upgraded from the comments. syntax did the bulk of the translating and i merely went back and filled in the gaps, tweaked some wording in a couple places.

i knew that someone else had to have posted this somewhere, and eventually i did find this thread on the planet-mu phorum, but as far as i know, the phorum is probably not google-able. that doesn't do any good: this info should be on google so that people can actually find it! so here goes!

Venetian Snares
Rossz Csillag Alatt Született = born under a bad star

1. Sikertelenség = failure
   
2. Szerencsétlen = catastrophic, miserable (also hapless, luckless, misadventurous, sad, star-crossed, unfortunate, unhappy, unlucky, untoward, woeful, wretched)
   
3. Öngyilkos Vasárnap = suicidal on sunday ("gloomy sunday")
   
4. Felbomlasztott Mentökocsi = disintegrated ambulance
   
5. Hajnal = dawn, daybreak
   
6. Galamb Egyedúl = lone pigeon
   
7. Második Galamb = second pigeon
   
8. Szamár Madár = asinine bird
   
9. Hiszékeny = gullible
   
10. Kétsarkú Mozgalom = bipolar movement
    
11. Senki Dala = nobody's song
    

  ¶ 12:24 PM

since i bothered to post a list of the new cds and records i bought last week, i might as well tell you what i think about them. these are in the same order i posted them last week.

beck gameboy variations -- this is a fun record with songs made out of gameboy sounds. apparently it is only available in two formats: 12" vinyl and itunes download. i like it, but i would've liked it more if it were instrumental. as it is, this is basically four gameboy remixes of tracks from guero.

mf doom/madlib madvillain -- excellent. the beats are tight, and of course mf doom is one hell of an mc. instead of "skits", this record has tracks that are more like sample cutups, talking about what kinds of supervillains mf doom and madlib are, or how music sounds better when you're "on weed" as jon stewart's character would say in half baked.

handsome boy modeling school white people -- wow, i liked their previous record (so how's your girl?) a lot better. there are some tracks on here that are undeniably catchy and i'm not sorry i bought the record, but several other cuts are mediocre at best, and at least one (the one with vocals by some nu-metal guy) is virtually unlistenable: i couldn't get all the way to end of the track last time i listened.

prefuse 73 surrounded by silence -- i've only listened to this twice, maybe three times, because when i'm listening to records i tend to grab the madvillain first. but this is a good record. it has MCs and other vocalists on it (including beans, members of wu-tang, and more), a significant change from the past few prefuse 73 records. i was a little worried that he might succumb to "cex syndrome" (wherein the production grows less interesting when hip-hop vocals are added, presumably so as not to detract too much from the vox... though i admit i haven't heard cex's maryland mansions so maybe he's overcome that), but i think this record stands up pretty well on its own. and the MCs are pretty good.

drop the lime this means forever -- maybe dropthelime has been spending too much time around hearts of darknesses, because this is another one of those electronic records where the producer suddenly feels obligated to sing. that seems to be a trend these days: electronic musicians start singing, perhaps in order to sound more like "real" musicians. i don't know; i tend to be of the opinion that not only are vocals generally not necessary with electronic music, but that more often than not they actually harm the music: i can't tell you how many "industrial" bands i've heard where i liked the song for the first 8-16 bars, until the vox kicked in and were simply awful. but anyway, even with all the sudden singing (maybe i just didn't know dtl's material as well as i thought and he's always been predisposed to crooning?), this is not a bad record. but it's not a great record either. i really like some of the instrumental breakcore material (some of which was plucked from earlier vinyl releases), and the stuff with vocals is at least okay: sounding somewhere between the industrial "elektro" sound (not to be confused with electro) and hearts of darknesses on less drugs.

doormouse stanley yershonowski presents xylophone jism as the ridiculator -- i believe this was originally going to be released on planet-mu, but then doormouse had a falling out with mike p, so it ended up on donna summer's cock rock disco label. it's good. it sounds like contemporary doormouse: a little jazzy, lots of hard breaks, with some hip-hop and lots of silly samples.

end percussions -- i remember when connie, syntax, and i went to bent crayon in october, there was a really cool cd playing that had that jazzy/loungy/'60s-playboy sound with hyper-cutup beats. one track on the cd i recognized, knowing that i had it on some comp, yet unable to put my finger squarely on its identity. well, i do believe this was the cd. the track i recognized is the first track on the cd. and i think the comp in question was the advanced d&d with donna summer premium cd i got when i donated to wfmu.

beck guero -- i'm not half the beck fan that i was, say, a decade ago, but this is a nice little record. it's kind of a return to the style of mellow gold and odelay.

general patton vs the x-ecutioners -- mike patton and turntablists. it's a good combination. scratching, hip-hop beats, and patton singin' and makin' mouth noise. not as abstract as i might've liked, but good.

venetian snares winnipeg is a frozen shithole -- this is being promoted as the hardest vsnares record in a long time, and that's true: lots of gabber and hard breakcore sounds. it is brutal and punishing in a way that only aaron funk can be. of course it's good; that goes without saying. but it doesn't necessarily hold together as an "album" (which could be because the cd version has 9 tracks and 3 of them are remixes).

venetian snares rossz csillag alatt született -- this record is apparently about pigeons. sonically, it's all about the strings (i'm sure they're really synths, but they sound like beautiful strings)... though those vsnares beats are still there. this is possibly the best vsnares album ever. the arrangements are catchy if not moving, and the beats are wonderfully placed to hype up the emotion in when needed and then cut out for the somber moments. top notch. there's one song on here that makes me feel like flying... i would tell you which one but the track titles all look like nonsense or some odd eastern language.  ¶ 12:42 PM

remember last fall, when certain people in the catholic church suggested that john kerry and other pro-choice politicians should be denied communion?

yeah, cardinal ratzinger, our new pope, wrote this:

Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person's formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.

no body of christ for you!  ¶ 7:14 PM

after years of supporting gay rights and gay-friendly policies, apparently microsoft has changed its mind. just read the americablog post on the subject.  ¶ 7:09 PM

this guy is one of my authors. i've edited at least 2-3 of his books.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany is not the only person to value the papal moniker Benedict XVI.

A St. Augustine, Fla., man, Rogers Cadenhead, registered the address BenedictXVI.com on April 1, hoping that would be the name of John Paul II's successor. To cover his bases, Cadenhead, 38, also registered ClementXV.com, InnocentXIV.com, LeoXIV.com, PaulVII.com and PiusXIII.com.

Benedict XVI was the name picked by the new pope, Joseph Ratzinger.

Cadenhead, an author of 20 technology how-to books with titles such as "Movable Type 3 Bible Desktop Edition" and "Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days," said he registered the names for $12 each from Internet address seller BulkRegister LLC.

"I couldn't resist the chance to have some skin in the game. Someone else already has JohnPaulIII.com and JohnXXIV.com, but otherwise I put a chip down on every name of the past three centuries," Cadenhead wrote on his Web log at www.cadenhead.org.
For nearly as long as Internet addresses have been sold, speculators -- sometimes called cyber-squatters -- have bought attractive addresses with the hopes of either selling them to the highest bidder or using them to snag visits from unsuspecting Internet users.

BenedictXVI.com links to Cadenhead's blog. Reached on his cell phone, he said visits to the site started rolling in at a rate of about 100 per minute after the pope's new name was announced.

Cadenhead describes himself as a "lapsed Catholic" and "domain name geek" who bought up the domains after doing a little online research into papal naming conventions. "I really thought that especially if Cardinal Ratzinger was chosen, that he'd be very likely to go back to the papal playbook and choose one of these traditional names," Cadenhead said.

i'm not a big fan of cybersquatting, but as long as cadenhead isn't trying to extort money out of this, it's probably innocent enough. or maybe it's Pope Innocent enough. at any rate, i don't think i have a problem with registering these kinds of domains, as long as you're not doing it to bilk others out of money. that is unethical.

A 1999 U.S. law made it illegal to register an Internet domain name with the intention of extorting money out of a trademark owner. But that does not prevent someone like Cadenhead from owning an Internet address associated with a famous person's name, said Wendy Seltzer, an attorney at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.

She said owning such domains is permissible "if you share that name . . . if you're creating a noncommercial message or fan site around that name or . . . if you're using it for an unrelated purpose [where] the name also makes sense, but not to gouge money out of the celebrity."

...

BenedictXVI.com is not Cadenhead's first celebrity domain purchase. In 1998, he bought Drudge.com in response to the rising popularity of the Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com), an Internet gossip and news site. He still runs the "Drudge Retort" site as a liberal response to its enormously popular namesake.

Cadenhead said he hasn't decided what he will do with the Benedict domain, but he vowed he will not pawn it off to the highest bidder.

"Whatever decision I make will be guided by the desire not to make 1.5 billion people mad at me . . . including my grandmother," he said.

haha... i hadn't been to the drudge retort before...  ¶ 11:04 AM

yesterday congress passed the family entertainment and copyright act, which hollywood both loves and hates. hollywood likes parts of the bill for it's "antipiracy" provisions. though there seems to be some confusion about that portion:

The less controversial aspects of the bill, which makes it a federal crime to use video cameras to record films in movie theaters, did not command as much debate. The Act sets tough penalties of up to 10 years in prison for anyone caught distributing a movie or song prior to its commercial release. Moviegoers caught using video cameras in theaters would face up to three years in prison for a first offense and up to six years for later arrests.

10 years for leaking a song or movie? 3-6 years for videotaping a movie? those are some harsh penalties... but what does the previously linked sf chronicle say about this?

The bill also makes it a federal offense to use a video camera to record movies in a theater, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. It also allows the record industry to seek damages against a person who releases a music CD before its official release.

someone is confused... so which offense is punishable by up to 10 years?

but let's move on. 3-10 years is ridiculously, insanely harsh for leaking a song on the net, but sneaking a video camera into a movie theater is not a very defensible act. though 3-10 years is still mind-bogglingly harsh, even for that.

anyway, hollywood was dead-set against another provision of the bill: one that allows censorship technology inside dvd players. now, if you choose, it is totally legal to buy a dvd player that turns any dvd you want into the equivalent of pallies, edited for television... funk you, you mother-father!

[T]he bill is designed to nullify a lawsuit filed by eight movie studios and a directors' association against ClearPlay Inc., a small Utah technology startup that wants to sell home DVD players that can automatically filter objectionable material from prerecorded DVD movies.

Entrepreneurs were heartened by the bill's passage.

"It shouldn't be possible that big companies with big pockets can kill industries they don't like," said Bill Aho, ClearPlay's chief executive officer.

i'm a bit torn here. on one hand, it's almost impossible not to see this kind of thing as a blow against art. movies that are "edited for content" are truly the bane of film lovers everywhere, whether it's edited for television or whether the studios force the director to cut out content so it can earn a specific rating. you're not watching the real movie, but some limp, spayed version of it. so the practice, even the concept, of a self-censoring dvd player somewhat disgusts me. if you don't want to watch explicit content, it's easy: don't watch explicit content!

at the same time, legally i don't think there's any reason why such an item shouldn't be available. i totally agree with the bill aho quote above. the MPAA and pals are big bullies who try to smash anything they don't like. emasculating movies in this fashion might be somewhat offensive... it might be the utter desecration of the filmmaker's vision... but those aren't good legal reasons to hold back the tech. so hollywood resorts to the old "copyright violation" argument... using such a device creates a "derivative work" and only the author has the right to create derivative works. this is of course total bullshit, but it is also the way copyright law is defined these days. congress apparently didn't buy the bullshit this time. and they definitely didn't buy this bullshit, which is my nomination for "specious argument of the year":

"These days, I don't think anyone would even consider buying a DVD player that doesn't come with a remote control," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who authored the provision.

"Yet there are some who would deny parents the right to use the equivalent electronic device that would protect their children from sex, violence and profanity in movies watched at home."

a censorship-enabled dvd player is "equivalent" to a remote control?!? congressman, dvd players already have a feature that is equivalent to a remote control. it's called a remote control.  ¶ 9:34 AM

the next pope has been chosen.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, a hard-line guardian of conservative doctrine, was elected the new pope Tuesday evening in the first conclave of the new millennium. He chose the name Pope Benedict XVI and called himself "a simple, humble worker."

those of us who were that a new pope might have more rational views on important sexual and reproductive issues (condoms, for example) will have to wait for the next pope, it seems:

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets — including “the enforcer”, “the panzer cardinal” and “God’s rottweiler” — is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him.

he has a bit of a checkered past, as well:

In 1937 Ratzinger’s father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town in Bavaria close to the Führer’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941.

He quickly won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. “Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one,” concluded John Allen, his biographer.

Two years later Ratzinger was enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included slaves from Dachau concentration camp.

Ratzinger has insisted he never took part in combat or fired a shot — adding that his gun was not even loaded — because of a badly infected finger. He was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.

He has since said that although he was opposed to the Nazi regime, any open resistance would have been futile — comments echoed this weekend by his elder brother Georg, a retired priest ordained along with the cardinal in 1951.

sure, like it says, membership in the hitler youth was compulsory... it's not like he enlisted or anything. and if he later deserted, then obviously he wasn't an enthusiastic one, as his biographer says. but still, instead of open resistance to the nazi regime, he chose silent complicity.

he's also a member of opus dei, a secretive, arch-conservative organization that some people say is downright cult-like.

so catholics, no condoms for you.  ¶ 11:59 AM

this week's mp3 of the week is called "stAllio! vs ludacris" and it's a remix of the track "stand up" by ludacris. it's all glitched out and stuff. i like it.  ¶ 7:47 PM

all data from animalswithinanimals.com that was lost in the server crash is now back up... with the exception of any pictures that were posted to the bobby vomit blawg in the past week or so. i don't have those images; hopefully mr vomit still has them on his hard drive and can repost them. (i think that only one pic was lost: the photo of the guitar-turntables that he's working on. but my memory could be faulty.)

the important lesson here is always keep a copy of your website. i have pretty much this whole site (except for the blogger parts) on my hard drive, so recovering the lost content wasn't too difficult. (blogger stores all blog posts on its own servers, separate from where you publish the blog, as i suspect most blogging services do, so recovering the blogs is also easy.)

the new mp3 of the week will be announced within the next couple hours (the mp3 is already online, but i haven't done my writeup for it yet).  ¶ 5:13 PM

big server belch this weekend... the site was down for awhile and when it came back, it was at least a week out of date.

the new server is dead. long live the old server.

we were told that the new server had a defective part. so we're back on the old server again until the new one is replaced. luckily, thanks to blogger etc, i have backups of my lost data. not everyone was quite so lucky. if you're reading this, the blog has been recovered. but the mp3 of the week is now out of date... it's reverted to the week before last.

tonight, i'll put up the new mp3 for this week. and last week's will go back up. but i can't fix that until i go home tonight.  ¶ 9:02 AM