RIP Cory Monteith

Shocked and saddened to read about the death of TV series "Glee"'s Cory Monteith in Vancouver (BC) where he had been staying at the Fairmont Pacific Rim.

"Sharknado" vs "Atlantic Rim"

Not sure which is worse, a tornado depositing living sharks into the streets of Los Angeles, or monsters from the deep attacking Florida and being beaten back by robot fighters. On the latter, did you think I was talking about the new movie "Pacific Rim" or had made a mistake in the title of this blog post? No, because a TV movie aired in Canada on July 13, 2013 called "Atlantic Rim", which right down to the title and plot could not be a more direct ripoff of "Pacific Rim".

The copyright lawyers must be sharpening their pencils. After all, there has been a legal battle waging over the use of the title "The Butler" which originally was a 1916 movie now owned by Warner Brothers. The Weinstein Company thought it could use the title "The Butler" for its upcoming film that stars Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, a White House butler employed by all the presidents between Eisenhower and Reagan. I too had always thought that you could not copyright a title, however, this dispute seems to be based on other legal and non-legal issues. According to this Huffington Post story on July 9, Harvey Weinstein told "CBS This Morning host Norah O'Donnell, there have been 122 instances of movies using the same title as other movies in Hollywood history, including the recent comedy "The Heat," which shares its name with three other films." As others have pointed out, something else is going on.

Might be an interesting project to put together a Web site called Ripoff Central or something like that which documents "Hollywood" vs indie film ripoffs. I'm sure the producers of "Atlantic Rim" will defend its existence on the basis of you can't copyright an idea, only its execution. After I watch my recording of "Atlantic Rim" I'll try and report back. Sadly, I never recorded "Sharknado" but I hope to catch it in a rerun.

Bravo to the RCMP for thwarting a terrorist threat in Victoria

Good for the RCMP and other public security agencies in managing to thwart a terrorist threat in Victoria that would have seen pressure-cooker bombs like those used in the Boston Marathon explode on the grounds of the Parliament Buildings in Victoria on Canada Day (July 1) 2013. According to the CBC.ca article "Court records indicate Amanda Marie Korody, 30, and John Stewart Nuttall, 39, have each been charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity and possession of an explosive substance." Considering this was next door to where I used to work at the Royal BC Museum (BC Archives) and where friends and former colleagues still do, this was close to home. I do remember some colleagues being skeptical about the Buildings ever being a target following 9/11.

Ubisoft.com got hacked; change your account password advisory

Canadian software developer Ubisoft got hacked. Received an e-mail this morning advising me to change my password, which I did.

Here is the first part of the e-mail:

We recently found that one of our Web sites was exploited to gain unauthorized access to some of our online systems. We instantly took steps to close off this access, investigate the incident and begin restoring the integrity of any compromised systems. 

During this process, we learned that data had been illegally accessed from our account database, including user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords. Please note that no personal payment information is stored with Ubisoft, meaning your debit/credit card information was safe from this intrusion. 

If you happen to know anyone who's unsure whether this is a phishing e-mail, it's not, at least the version I received. After I changed my password, I got redirected to a page with images and links to three YouTube videos of upcoming Ubisoft games: Watch Dogs, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. At the top of the page it said "UBI.COM IS CURRENTLY UNDER MAINTENANCE."