level - open source evangelist. Founder of Drupal-based realNEO.us social network, in 2004. Founder of ICEarth conceptual framework in 2001. Interested to help fellow pirates with IT, content creation, and party development worldwide.

Norman Lawrence Roulet III Curriculum Vitae

Professional Mission To collaborate with intellectuals to optimize the value of information technology on Earth for all.

Professional Background Started working with high-level entrepreneurs in college and never got back on track - helped develop and independently created many ventures, from races across South America to Fortune 50 telecommunications consulting and benchmarking enterprises. Focus is highest level and global.

Specialties: IP - Intellectual Property, benchmarking, consulting, strategy, planning, implementation, new economy, multimedia, enterprise development, marketing, Internet, website development and optimization, leadership, visioning, IT optimization, competitive analysis, change management, shifting paradigms

EXPERIENCE

Chief Information Officer Cincinnati Change January 2011 – Present (2 years 1 month) Cincinnati Change supports the ideal of the City of Cincinnati doing a new comprehensive plan. We will use it as a springboard for our future plans and actions over the next 40 years. The areas in which we plan include -

• Housing and Neighborhood Development
• Economic Development and Business Retention
• Transportation and Transit
• Health, Environment and Open Space
• Land Use, Urban Design and Historic Preservation
• Telecommunications, Utilities and Infrastructure
• Institutions and Intergovernmental Cooperation
• Fiscal Policy and Management

Founder and Chairman UCANX (United Cannabis Exchange) January 2010 – Present (3 years 1 month) The United Cannabis Exchange (UCANX) is founded by farmers with a shared mission to supply the world with fair trade cannabis crops, for industry, energy, food and health-care, grown with and for environmental, economic and social justice for all. UCANX connects fair trade cannabis farmers with fair industrial hemp and marijuana customers, worldwide.

Founder and CEO Star Neighborhood Development, Inc. January 2007 – Present (6 years 1 month) Founder of entrepreneurial community and technology development and planning organization, based in Northeast Ohio. Rainmaker for other high technology and new economy enterprises, with a focus on management of economic development relationships and technology transfer negotiation.

Founder and CEO 7GEN March 2006 – Present (6 years 11 months) We host and develop social networks, based on the Internet, and we plan and develop physical communities, including developing technology infrastructure and building social networks for those communities. All this we develop with open source software and open collaboration. Seven-generation sustainability is the tenet that all decisions should be made with consideration for the effect they will have on the next seven generations to follow us.

Founder REALNEO October 2004 – Present (8 years 4 months) Founded Drupal-based open-source social network REALNEO.US (Regional Economics Action Links for North East Ohio), which has grown into a significant virtual community in the Northeast Ohio area, focused on arts, culture, education, health, environment and technology and the future

Founder and CEO ICEarth LLC February 2002 – Present (11 years) Information Community Earth, ICEarth Linux, and Bigbang Technologies

Founder and CEO IntraCom Corp., LLC February 1996 – Present (17 years) Cleveland, Ohio IntraCom was founded to develop Intranet solutions to complex information systems challenges, first addressing coordination of benefits (COB) for insurance claims. IntraCom is currently developing UCANX and commodities exchanges for such diverse properties as industrial hemp, medical marijuana and mesquite feedstocks and journalism.

Founder InT+IME June 1995 – Present (17 years 8 months) Cleveland/Akron, Ohio Area Information Technology and Infrastructure Management Exchange (InT+IME) was developed to provide comprehensive global enterprise information systems comparative benchmarking analyses and best practice services to the world's greatest organizations, and has developed proprietary methodologies for analyzing internet communications effectiveness since the 1990s.

normALST Information Technology and Internet Consultant: Cleveland, Ohio and WWW; 1998- Over the years, Norm has worked with the leadership of diverse enterprises in publishing, education, hospitality and other industries developing and implementing strategies and capabilities to leverage the value of Information Technology (IT), multimedia and Inter/Intra/Extra-networking for the optimal virtual community and enterprise and competitive advantage of all their stakeholders.

Spectrum Telecom, Inc. President and Lead Consultant: Cleveland, Ohio and WWW; 1992-1998 Norm created and developed Spectrum Telecom, a highest-level strategic IT consulting enterprise providing analytic and best practice benchmarking services to the leadership of many of the world’s most accomplished organizations. He designed and delivered InT+IME (International Telecommunications and Information Management Exchange) and ICE (Internet Communications Effectiveness) analyses that helped define strategies for optimizing clients’ virtual enterprises for the 21st century.

Utility Management Services Group, Inc. Director of Marketing and Associate: New Orleans, LA; Madison, NJ; Austin, TX; 1989-1992 For this international management consulting firm specialized in enabling leadership in the utility industries, Norm developed marketing tools and strategies and initiated consulting initiatives supporting the senior corporate leadership of IT, human resources, legal and other administrative services.

Amazons Company IT and Development Manager: New Orleans, LA; San Francisco, CA; Palm Beach, FL; 1986-1989 Norm supported an entrepreneurial enterprise developing and operating international special events in South America and led the successful transfer of operations to NHK Broadcasting Corporation, Tokyo, Japan.

Roulet Development Real Estate Agent, Broker and Developer: New Orleans, LA; 1983-1986 Norm established a real estate development enterprise specialized in the acquisition and restoration of historic property in the New Orleans, Louisiana region. As a broker, he worked closely with the National Register of Historic Places and Historic District Landmark Commissions to re-commercialize many distressed properties and was recognized for helping revitalize areas of St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, and Rivertown, Kenner.

UNIMAX, Inc. Business Manager: Metairie, LA; 1982-1983 While completing his economics degree at Tulane University, New Orleans, Norm worked full-time for this entrepreneurial spin-off of Century Graphics Corp., a major printing enterprise, supported printing, political marketing and consulting, and real estate and diverse business development initiatives.

Education and Licensing University School: Shaker Heights and Hunting Valley, OH; 1973-1979 Tulane University: New Orleans, LA; 1979-1983 Bachelor of the Arts, Economics; with minors in Philosophy and Fine Arts Licensed as Real Estate Agent and then Broker: Louisiana; 1983-1986

Information Technology and Consulting Expertise Norm’s extensive experience consulting with executive leadership of scores of ‘Fortune 500’ and other enterprises enables a unique understanding of information technology capabilities and visions supporting global strategic and competitive excellence. He pioneered development and delivery of the most sophisticated tools and services for measuring information technology effectiveness and has led numerous multi-client initiatives to define best IT practice. He is an accomplished writer and networked presence communicator expert in the development of ‘Internet’ services and virtual community. He supports universal access, IT enabled learning, telecommuting, and standards based common operating environments.

Distinctive Competencies Norm has traveled to over 50 countries, developed international events, and consulted at the global level, offering a uniquely whole-world perspective. He is a strategic, analytic doer who initiates entrepreneurial enterprise and delivers at the highest level. He has extensive fine art experiences that add panache to all design initiatives. He has written and produced videos and develops multimedia services. He has lectured at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio, and presented on diverse information technology issues and capabilities world-wide.

Pat Mächler

Arr pirates!

[TL;DR] I assume that I lack the time to actively participate in ppnews before the end of November (regional elections, then holydays in Asia). If you prefer to kick me off the list in meantime, don't hesitate to do so; I fully understand your policy and won't really mind. Anyway, I'll try to give you my introduction here, so that you know at least who that was on your mail list.[/TL;DR]

I'm born in 1983, Swiss citizen and also living in Basel, Switzerland. I was an active scout until last year for more than 20 years, which lead to my involvement as an active member in the students association for the past 8 years, which again lead to my engagement in politics [A] and finally the pirates (PP-CH + PPI [0] 2009; a bit of PWB and of course our regional pirate crew).

I have an MSc in CS [B], a supplema in gender studies and some further formal education from different lectures in HCI [C] and jurisprudence, especially concerning "core pirate issues" as "IP" or privacy legislation.

I assume my current primary personality traits/mind state to be a mix-up of idealism, pragmatism, peaceable, (quite self-)critical, poststructuralism [1] and scatterbrain; whereby the last one is probably at least partly related that I'm probably too much a) actively engaged at different positions and in different roles b) interested in different issues (some examples listed at [D]) or said differently: I strive to be more of an all-rounder, than an absolute expert with tunnel vision. My political views are probably best described as classical liberal or as individual anarchist seeing the need to strive for democracy. In case you have a facebook account you may check-out my public notes there (which act as a blog replacement atm) [2], but most are in German.

My name is Pat Mächler [E] aka Valio or vvv.

Some further information about me can be found on a Wikipedia entry [3], my personal (but hardly updated) website [4] and currently my candidate site for the elections in Basel, Switzerland in October [5]. Those together with my second (succesful) attempt to achieve an MSc (e.g. see [6]) have contributed to the fact, that I have been unable to participate in pp-news up to now.

In case you have further questions, don't hesitate to ask me here, on social media plattforms [7a][7b][7c] or by phone/sms (Mobile: +41(0)76'409'57'02, landline: on request).

kind regards -pat

Footnotes [A] Although I still bear some aversion towards classical politics; especially in-your-face election ad posters [B] = Master of science, major in Computer Science [C] = human-computer interaction [D] e.g. war on piracy+drugs, democratic systems, sex/gender issues, science, sustainability, psychology, ...you get the point [E] My actual passport forenames are Patrick André, but I actually don't use them anymore whenever feasible; thus please refer to me just as "Pat". You may write my family name with "ae" instead of "ä" as in this mails subject.

References [0] http://lists.pirateweb.net/pipermail/pp.international.general/2009-August/00 3789.html [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poststructuralism [2] http://www.facebook.com/valio.ch?sk=notes [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_M%C3%A4chler [4] http://id.valio.ch/ [5] http://piraten-basel.ch/wahlen/gr2012-pat-machler/ [6] http://lists.pirateweb.net/pipermail/pp.international.general/2012-April/011 383.html attachement > page 4 [7a] http://facebook.com/valio.ch [7b] http://gplus.to/patmaechler [7c] http://twitter.com/valio_ch

Paul Wardenga

Hello everyone,

My name is Paul and I currently live in Cologne, Germany. I've lived and studied in Aachen, Germany and Halifax, NS and got a degree in Political Science and English. I am currently working on my Master's in PoliSci at the University of Cologne. As far as my curriculum allowed it, I tried to focus my studies on European topics. I'm also a part-time IT-assistant and -teacher.

I've just recently become a pirate, after deciding that it's time for me to stop lurking on the sidelines. Among other things, I am interested in how pirate issues are affected from the international level and the EU level in particular, because I think it's one of the few multinational frameworks which allows for at least some democratic control of issues like trade agreements that entail legislation. Using such a starting point, however, requires a stronger coherence of the different pirate parties, so I like the idea of the Pirate Times and am willing to contribute whenever my schedule allows it.

Besides being fluent in English and German I also have a basic understanding of Dutch and a sadly strongly limited and almost purely passive one of French.

I am looking forward to working with you guys!

Cheers, Paul

Patrick Schiffer

Hello everybody,

i am introducing myself and my ambitions to this mailing list.

My name is Patrick Schiffer, 39 years old and I live in Duesseldorf in Northrhine-Westfalia, Germany. I've studied Arts & Visual Communication at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.

I am working worldwide as a freelance Designer & Consulter in Media & Interface Design.

My entry into the Pirate Party was (lately!) in March 2012, but i am following & participating the whole movement since its beginning in 2006. I am an online activist in human rights following europe & the middle east since two years now. And I was active in several countries around the globe, working together with several NGOs like EFF, Amnesty & HRW.

As Martina Pöser too, I've helped to co-administrate the newly founded two PPEU-work-groups (programme & statutes) which try to build up a surrounding & bonding organization (eventually called PP EU) for all Pirate Parties in Europe.

I am interested in developing & spreading the ideas coming out of and getting into the Pirate movement in Europe and the World. I would like to help you all with my graphic experience and maybe networking/writing/lectorating skills to build up a great PPI Newsletter.

Glad to meet you all & best regards, Patrick

Pedro Gutierrez

Hi, My name is Pedro Gutierrez, I live in the north of Spain, 41 years old, fluent in Spanish and, sometimes, also in English.

I was just going to start to publish a weekly digest of all the news I read about liquid democracy, open government, pirate parties... when, lo and behold! I bumped into Pirate Times call for contributors and thought: "this might be more satisfying than writing a blog alone, why not apply?"

And here I am. Thank you for having me

Rainer von Leoprechting

Dear mates,

I'm still new to the private movement, and feel highly attracted to the latent anarchism and free self organisation I sense in its DNA. I spent 17 years of my professional life in the EU administration and operated subtle changes inside the bureaucratic system. Before I quit I worked a couple of years as a free atom and inside consultant in the EU Commission, introduced novel ways of working, mainly the Art of Hosting (www.artofhosting.org) into the functioning of the EU. Since February 2012 I work self-employed and help political movements in Europe, Germany and Austria to self-organise. I have invented a process to help people to find meaningful work via the internet (check out www.mymwork.com as from September 2012), and just generally want to offer my service to the movement with my intimate knowledge of the EU functioning and my understanding of self-organising off-line processes. I just co-hosted the Kongress für integrale Politik in Austria. I share my experience and skills in open seminars about consulting, systemic constellation work and insights into maturity we acquire over a lifetime.

CU online, Rainer

Sara Osborne

Hello Everyone,

My name is Sara Osborne and I am a 30 year old American residing currently in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have 2 daughters. I only recently found out that there even was a Pirate Party and as soon as I did I joined. But I have been in complete agreement with its policies for a long time and it is wonderful that there are more in agreement. I believe that my ignorance in this matter probably holds true for more of the American public as our government and our media purposefully keep us as in the dark as possible to the rest of the world. As for who I am, I am a visual artist. I have recently returned to school and am pursuing my bachelors in Illustration currently at The Southwest University of Visual Arts. But more importantly I am something that is often left out of the discussions regarding copyright reform and the effects of piracy on artists. I am not only an artist and contribute to culture, but I am also an Entrepreneur. For over a decade I have earned my living solely through my work, I provide a product and I receive payment for that product. I have lived the effects of the current copyright laws, and have been pirated numerous times. Most of the discussions on this matter focus on the music and film industries because they are the ones who scream the loudest, but while I am no Van Gough I am an example of exactly how piracy and copyrights effect those who want to make a career out of the visual arts. (And I am a Pirate! FOR SHAME!) Why I want to help is really simple once you know that, not only is it something I care about deeply but it is something that directly affects me. As for how I can help of that I am not sure, but I am more than happy to do anything that is asked of me. I know German pretty well and can translate most anything (although slang, idioms, technical jargon slow me down a little) And I spent most of my youth wanting to be a linguist/translator so my knowledge of other languages trickles down in strength because I never get opportunities to use them here. But I don't know if this is useful because most of the German people Ive known speak English. But I am creative, and know much about the production of print publications, I am however weak to non-existent in regards to web design/production.

Sara

Se Re

Aye All!

I'm a female, soon to be 30 years old Pirate, living in Switzerland whit Swiss Citizenship but also carrying an European Passport.

I'm about Anti-Cencorship, Internet Neutrality and Privacy.

I d like to help whit news-gathering, Article Writing.

I also may proof-read.

My fluently spoken, well read and (whit a little effort soon faster) written languages are German/English/French/Italian/Spanish.

If you need anything pls let me know.

Thanks for having me on the team, glad to join!

cheers

Stathis Leivaditis

Hi! I am 49 years old and joined the Pirate Party of Greece on April this year. I was a candidate MP in the last 2 elections, May and June, with the Greek Pirates. I live in Chalkis, in the island of Evia, near Athens and I was a journalist in local newspapers, radio and tv stations, from 1989 to 2005.

I speak Greek and English and I think that the pirate movement and ideology can offer humanity solutions to every problem. I would like to communicate with pirates from all over the world and contribute to Pirate Times the best way I can, writing articles or translate to Greek language.

Tomas Kronvall

Hello.

I'm mostly hoping to be of help in the proof-reading department - I'm a native Swedish speaker, and consider myself close to fluent in English (my credentials include an A grade on the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_in_Advanced_English).

I served as an editor for the campaign blog 2022.nu, which, for the two months running up to the last Swedish general election, posted daily visions from invited writers on how Pirate politics would influence the world for the better by the year 2022. Collentine was one of our contributors. I am also on the editorial team for the (currently mostly inactive) general Swedish politics blog platform svpol.se.

I'm not immensely skilled at text composition myself (though my proof-reading can extend to structure and rhetoric, if so desired), so I'm not likely to contribute articles of my own. Nor am I more than a novice at tech and design. I can translate between English and Swedish, if needed.

And, that's probably the most salient points about me in this context.

Cheers, Tomas

Tywin

Hi members of Pirate Times,

I'm at the origin of a project of translating articles from Pirate Times into french (http://courrierpirateinternational.overblog.com/) since your initiative is one of the most informative platform on the Pirate Mouvement across the globe. I joined the ML on the advice of Josef. I'm a recently graduated architect from France (Montpellier) and i'm planning on moving to switzerland for work ($$). I'm fluent in english although i would'nt see myself as a proof-reader since i do a lot of errors (especially in french) and as i've learned english mostly watching US series. If you have any question/remarks/critics, don't hesitate! regards

Tywin (PPFR)

Wolfgang Preiss

Hi all,

I'd like to introduce myself to you all. My name is Wolfgang, and I have been asked by Gefion to take care about some IT stuff like pad and keeping wordpress and plugins up to date, which I gladly will do.

Some of you might know me as the "streaming guy", initiating Piraten-Streaming/Pirate-Streaming which is a successfull service to pirates. Piraten-Streaming(.de) is now administrated by Sebastian Greiner and Pirate-Streaming(.net) by Martin Waibl, however I am still in the background for taking about streaming server and stuff.

As for streaming, I will mainly work in background for pirate times. As my first task I will take care of a running pad system, which will be set up to your needs. Frequent backups will be made.

Secondly I will take care about a multilingual wordpress plugin, which allows authors to post their articles in different languages, and users will be able to pick their favorite. Additionally I also will also keep frequent backups of the wordpress installation.

I can be reached via email (w.preiss@gmx.de) via skype (ishwood.dwayne) and via phone for emergency situations

I am native german, speak english too.

I first will work on the pad as this seems to be the most urgent topic.

best wishes from Grafenwöhr

Wolfgang

Yasin Aydin

Hello everyone,

I think I should introduce myself first. My name is Yasin. And here are some information about me :)

As a pirate, I - am a natural born pirate! - am a director and the chief IT guy of Pirate Party of Turkey - became a PPI's Alternate Board Member, starting this year - have always supported free and open source software, open democracy and transparent government since I was a child

As for education, I - have studied Electronics Engineering, Astronomy and Space Sciences, Business management and Telecommunications Engineering in several different universities of Turkey (no, I wasn't able to finish any of these) - know English and Turkish - can understand basic Spanish, Japanese and some German

As for experience, I - worked in tech support for almost 5 years, then, as an IT manager for 8 years - now working in a start-up software company - write programs FOSS, using Symfony, MySQL, Groovy & Grails - have written in PC-World Magazine of Turkey for a year - give software and server support to an online newspaper of Turkey - am a grammar-nazi, idealist and a striving perfectionist - write or edit most of the recent articles in PP-TR website

For PirateNews, I want to - do / contribute translations between Turkish and English - write articles in Turkish, about PP-TR, piracy and anti-piracy in Turkey and related subjects - help in any other way I can, when I have time.

Nice to meet you!

Zbigniew Łukasiak

Hello,

I am a 39 years old programmer from Poland. I fascinated (and scared) by the way Internet changes our societies and I want to take a part in that. I believe the changes has only just begun and they will be deep. I have a degree in Computing Science - but I read a lot on psychology, sociology and other other related subjects. I am agnostic or even atheist but I am fascinated by Rene Girard. I am a Free and Open Source Software passionate (https://github.com/zby) and I joined Interenet Society Poland when there was a Free Software chapter, and I stayed there while ISOC Poland fighted the patent directive and retency laws in the European Parliament. I have been involved in reinstaing the Polish Pirate Party but currently I am a bit dissapointed by our local movement that managed to split into two warrying fractions in a very childish way. Pollitically I am maybe close to libertarians - but I am not a dogmatic and I also believe that our new ways of communicating and working will also require new politics.

I have three blogs: http://brudnopis.blogspot.com (general) http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/ (programming related) http://brudnopispirata.blogspot.com (pirate related, in Polish)

I speak fluently in Polish and English and I can communicate in Russian and French and know a bit of Spanish.

I joined your list mostly to look around - I am not a professional writer - but I am very interested in working on the Pirate pollitical dogma and I think this needs to be done internationally.

Former team members

Bernhard

Hi folks,

I am just the new "kid" on the blog(ck). First of May this year (2012) I joined the party. Last year I wrote a book called "Everyday is a new beginning..." I also descirbe international and national goals in this book and would like to find out if there is an interest in to follow them... By now it is not published in english. The german version is introduced at www.fraling.de I am member of the Experts Industry Association, Santa Clara.

Best regards Bernhard

Daniel Ebbert

Hey everybody, I still own you an introduction, so here it is:

Lets start with the simple facts. I'm Daniel Ebbert, 21 and from Germany but I live in the Netherlands. There I live in a small town called Deventer and study Informationmanagment. Therefor I learned Dutch, so in total I speak 3 languages: German, Englisch and Dutch. I'm a member in the German and the Dutch Pirateparty. Also I write for the German newsletter "Flaschenpost". In my free time I like to play Jugger and roleplaying games. Here at the "Pirate Times" I'm the editorial leader and responsible for publishing everything as soon as we have our blog.

Greetings, Daniel

Enrique Herrera noya

hello my name is Enrique Herrera noya, I am the national coordinator of the Pirate Party of Chile, we are sailing in a monopolistic party law because it places many barriers to entry for new party, next year we hope to present candidates for deputies, senators and even for president. parley.cl launched with the idea of creating a news agency (pirate), which aims to break the censorship of traditional media in the hands of the monopolies (at least in Chile and the situation), offering this resource social organizations, so they can disseminate their communications. Personally, I have 45, but use only 25 XD, I'm married and have a daughter working in the IT area, I teach courses in gnu / Linux, I have redhat and suse certifications.

Atte.

Wolfgang Wettach

Hi folks,

before the deadline runs out I would like to introduce myself too.

I'm Wolfgang G. Wettach, and I'm a green pirate. Some of you may be, but in my case it's a small p and a capital G. Which is to say I'm a member of several EGP member parties (EELV Alsace in France, Scottish Greens and the German Greens), but not of PPI member parties. Why, you may ask, am I here?

I've been writing articles and other texts like forever, a blogger, I'm a writer for WikiNews, the free news agency of Wikimedia, both in the english and in the german language, thus also used to cooperate on texts. I'm here because I would like to cooperate with you on PPnews.

I'm a computer kid, grew from the vic20 to the Amiga, from vi and emacs to OOo, from Motorola to Blackberry, from Pine via YAM to Thunderbird, from eBookman to Kindle, from Kazaa to iTunes and I guess I get most of what the pirates stand for. Some of what the german Pirates look like reminds me of the of the German Green Youth, some remind me of the beginnings of my own party. I'm aware that not all pirate parties are like the one in Germany and some dislike the programmatic closeness they might have to us. Here many parents of pirates vote or did vote green, here one of the first green members of parliament became a pirate, one of the former heads of our party, a former green member of the European Parlament, is now a pirate member of one regional parlament.

Be that as it may: Part of my political agenda is, that I like the fact that we are one parlamentary group in the European Parlament, Greens, European Free Alliance and the Pirates and I want that to continue after the next election 2014. Once I held a speech as the Green guest speaker at a statewide pirate party conference, trying to convince the pirates present that the Greens are not the political enemy. If in my writing for PPnews I can contribute to improving relations between both party families, it would be well worth the effort for me.

Regards, Wolfgang G. Wettach http://gruene.wettach.org