The phrases below are things that the Norwegian language has a unique way of expressing. Check them out, along with their literal translated meanings.
1. Skjerp deg
This phrase does not bode well for you. It usually means you’re making an idiot of yourself. “Skjerp deg” could be translated as “Sharpen yourself up,” and it’s used in all sorts of contexts.
Teachers use it to tell students to pay attention. I yell it at friends who are doing something ridiculous. Cops use it to tell off criminals who are obviously lying to them, parents say it when telling off their five-year old who has just drawn with crayons all over the new wallpaper.
2. Kos(elig)
This is a common feature of all the Scandinavian countries: We have a word to describe the feeling of warmth and friendliness that arises from sharing simple pleasures of life with people you like.
Danish hygge, Swedish mys, and Norwegian kos all describe roughly the same thing. We often try to translate it into words such as “nice” or “cozy,” but those only describe parts of what is “kos” or “koselig.” Kos means cuddling with your friend. Kos means being snowed in at your cabin in the mountains, in front of a roaring fire with cocoa, pastries, and a good crime novel.
Kos is a nice lunch in your school cafeteria. Kos is meeting someone you haven’t seen in ages. Kos is a good party. I have even heard people describe their sex life as “kos.” Our lives revolve around “kos.” Even working hard can be koselig, if you’re doing it with people you like.
3. Glad i deg
Flickr/Nathan MakanThis one really makes no sense, because word for word it translates as “glad in you.”
In English, you love anyone and anything you have any kind of affection for. You love your child, your spouse, and your parents. You love your friends. You love pizza. Fair enough, thought the Norwegians, but doesn’t that make it a little hard to distinguish who you care the most about?
After all, just using that phrase indicates you have just as much affection for that guy in your class who you’ve known for two months as you have for your brother whom you’ve known your entire life. That seems a little dumb, doesn’t it?
That’s why we have “Glad i deg.” You are “glad i” your close friends. You “elsker” (love) your girlfriend. Elsker either indicates romantic feelings or the kind of love a parent has for their child. It’s a brilliant system. Parents and spouses will also usually use “glad i deg” for text messages and similar, reserving “elsker deg” for those really special occasions.
Straight guys might use glad i deg to one another, but never elsker deg. If you’ve become fond of someone in Norway, say “jeg er glad i deg.” If you say “jeg elsker deg.” don’t expect to hear from them for a few weeks while they finish freaking out about having moved too fast.
4. Takk for sist
After nearly a quarter century in the country, this one still drives my dear mother insane. “Takk for sist” (Thanks for the last time) is what you say to someone you haven’t seen in a while, typically when you bump into them at a party or something similar. Her problem with it: IT HAS NO EXPIRATION DATE! You’re 42 and you bump into a guy you last saw at your college graduation party? “Takk for sist!”
Your auntie gives you a call after you had coffee with her two days ago? “Takk for sist!” This phrase generally comes in three varieties: if someone says it emphatically, they probably really enjoyed your company and found it memorable. In a neutral tone of voice, it’s simply polite. If the person who says it certainly did not enjoy your company, they might say it in a deeply sarcastic tone. It doesn’t have to be spoken, either. If you find dog doo on your doorstep, it might be a “takk for sist” from the guy you punched in the face at a moonshine party a few weeks ago.
5. Marka
Flickr/Lynn D. RosentraterTake a peek into an office in Norway anytime between November and April. See everybody staring out the window? What do you think they’re longing for? Well, some of them are probably longing for the beaches of the Canary Islands or Thailand. The others are staring at the woods in the distance.
They are longing for marka — they so desperately want to go on that little skiing trip. Cross-country skiing in the woods means a few hours of solitude, a workout, and some pretty scenery to boot. Marka is the name of any forested areas that surround a city or town. They mostly exist for recreational purposes: people ski, bike, walk, and camp in them. Buses and (in Oslo) subway lines service them. There are massive parking lots at the entrances to these woods. Marka is civilization. Marka is life.
6. Faen
Yes, everyone’s favorite all-purpose Norwegian swearword. While the actual meaning of the word translates to “the devil,” its usage is far broader. It can be a noun, an adjective, an adverb, a preposition… I yell “faen” when I hurt myself. “Fy faen” is to express surprise or disappointment. Faenmeg is just an intensifier. Faenskap is the kind of mean-ish pranks teenagers get up to. Det går til faen means something is about to go horribly wrong. Give me a swearword in any language, and it can probably be translated to “faen.”
7. Pålegg
Flickr/Chris ZieleckiThis one is also infamous among Norwegians. We eat a lot of bread — 80 kilos of the stuff per person annually. A rather standard Norwegian breakfast and lunch will consist of some slices of bread with something put on them. The English language has a term for the concept — an “open sandwich,” but no word for “whatever you decide to put on the bread.” That is what “pålegg” is for. Salami, ham, cheese, jam, lettuce — everything you put on the bread (except the butter) is pålegg. Confusingly enough, pålegg can also mean an order of the type given by a police officer to a drunk or similar. Don’t confuse these two.
8. Tøffelhelt
Do you have that friend who always does what his wife and society wants him to do? Whose greatest thrill in life is to put three sugars in his coffee instead of two? Whose last visit to a pub was the night the Berlin Wall fell? He is a tøffelhelt, or a “slipper hero.” There is a certain difference between a “myk mann” (soft man) and a tøffelhelt: The soft man is not afraid to display emotion, he does his share of the housework, and he plays with the kids. But he might also be found watching Champions League football with his buddies after the kids have gone to bed and he has emptied out the dishwasher. He might also speed on the highway, or order the spiciest dish at an Indian restaurant. The slipper hero is not quite so daring.
9. Takk for maten
Some of the etiquette when attending a dinner in a Norwegian home is pretty common. Take your shoes off — we don’t want mud and slush on our floors. Bring a small gift for the host. Show up on time — not late, and certainly not early (since the host may then ask you to pitch in). When everybody is finished eating, everybody says a phrase you have probably never heard. “Takk for maten” just means “Thanks for the food,” and is a way to show gratitude to the cook for the effort she or he took to make the meal. Children in particular are expected to say this. Norwegians who say this abroad often get surprised reactions by the hosts, who assume they thought the food was really, really good.
10. Russ
Flickr/Geir HalvorsenVisit Norway during the first half of May and it seems like every teenager in the country is dressed in red overalls. This is the most visible part of “russetiden,” a celebration of high school graduation that ends on May 17 — Norway’s Constitution Day. For three weeks (which are, stupidly enough, before exams), high school seniors drink, party, and pull off pranks to let off the steam of 13 years of education. They are called “russ,” wear overalls based on what academic program they attend (red is for general studies, and is by far the most common), hand out “business cards” to little kids (mostly with a raunchy pun on them), and attract disdain from the rest of the populace. The morning of the 17th of May might end in something like this.
This article originally appeared at Matador Network. Copyright 2015. Follow Matador Network on Twitter.
About a month ago, we noted that a federal court had granted a temporary injunction blocking a subpoena issued by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, demanding all sorts of information from Google. At the time, the judge only said that Google's argument was "stronger" than Hood's, but said a full ruling would come out in time. That full ruling [pdf] is now out, and boy, does it make Jim Hood's anti-Google vendetta look questionable -- specifically saying that there is "significant evidence of bad faith" on the part of Hood to try to use his government position to unconstitutionally coerce Google into making changes to its service that it has no legal obligation to make.
If you don't recall, Hood has a long-standing obsession with Google, despite having an astounding level of ignorance about how the search engine actually operates. In his anti-Google rants, Hood makes statements that are blatantly false and repeatedly argues that Google is to blame merely because its search engine finds websites that Hood's office doesn't like and doesn't think should exist at all. And that doesn't even touch on the now known fact that the MPAA secretly funded Hood's investigation and wrote nearly every word of the threatening letters sent to Google.
While Hood and various MPAA supporters have insisted that he's clearly in the right, at least federal judge Henry Wingate doesn't see much to support that. Hood tried desperately to keep this issue out of federal court, using a variety of claims, including the so-called "Younger Abstention" which argues that federal courts should stay out of certain issues. However, as Wingate notes, that only applies in three specific cases, none of which apply to Hood's campaign against Google -- and, even if any of them did apply, there's a further exception for "bad faith" -- and Wingate is pretty convinced that Hood is acting in bad faith:
Moreover, even if the Younger elements were satisfied here, the court would not be required to abstain here because an exception to the application of the doctrine applies. Indeed, federal courts may disregard the Younger doctrine when a state court proceeding was brought in bad faith or with the purpose of harassing the federal plaintiff... Google has presented significant evidence of bad faith, allegedly showing that Attorney General Hood’s investigation and issuance of the subpoena represented an effort to coerce Google to comply with his requests regarding content removal. As previously discussed, the Attorney General made statements, on multiple occasions, which purport to show his intent to take legal action against Google for Google’s perceived violations. When Google declined to fulfill certain requests, the Attorney General issued a 79-page subpoena shortly thereafter. The court is persuaded that this conduct may evidence bad faith on the part of the Attorney General.
The court also notes that Hood clearly recognizes that many of his attacks on Google are blocked by Section 230 of the CDA (which, again, say you can't blame a service provider for actions of its users), because Hood himself signed a letter to Congress asking for Section 230 to be amended to exempt investigations by state attorneys general (we wrote about that dangerous effort at the time as well).
From there, Judge Wingate notes that it seems clear that Hood is likely violating Google's First Amendment rights too, even noting that the subpoena itself appears to be retaliation for protected free expression:
Furthermore, the court also is persuaded that Google has demonstrated a substantial likelihood that it will prevail on its claim that Attorney General Hood has violated Google’s First Amendment rights by: regulating Google’s speech based on its content; by retaliating against Google for its protected speech (i.e., issuing the subpoena); and by seeking to place unconstitutional limits on the public’s access to information. First, the relevant, developing jurisprudence teaches that Google’s publishing of lawful content and editorial judgment as to its search results is constitutionally protected.... The Attorney General’s interference with Google’s judgment, particularly in the form of threats of legal action and an unduly burdensome subpoena, then, would likely produce a chilling effect on Google’s protected speech, thereby violating Google’s First Amendment rights.
Additionally, it is well-settled that the Attorney General may not retaliate against Google for exercising its right to freedom of speech by prosecuting, threatening prosecution, and conducting bad-faith investigations against Google.... As explained supra, Google has submitted competent evidence showing that the Attorney General issued the subpoena in retaliation for Google’s likely protected speech, namely its publication of content created by third-parties. Given the gravity of the rights asserted herein, the court finds it appropriate to enjoin further action on behalf of the Attorney General until a determination on the merits of Google’s claims is made.
Judge Wingate also sides with Google on the 4th Amendment, noting that the broad subpoena appears to be a "burdensome fishing expedition" that goes well beyond what the Attorney General is allowed to request.
Google also wins on the key issue that the MPAA was using Hood to press: how it handles searches for copyright-covered material. As Google points out, copyright is a federal law issue, not a state law issue, so the requests regarding copyright are preempted by federal law. Hood (and, apparently, his MPAA-paid lawyers who helped draw up the subpoena) tried, weakly, to get around this preemption by arguing that by finding unauthorized material, Google was "misleading customers." That doesn't fly:
The Attorney General admits that certain requests contained in the subpoena “could arguably be used to show copyright infringement” (AG Response, p. 30), but argues that the same information could also be used to expose Google’s various practices of misleading customers. The court is not persuaded that the Attorney General’s posited theoretical basis for making these requests is sufficient for the purpose of rebutting Google’s preemption allegation.
Basically, the judge clearly recognizes Hood's effort for what it was: a broad fishing expedition that was partly "retaliation" against Google for daring to stand up for its right to run an online search engine. The case is far from over, but Hood (and his MPAA-assisted team) are going to have to move on to some other plan of attack. Maybe (just maybe), they can focus on (1) going after actual criminals, rather than made up ones and (2) telling the MPAA to learn how to innovate, rather than blame Google for its own failures.
Never heard of this before, but will give them a listen now. No idea who is really reacting to such a name. As mentioned in the first paragraph it's pretty tame, and quite innocent in my estimate.
There is a stoner metal band called Black Pussy. No, the name has nothing to do with black cats. It's a reference to a Rolling Stones song called "Brown Sugar", which is an anti-slavery song. Given how politically incorrect the metal scene is, a band calling themselves Black Pussy seems pretty tame. You wouldn't think it would rustle any jimmies. But you'd be wrong.
It all started with this petition created by a woman named Margot Goldstein which demanded that the band change their name or else they will be boycotted. Why? Because "muh feels", that's why. She doesn't have an actual argument. All she does is cry "MUH SOGGY KNEE" over and over again. At first the petition only had around 300 signatures, but then the story got picked up by The Daily Dot who regurgitated the narrative about soggy knees and how the band should be ashamed of calling themselves Black Pussy because of reasons. After that story was published, the petition got another one thousand signatures. That may sound like a lot, but the people who signed that petition likely have no intention of ever listening to Black Pussy's music even if they change their name, so their signatures are meaningless.
One of the members of the outrage brigade thought the petition wasn't accomplishing anything, so that individual decided to take matters into their own hands by threatening violence against them should they play at Raleigh, North Carolina. The band, fearing for the safety of those who would be at the venue, chose to cancel the gig. I talked about this concept before. When people are taught that they have a right not to be offended, they react violently to people who offend them. This band is just trying to promote peace and love through their music, yet some asshole threatens violence against them simply because they don't like the name.
The metal press's reaction to this affair has been disappointing to say the least. MetalSucks and Metal Injection took the spineless position of "Oh, we can see both sides of the issue." No other metal sites are really talking about it. The only ones who ever bothered to defend the band were various libertarian sites. I'm here to say that which metal journalists refuse to say. You don't have a right not to be offended. Bands are free to name themselves whatever they want, and if you don't like their name, then tough shit. I'm sure social justice warriors will bring up the tired arguments about how Black Pussy's name will trigger people and dehumanize them and shit like that. Well, guess what? If you're so pathetically weak that a band's name is enough to make you have a panic attack, then you're gonna suck at life.
One thing I've noticed throughout all of this is that most of the people who are getting offended over the band's name are white people. I have a few questions I want to ask the outrage brigade: Why are you coddling black people? Why are you treating them as if they're helpless infants who needs to be protected from the dangers of the real world? Why are you assuming that the name Black Pussy is offensive to all black people? Why are you assuming that all black people think the same? Why do you feel the need to speak for them and get offended on their behalf? And lastly, why are you all so fucking retarded? I'm pretty sure you'll call me "ableist" for asking that last question but I don't care.
Black Pussy released their latest album Magic Mustache last month. You should check it out. I don't really listen to stoner metal, but I like this. If there's one good thing to come out of this controversy, it's that it's the best free publicity the band could have ever hoped for.
Well that was ridiculous. And when I saw the headline I thought it was going to be yet another story on TxK, so now I'm depressed.
If you were gaming on a PC just after the turn of millennium, you likely fondly remember the classic game No One Lives Forever. A genre turning first-person shooter that featured a strong, reasonably dressed female hero and a setting inspired by 1960's spy films was received incredibly well by both critics and fans. And, because retro PC gaming continues to have a strong following, any of you that know what we're talking about here are probably thinking you'd like to fire up a copy of No One Lives Forever on your updated machine and give it another go. Well, you can't. You should be able to, but you can't. And you have a complicated web of copyright and trademark rights-holders to thank for it.
Even if you're a fan of retro-gaming, you may not be familiar with the company Night Dive Studios. Night Dive is the group that buys up the rights to older games, optimizes them for new machines, and then re-releases them on Steam and other outlets like GOG.com. They've done this with big-name titles in the past and they really wanted to do the same with No One Lives Forever and its sequel. And, because this is a reputable business we're talking about, they decided to secure the rights for the game first. And that's where it all went to hell.
Night Dive's detective work began with tracking down and speaking with the game's original developer and publishers. That meant getting in touch with the three main players: Warner Bros., Activision, and 20th Century Fox.
NOLF and its sequel were developed by Monolith, who are now owned by Warner Bros., under whom they released the acclaimed action game Shadow of Mordor just last year. NOLF was made using a framework called the LithTech engine, which is also now owned by Warner Bros. However, the first game was published by Fox Interactive, and there's a question of whether 20th Century Fox or even Activision might have partial rights to the series, due to Activision's 2008 merger with Vivendi, a separate media company that had acquired Fox Interactive in 2003.
Here's where this gets really depressing. Because the game was released in an age before digital document filing was in widespread use, the rights contracts and paperwork we're talking about here are all literally paperwork. And, after communicating with Activision, Fox, and Warner Bros., the response from all three was to essentially state, "We don't really know if we have any rights here, and we aren't going to look for the paperwork to make sure, but if you make the game and it turns out we do have those rights you'll be facing legal action from us." Keep in mind, this was the response from all three publishers who would take legal action concerning rights all three couldn't be bothered to determine if they even had. You can imagine how frustrating that must be when, like Night Dive's Larry Kuperman experienced, you just want to re-release a game and nobody can tell you who owns it. Take Kuperman's interaction with Activision, for instance, to get an idea of how absurd this all is.
"So we went back to Activision and, [after] numerous correspondence going back and forth, they replied that they thought they might have some rights, but that any records predated digital storage. So we're talking about a contract in a box someplace." Kuperman laughed. "The image I get is the end of Indiana Jones… somewhere in a box, maybe in the bowels of Activision, maybe it was shipped off to Iron Mountain or somewhere. And they confessed, they didn't have [their] hands on it. And they weren't sure that they even had any of those rights."
In a sane world, intellectual property rights that a company can't be bothered to find out if they even have shouldn't be rights that can then be sued over. Either they're important or they aren't, and if they're important they should be maintained.
The upshot of this is that Night Dive discovered that, surprisingly, nobody owned the trademark for the game, so they filed a claim to it. Months later, Kuperman found out that Warner Bros. had filed an opposition to get an extension on the time they could use to determine if they had a trademark claim to the name. Again, they didn't know if they had the rights, but they wanted to find out just to see if they could enforce legal action with them. The trademarks and other intellectual property would be used solely for legal action, as it quickly became clear that none of the companies involved had any interest in actually helping Night Dive re-release the game, even if they could have made money off of the arrangement.
We wanted Warner involved with this," Kuperman told me, "so we said, there's two ways we could work together. First, and our preference, is that we would do a licensed deal. We would pay them some amount of money up front to show that we're serious, and then we would give them a backend share of revenues. And if that didn't work for them, if they wanted to be the publisher of record, we'll still do the development and the optimization of the game, and instead of our giving them a backend share, [they] give us a backend share. In either case, it seemed to us that they were gonna be making money that they wouldn't have been making otherwise, with a minimum amount of effort. We weren't meeting with a lot of enthusiasm. In fact, most of the phone calls were like, 'That'll probably never happen.'"
Activision and Fox responded similarly, saying they weren't sure if they had any rights but not offering any kind of permission to move forward and retaining the option of legal action if Night Dive re-released the game. Keep in mind, please, that this frustrating nonsense is all the result of Night Dive attempting to do the right thing and license the game properly. And, for those efforts, they even got a legal threat from Warner Bros., because apparently nobody over at Warner bothers to talk between departments.
Then, in December of 2014, Kuperman and Kick heard from a lawyer representing Warner Bros. Kuperman explained: "Steve [got] what I like to call, the legal term for it is a 'Scary Letter.' It comes from an attorney representing Warner Bros. and basically says they're aware of our filing for trademark, that they had contested that, and that if we went forward, specifically with a new version of No One Lives Forever, without doing a new deal with them, we would be infringing their rights and the hammer would fall."
And that was after Night Dive had been desperately trying to do such a deal and meeting with nothing but questions over whether any of these rights Warner's lawyer mentioned even existed. Warner further followed up saying they were no longer interested either in working with Night Dive to publish the game or publish it themselves, meaning Warner Bros. has made the conscious decision to let No One Lives Forever die off for good. Night Dive says it has given up the attempt and gamers who wanted a legitimate way to get a beloved old game are forced down the roads publishers claim are evil.
The people at Night Dive have ceased their attempts to re-release No One Lives Forever. They now control the trademark, but without a game to use it on, they're going to let it lapse. No One Lives Forever will remain unavailable on digital stores, and modern gamers who want to play the games will have to either track down scarce physical copies or resort to illegally torrenting them.
Intellectual property: important enough to publishers that they'll use it to kill off the attempt to release an old game, but not important enough to know if they actually have the rights to begin with.
We're releasing a new record next week, the whole thing is available for streaming on this page this week.
Forcefed Horsehead kommer med skiva "Hunting Witches" 30. mars. Headbanger har fått muligheten til å la deg høre hele skiva frem til 27. mars.
Hunting Witches er en konsept-EP som spinner rundt heksejakt og de som jaktet hekser. Hvordan dukket idéen opp om å gjøre en konseptutgivelse rundt akkurat dette temaet?
– Det var Magnus, trommisen, som først kom opp med idéen. Det var i utgangspunktet ingen dypere mening bak enn at det hørtes ut som et konsept som kunne bli morsomt, og som man kunne skrive noen fine tekster om.
Skiva består av hele 13 låter, men klokker inn på under 13 minutter, og materialet er delvis improvisert. Kan dere si litt om låtskrivingsprosessen til Hunting Witches?
– Når vi sier at låtene er delvis improviserte er det fordi trommene er improvisert, og spilt inn i studio før ett eneste riff har blitt laget. Det å spille inn trommer før låten er fullstendig planlagt er en morsom teknikk vi har brukt tidligere, låten Alcohol fra Deux-skiva er laget sånn, og er noe vi sannsynligvis bruker igjen, men denne gangen ble altså trommene spilt inn «på sparket», mens det gikk en stoppeklokke.
Litt av konseptet var små, kjappe låter, noe som selvfølgelig kunne blitt noe som aldri ble verdt å gjennomføre, men denne gangen ble det plate av det.
Gitar og bass ble deretter laget på mer «tradisjonelt» vis, ved å prøve ut riff på de allerede ferdige innspilte trommene og se hva som fungerte. Ikke før gitar og bass var ferdig innspilt, og vokalen skulle spilles inn, ble hoveddelen av tekstskrivingen unnagjort, som da i mange tilfeller er skrevet omtrent samtidig som de ble spilt inn.
Kort oppsummert, et lite eksperiment fra FFHH-leiren som vi håper folk setter pris på.
Next week, Canadian post-rock superheroes Godspeed You! Black Emperor will release their new album Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress, the follow-up to 2012’s beautiful, overwhelming Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! We’ve posted an excerpt from the massive, crashing opener “Peasantry Or Light! Inside Of Light.” That’s one of only four tracks on the album, which clocks […]
And sometimes, doing nothing is what makes you really need to do something. Something that isn’t nothing. Something that is an actual thing, like jax maybe, but possibly cooler.
–EMERALD CITY COMICON–
I’m going to be in Seattle in a little over a week and you should be there too! Table M-09 in Artist Alley!
Flickr/Nathan Makan
Flickr/Lynn D. Rosentrater
Flickr/Chris Zielecki
Flickr/Geir Halvorsen
