"Human, what are you doing?! Get out! I can't feed myself!"

- At The Bathtub Of Madness
A Cat Horror Novel

I'd watch this, but what the hell is going on? Hopefully it's subbed or dubbed. Never heard of the novel.

I thought the opening credits were fantastic, probably the one original piece that actually added to the work as a whole.

But the rest of the movie was basically just page to screen and it really didn't add anything.

I've read the graphic novel several times, but I really have no desire to see the movie again.

I enjoyed the movie. I read the book first, but only because I saw the trailers and wanted to see the movie, but I was advised to go to the source first. Perhaps because it was all fresh to me etc, that when I saw Zac's "moment montage" I was able to fill in the gaps.

I guess it depends on your definition of adaption. I feel that implicit in adaption is transformation or evolution. The story is in the telling no? Can you cut the story out, leaving behind all context, and still call it "Watchmen"?

The homage to Batman's suit is perhaps not literally true to the source material, but I think in some ways it is kind of true to the spirit of it. Here's Watchman, the graphic novel, was playing with our preconceptions of what makes a superhero comic book. Perhaps Snyder's intention was to use motifs of superhero movies in the same way Watchmen used preconceptions of its medium. maybe.

I disagree that it cannot be adapted to film. It could be done with a director that can function in a storytelling environment, which Snyder simply cannot do. The problem with Snyder was covered very well here recently, *related=http://videosift.com/video/Nerdwriter-Fundamenal-Flaw-Zack-Snyder-Batman-v-Superman
He was exactly the wrong director to have film this. I would have went with Del Toro or Whedon, but even they have their flaws.

Now, if the question is, can an adaptation be done that Alan Moore will feel 'suits' his vision? Probably not. He is an artist, in very good ways, but also in some very bad ones. He has a specific idea of how his creation must flow, which means he will never be satisfied with a medium outside of the graphic novel or comic.

Personally, I think one of the few un-adaptable works would be Gaiman's Sandman, but that's just my opinion.

Just got around to reading The Quantum Thief, which you recommended about a hundred years ago in one of the 'what are you reading' threads. Thought I'd send a little note of thanks since I really liked it and don't think I would have come across it on my own.

Constructing a sort of crime novel around the subtle implications of technologies that don't exist yet must be difficult work. When a break in the case comes about because the detective realises that, oh of course, since the thief used the key to his encrypted external memory to steal his identity, that must give him access to recordings of the thief's activities during the few minutes of the impersonation, and what's this, he used a quantum entangling drone to beam only one stolen minute of Time away from the victim, there's only one thing that can mean: to the resurrection house! - well it's a step above bootprints in the flower bed isn't it? And calling time-rich nobles 'millenniaires'...mmm, juicy.

Awe noodle...thank you so much! I feel like a huge dork, but I have been crying ever sense I read your comment. I guess I am still working through the grieving process over the death of our friendship, and it just hits me hard sometimes. I really do miss my best friend, and I know that I have to let you go because that is what you want. I have the hope charm you gave me on a necklace that I wear all the time. I can't seem to let go of the hope I have that one day we will be back to that place we were the first month I was home. I have let go of the anger and hate, but hanging onto that hope helps me stay strong, and to keep working on becoming the person I know I can be. I know I just wrote you a novel to say thanks, but shit, some things never change doll.

@ChaosEngine

I'm not sure you understand what machine learning is. As I said, the trigger for your child.runsInFront() is based on numerical inputs from sensors that is fed into a formula with certain parameters and coefficients. This has been optimized from many hours of driving data but ultimately it's not able to predict novel events as it can only optimize off existing data. There is a base level of error from bias-variance tradeoff to this model that you cannot avoid. It's not simply a matter of logging enough hours of driving. If that base error level is not low enough, then autonomous cars may never be deemed reliable to be unsupervised.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias-variance_tradeoff
Or specifically: http://scott.fortmann-roe.com/docs/docs/BiasVariance/biasvariance.png

It's the same reason that a stock market simulator using the same method (but different inputs) is not accurate. The difference would be that while 55% correct for the stock market may be sufficiently accurate and useful to be profitable, a driving algorithm needs to be near perfect. It's true that a sensor reaction time to someone braking unexpectedly may be much better than a human's and prevent a crash, so yes in certain cases autonomous driving will be safer but because of exceptional cases, but it may never be truly hands-off and you may always need to be ready to intervene, just like how Tesla works today (and why on a regulatory level it passed muster).

The combination of Google hyping its project and poor understanding of math or machine learning is why news reports just parrot Google's reliability numbers. Tesla also, has managed to convince many people that it already offers autonomous driving, but the auto-steer / cruise and changing lanes tech has existed for around a decade. Volvo, Mercedes and Audi all have similar features. There is a tendency to treat this technology as magical or inevitable when there are some unavoidable limitations behind it that may never be surmounted.

Woah, woah, you're way overstating it. The tech is nowhere near ready for full hands-off driving in non-ideal driving scenarios. For basic navigation Google relies on maps and GPS, but the crux of autonomous navigation is machine learning algorithms. Through many hours of data logged driving, the algorithm will associate more and more accurately certain sensor inputs to certain hazards via equation selection and coefficients. The assumption is that at some point the algorithm would be able to accurately and reliably identify and react to pedestrians, pot holes, construction areas, temporary traffic lights police stops among an almost endless litany of possible hazards.

They're nowhere near there though and there's simply no guarantee that it will ever be sufficiently reliable to be truly hands-off. As mentioned, the algorithm is just an equation with certain coefficients. Our brains don't work that way when we drive. An algorithm may never have the necessary complexity or flexibility to capture the possibility of novel and unexpected events in all driving scenarios. The numbers Google quotes on reliability from its test driving are on well mapped, simple to navigate roads like highways with few of these types of challenges but real life is not like that. In practice, the algorithm may be safer than humans for something like 99% of scenarios (which I agree could in itself make driving safer) but those exceptional 1% of scenarios that our brains are uniquely able to process will still require us to be ready to take over.

As for Tesla, all it has is basically auto-cruise, auto-steer and lane changing on request. The first two is just the car keeping in lane based on lane marker input from sensors, and slowing down & speeding up based on the car follow length you give it. The most advanced part of it is the changing lanes if you indicate it to, which will effectively avoid other cars and merge. It doesn't navigate, it's basically just for highways, and even on those it won't make your exit for you (and apparently will sometimes dive into exits you didn't want based on lane marker confusion from what I've read). So basically this is either staged or this guy is an idiot.

I kind of get it. But on the other hand, every time you change mediums the way you tell the story changes. Every time a movie comes out based on a book (I mean an all-text novel, not a graphic novel / comic), most people that love the source book *think* that they want the movie to be a 100% verbatim adaptation. But the medium just doesn't work the same way.

Describing a setting or a character might take many paragraphs in a book, possibly spread out over multiple chapters or even multiple books. In a movie, *bam* -- you put it on screen, and you can see it. Done. On the other hand, describing a character's motivations can be done very succinctly or in great depth and detail in a book, but it is harder to do that in a purely visual medium like film.

Wolverine's color scheme and costume design works in comic books. His mask/hat thing with the horn-like points works in the comics. But in live-action film, what materials can look or behave like either or those things, and not be jarringly weird? Even cosplay type stuff is generally built to look good in still images -- not necessarily in video, being subjected to action-movie kinds of physical motion. I believe the directors / filmmakers when they say that they have tried more authentic costumes, and felt that they "didn't work".

Deadpool was a very good example of how it *can* work to move the imagery in a direction visually closer to the comic books. But I think the best we can hope for is a happy medium where *some* visual cues are adapted from the comics, in the situations where those things adapt well to the format.

"Just became"? A thousand directories of H manga says visual novels have been porn for decades.

Visual Novels just became porn.

Really underwhelmed by Automatron. Although having a 'bot that can carry 750 wt, in addition to their laser mini-gun, missile launcher, electroshock body and Mesmertron head is kinda novel.

This doesn't look any better really. Almost seems to be for people with no real life friends.

REALLY hoping Far Harbor is worth the Season's Pass.

...wtf did I just watch? I'm assuming these are parodied lines from actual novels (with presumably male authors)? I don't get the subtext here though... as if female novelists don't ever write shitty cliched lines in their fiction?