Zombie Pirate Ninja Monkey

Chinese cut Pirates 3, Prove Superiority of Communism

The BBC website tells us that the Chinese censors cut enough of the third Pirates of the Carribean film to make the plot difficult to follow.

Chalk one up for communism.  I'd have gladly handed over the means of production to the glorious communes of the peasants and workers if the result had been less time watching that awful, awful movie.

Also, I wonder if the journalist had tried watching it in the unexpurgated version.  I very much doubt if he would have been struck by the brilliance and clarity of the plot which was thus revealed, even if he had drunk lots of coffee and slept through only a few scenes.  His confusion may, just may, have had something to do with the fact that no finished screenplay existed when filming started.  Just a thought.

While I'm on the subject, there is no excuse nor justification, in a certificate 12 movie, for starting with several minutes of grimly realistic mass executions and concentration-camp-like piles of bodies and shoes, culminating in the death by hanging not just of men and women, but of a small child.  The audience for a Pirates of the Carribean movie are not there to see Schindler's List.  Nor, come to that, is the film making the sort of commentary or statement that would justify such grotesque and explicit allusions to the holocaust.  It is, very simply, a plot device, albeit for a section of plot (and I use that word in its loosest possible sense) that was apparently discarded in editing, as it is referred to but once, and fleetingly.

And Another CCP Scandal Breaks!

You cannot make this stuff up.  One of CCP's community managers, a volunteer no less, forwarded (or allowed to be forwarded) huge numbers of logs of emails and petitions handled by the company to notorious French-Indonesian hacker Kugutsumen*, who gleefully posted them for a while on his site.  For long enough, at any rate, for a substantial percentage of the internet to download them.

Edit: here is a link to CCP's take on it.

There is no way that I am quoting substantial portions, hosting it or otherwise opening myself up to a CCP cease-and-desist letter (or worse).  But I know enough law (and have the letters to prove it) to be happy to repeat a few select snippets.

Real life identities are compromised.  Some of the most infamous individuals in the game should be justifiably horrified that ninety-thousand SA goons know their real-life names, where they work and so on.  One particularly reviled individual, DB Preacher, works a couple of blocks from my house.  Mr A., as we'll call him, will probably be upset to learn that he is as unpopular in work as in Eve (where he is a lead diplomat for Bob, a spectacular mis-match of abilties and career), and that his colleagues were delighted when he broke his leg playing footie recently.  He has every right to be embarrassed and angry at CCP and their incompetence in allowing someone like me to find this out.

We are allowed a glimpse into the relationship between CCP and senior Bob members like leader Sir Molle, a 40-year old heating and lighting engineer from Sweden.  Molle has eight warnings, and arguably should be permabanned by now.  Ironically, one is for publishing real-life names and phone numbers of opposing players, so he deserves what he got in these latest revalations.  The emails to and from him are a study in a company treating a serious, repeat offender with kid gloves.

Oh, and if you want some quality sci-fi, don't read Dark Shikari's ripping yarn.  It begins: "It was morning in Kladconia, a province of Rotor, the second planet of the Aksonian system."  It might not be the Isaac Asimov story it rips off, but give that lad a few years and he'll have his own, terrifying religion.  Hail Xenu!

There is strategic info on in-game alliances, too.  GF were interested to hear just how badly they had been beating the BoB pet-alliance Fix.  I liked the email from James Don (Fix Chairman), saying that they needed the loot from a complex in their territory fixed because they were "under immense pressure" and "really needed the income", quick.

Incompetent CCP idiots, keeping private info where it can be so easily compromised by an unpaid volunteer.  Bob and pets seem to be those most affected, though, so I doubt if they'll sue their pals at CCP (which they'd be quite entitled to do, under EU law at least). I guess the trouble with being down with the devs is that the devs take you down with them.

*As usual, no direct link to Kugutsumen's site, because he is teh l33t haxxor, logs IPs, and your computer probably isn't as secure as you think it is.  But it's not hard to find if you really want to.