I'd actually see it work better as a cable TV series, to be honest. Each season could have a new time period with its own self-contained story-arc.

Yeah, same here. One of the problems is lack of time. They just can't reasonably capture the essence of the books in 8 episodes, and the first episode really suffers from that. It tries to introduce too much with too little time, not to mention that Pillars was commercial-free, whereas with this, at least up here, time is cut short due to commercials. Really should have been 10-12 episodes to do it any justice, which was also a problem for Pillars, but I thought they did a reasonably good job with that. Here though, it really loses traction.

The other problem is that they totally go off on a tangent, right from the start. Forget it looking like the book, it's not even close. The book presented a growing Kingsbridge and a need to upgrade the infrastructure to accommodate the growth, combined with the struggles within the town. You know, bridge collapses and Merthin is hired to rebuild it out of stone, and that was one of the key points of the book, much like the Cathedral was in Pillars, where here it's largely glossed over, and Merthin doesn't have much of a role other than to be Caris' lover. But largely, the book was about growing pains, and you don't get any of that at all from watching this. There's no real narrative, no driving force, no big project to give the town some ambition and sense of purpose, other than Caris' hospital, and even then, it's handled poorly.

I like to think the book was more subtle at times, where everything was not quite so black & white as it's presented here. In the Pillars Miniseries, you at least had some idea behind why they were scheming, but here it just seems like the scheme of the week, thrown in for good measure because they have to have some resistance. And the characters? Wooden as all hell, and I'm surprised nobody got splinters. They're either good or evil with nothing in-between. Cynthia Nixon is the schemer bitch in this, having taken the job from Waleran, and I'm surprised she hasn't killed off the whole town by now, as she gets away with everything. And Godwyn, I never saw him as evil as they're portraying him to be and I never explicitly thought him to be a villain, but rather someone with some different ideas of how to lead,  someone whose different ideas inadvertently got him into trouble, such as outdated thinking, which is where Caris comes in with being more progressive, but they've totally fudged that up.

What's funny though is that Copper is airing on the same channel as this, and they're airing them back to back, and Tom Weston-Jones is in both of them, and one week Copper ended with a shot of Corky,  WWE starts up with a shot of Merthin.

The World Without End miniseries is quite terrible, and this is coming from someone who really liked the Pillars miniseries, and I know some didn't like it due to the problems it had. I'm mostly watching it out of curiosity at this point, but I'm finding it to be a rather dull cast combined with a complete travesty of what they've done with the story. This has to be one of the worst adaptations of anything I've seen. It almost feels like it doesn't have a story because they're picking events that don't flow very well. It's sad to see that Ken Follett is happy with this. In short, it doesn't even look like the Kingsbridge we saw in the Pillars Miniseries.  I'd expected them to keep that same set and expand it and adapt it for this, but it looks and feels completely different, which is likely due to the lower budget. Everything about it feels of a lower budget and makes the Pillars miniseries feel like Shakespeare.  I can't even begin to list the number of problems the miniseries has as there are too many, but if one should give you an idea, it's that Lady Maud aka Empress Maud is in this, despite the fact that it's about 150 years since Pillars. Yep, not kidding. They've been playing this since late September in Canada, in case you're wondering.

Yeah, I enjoyed the Wii version of Goldeneye, even though the last part was almost impossible due to the nature of the wiimote.

Nuts. I was hoping this would be good, but I guess Bond games don't have a great track record.

Oh deer.

I had the CD-Rom versions of all three volumes, and the acting wasn't all that bad, actually. They had that Jeremy Brett look going for it.

Sometimes, when it's priced low enough and I'm not willing to spend more on the Blueray.

God, I loved that show. I liked the British version more, but the US version wasn't too bad. Colin Mochrie got a big boost to his career from that. Now he's on Canadian TV almost everywhere.

I don't know if Cryptonomicon would be a good miniseries, just because I think weaving the timelines together would be very challenging, and hard to follow...

Anathem, on the other hand... it's a fairly focused narrative, but epic scope... that is the one I've always thought would be good HBO miniseries fodder.

Perhaps you're right, but I think the interweaving timelines would be the most fascinating part. It's not as if they're simple flashbacks like Lost, but fully realized timelines with their own progression, and I think they'd be suited well for a cinematic adaptation. Maybe not miniseries, as that would be a bit too condensed after thinking on it a bit, but a series where they would have time to tell the story and set their own pace. Part of the fun I had while reading it was finding out the roles of these characters from both timelines and how they fit into the grander scope of things, and they were interesting characters. And then there's Enoch who appears in both. That'd be a bombshell for the viewers. I think there's a lot of content there for making a good TV show at the very least.

And you're right about Anathem too. That to me came across feeling like a sci-fi LOTR, with this epic journey across the land. The thing that would be hard to convey though is the language. Before reading it, I had heard complaints that it was a difficult read due to the new language that was created, but maybe it was just me due to all of the sci-fi novels I've read and coming into contact with a lot of jargon, but I didn't find it hard to read at all. The problem though is how to convey the language to the viewer since that's how they'd mostly be communicating.

That's part of my worry. The book has some cool stuff going on, like the VR world as a vision of a 3D internet,  but I'm just not sure how well it would be received now, or how the humour would come through.

Actually, I'd argue that Zodiac would be his most accessable book, although it was written before he really got his style down and it's the most mainstream in style. Still really good though if you like that kind of stuff.

I'd actually really like to see Cryptonomicon made into a miniseries. That's my favourite book of his.

I still wonder what happened to the Diamond Age miniseries Syfy was working on. I like Stephenson and Snow Crash was the first of his novels that I read, but it wasn't my favourite by far.  I have to wonder if this would hold up as a movie.

Here's another really good video of the transit, using different wavelengths.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/nasa-provides-rare-images-transit-venus-144840865.html

Yeah, I know I've said it before, Enough, but that picture is really fantastic.

Ohhh, looks very cool. Very atmospheric. Love how everything looked fluid, with everyone reacting naturally. Wonder if it's using the Assassin's Creed engine as the symbol above people's heads remind me of it.

I'm interested in seeing it since it won't happen again while I am alive.

what kind of quitter attitude is that?

Quite hard to argue against when you consider that this is the last time it happens this century. The next one will happen in approximately 200 years.

Rumpy, you're doing that thing again where someone says something intentionally ridiculous, and you're pointing out how ridiculous what they said was.

Oh, good grief. Can we NOT do this again, please? There's no need to point it out. I know he was jesting. So do me a favour and stop jumping on my back and nitpicking everything I say.

Second time ever.  And the last one was six months ago.

Yeah, and? Do you have anything pertinent to add to thread?

I'm interested in seeing it since it won't happen again while I am alive.

what kind of quitter attitude is that?

Quite hard to argue against when you consider that this is the last time it happens this century. The next one will happen in approximately 200 years.

Rumpy, you're doing that thing again where someone says something intentionally ridiculous, and you're pointing out how ridiculous what they said was.

Oh, good grief. Can we NOT do this again, please? There's no need to point it out. I know he was jesting. So do me a favour and stop jumping on my back and nitpicking everything I say.

Well, I saw it through my 5" Dob. Nice round black disk crossing against the sun.

I'm interested in seeing it since it won't happen again while I am alive.

what kind of quitter attitude is that?

Quite hard to argue against when you consider that this is the last time it happens this century. The next one will happen in approximately 200 years.

Watched the first part. We have to wait for the two others which are playing each following Monday here in Canada.

Yeah, just don't fly United

Maybe he feels that if he says it enough times that it will really happen... 

If you have photoshop, I think you can substitute for whatever colour using the red eye tool.

I like the look of it. I think it's definitely taking a shot at being a multiplatform Uncharted, so I'm curious to see where it goes.  Going the cinematic way would mean more character development than there was in the past.

Something had to replace Duke Nukem Forever as vaporware...

I think its better for them to be ready to announce something - we KNOW it's in the works - so them confirming it is the same as confirming that water is wet.

Something like Team Fortress 2, which I knew* was being worked on back in 2003, would be news since it most people believed it would never see the light of day.

* I stayed in a hotel with one of the Valve artists (she was really cute too!) for E3 back then - I met her on the last day though, which is tragic - she would have been fun to hang out with.

Oh, I agree. Meanwhile, it's driving people nuts that it hasn't been actually announced yet. I just couldn't pass up making that comment 

Bet you were in your bunk that night...

Something had to replace Duke Nukem Forever as vaporware...

I've started to notice something weird going on tonight while playing with 2.06. I've been playing one of those seasonal challenges, and the performance points on the car have been going up by themselves. I'll be doing a race, and then the performance points have gone up by 1,  which can be frustrating when dealing with challenges that require not more than max amount allowed, so then I go to adjust the power, take it a few notches down, do a race and then come back and it's gone up again. I have to keep doing this just to be able to race in the challenge.  I haven't upgraded my car at all other than giving it an ICU upgrade. What in the world is going on?

If anyone wants to test this, it's the FF 430PP challenge. It's currently the newest one.

Looks good, though it looks like they may be updating it a bit, as there weren't any smart phone when that movie came out. Looks to be getting the Goldeneye remake treatment where they changed the story in some places to accommodate newer technology. Worked for that as it was already a newer movie, but I fear changing the older stories too much might also change the dynamic.

Speaking of running poorly on the PC....why does it?  It's one of the reasons I don't play it there and I have a computer that runs most games with everything turned up. Might grab this on 360 if it runs nice.

Honestly? Java isn't exactly the fastest of programming languages. Although for me at least, it runs great as long as I'm not running it full screen.

Yeah, Java's always been rather slow. I imagine the infinite terrain isn't helping things either, which is why you're likely seeing smoother performance on the 360 version due to the smaller terrain size. Sprite animations also slow things down, because I notice that if I'm looking in the direction of fire, my framerate will slow down, which also explains why the Nether has a much different performance than the overworld as there's lots of fire there.

That's gotta hurt G4. I never thought Kevin would ever leave. He was like a fly on the wall that overstays its welcome. Well, they don't have much now. I expect Comcast to make an announcement about the channel soon.

Here's the clip JZ's referring to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0aV3ku-ha8

Holy shit, I didn't even know the Beach Boys were still around. Lot of respect for a band that can still put on a show 50 years later.

Yeah, this reunion is quite significant in several ways. The first being that they haven't all shared the stage together in over 20 years. I think the last time that happened was on their 30th Anniversary tour where they hyped up Brian being back. The other is the Beach Boys haven't produced a studio album since 1992,  Summer in Paradise. They are putting out a new album of brand new material to coincide with the reunion called "That's Why God Made the Radio". Before all this, they were all off doing their seperate things; Brian with his band, Al Jardine with his, and Mike Love touring as the Beach Boys. That was in name only as a touring band, as they weren't allowed to record new material due to the licensing dispute, so to see them all back performing as the Beach Boys is quite significant.  It really put a smile on my face seeing them perform at the Grammies a few months back.

Nice. They don't seem to be hitting that many cities in this tour, so you got pretty lucky. Their reunion at the Grammies was pretty good.  I saw the Beach Boys aka Mike Love and Bruce Johnston years ago, and I only wish I could see Brian Wilson, but he never comes here.  But I'll definitely be getting the album.

TrekMovie has some 'confirmed' spoilers here about the return of a legend, Cumberbatch's role and aliens.

*sigh* That news depresses me. After all of the hype surrounding the new crew and alternate timeline, they don't bother using a new villain? Remind me why we're supposed to trust J.J's vision again? They go through all the trouble of setting it in an alternate timeline so they can start off fresh and so they don't have to have the baggage of decades old canon and continuity weighing them down, and the first thing they do is bring back a villain that's already been used twice. That really gives me a vote of confidence in their ability to be creative!  

It could be used to highlight even more sharply the differences between this universe and the previous one.

You mean in terms of how their first meeting could differ? I guess with Spock being back,  he could be the one pointing out how different things are.

That's along the lines of what I was thinking.  Also, it's still earlier in their careers compared to when they discovered Kahn's ship.  Kirk is even more rash and impulsive.

Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. Even so, the alternate timeline should be an opportunity to explore storylines that wouldn't have been possible before, not retread old ones. If they're using an old TOS villain, how exactly is that helping their cause of making a movie for those that aren't Trekkies? It just smacks of laziness when they could be doing so much more with their new playground. In other words, if this is not Daddy's Star Trek, as they've often phrased it with the media leading up to release of the first one, then why are they using Daddy's villain?

Maybe, but I think Karl Urban does make a surprisingly good Bones. One of the brighter things about J.J's Trek. But if we're going with an older crew, I think Micheal Weatherly from NCIS would make a good Kirk. With his hair like this, he looks even a bit like Chris Pine and a hint of Shatner:

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm98546176/nm0915762

TrekMovie has some 'confirmed' spoilers here about the return of a legend, Cumberbatch's role and aliens.

*sigh* That news depresses me. After all of the hype surrounding the new crew and alternate timeline, they don't bother using a new villain? Remind me why we're supposed to trust J.J's vision again? They go through all the trouble of setting it in an alternate timeline so they can start off fresh and so they don't have to have the baggage of decades old canon and continuity weighing them down, and the first thing they do is bring back a villain that's already been used twice. That really gives me a vote of confidence in their ability to be creative!  

It could be used to highlight even more sharply the differences between this universe and the previous one.

You mean in terms of how their first meeting could differ? I guess with Spock being back,  he could be the one pointing out how different things are.

TrekMovie has some 'confirmed' spoilers here about the return of a legend, Cumberbatch's role and aliens.

*sigh* That news depresses me. After all of the hype surrounding the new crew and alternate timeline, they don't bother using a new villain? Remind me why we're supposed to trust J.J's vision again? They go through all the trouble of setting it in an alternate timeline so they can start off fresh and so they don't have to have the baggage of decades old canon and continuity weighing them down, and the first thing they do is bring back a villain that's already been used twice. That really gives me a vote of confidence in their ability to be creative! 

Gah, this makes me feel sad for my local liquor store as they have very little in terms of selection. They built a refrigeration room a few years ago, and while it started out with a great selection, it's dwindled down over the years to about one or two really good selections in terms of singles, the rest being sixpacks , mainstream crap, and coolers and other shit like that. So, I get a choice between a Scottish style ale brewed locally and different varieties of Innis & Gunn. That's it. They do have a number of ESB's, but not interested in those as I don't like bitters. That's what we get for the government controlling the liquor. I'll get lucky from time to time to spot something special, but that doesn't happen very often anymore.

colors are 8bit, the resolution is higher than 8 bit systems though.  That might be why you thought that.

Yeah, that and the fact that it's a good use of the palette, I'm guessing, so a combination of those two factors.

Yeah, what Tilt said. I also think it depends on the kind of social circles people have. I just call it "current gen" and leave it at that. I consider the Next Gen XBox 720, PS4, and Wii U.