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Middle-Earth Maps

Middle Earth and EuropeLalaith of the Middle-Earth Science Pages (worth exploring in their own right) unearthed an interesting quote by J.R.R. Tolkien:

If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy. (L294)

This led him to come up with a projection of Middle-Earth on a map of Europe, giving a pretty interesting idea of the possible scale of Middle-Earth.

The same post in which I found that projection also had a link to The Map Of Middle Earth, in which someone took the time to trace a “scalable, vector-drawn map” from scratch, resulting in some very nice .PDF map files.

It’s a shame that Christopher Tolkien is being such a stick in the mud about some of these people’s work; it’s not as if these websites are profiting from any of this. I hate it when fan sites are bullied into removing their content by overly aggressive studios and executives. Why don’t they realize that they’re alienating their core fan base, and that these kinds of sites are easy ways to get free advertising and word of mouth?

via *.* and The Map Room
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Star Wars Cut Scenes

Star WarsStar Wars Cut Scenes has tons of video and movie captures, artist renderings, and script excerpts of scenes that didn’t get released; all five of the movies are covered in pretty exhaustive detail. I imagine some of the scenes from the first trilogy might be included in the upcoming DVD set, but we’ll have to wait and see…

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Firefox Extension Update

FirefoxSince my last post about Firefox extensions, I came across enough useful ones that I figured I should post an update. Here are a couple in addition to those that I can recommend:

  • Foxy Tunes – adds a nifty set of icons that lets you control your favorite media player (WinAmp, in my case) from Firefox.
  • McSearchPreview – displays thumbnail previews and product information for search results in “Google, MSN Search, Yahoo Search, A9 and AllTheWeb;” very cool…
  • BugMeNot – now available as an extension, this allows you to easily avoid compulsory registrations at newspapers etc. by providing you with a valid login. It appears that for the moment their server is down; I hope it’s not for good. Update: Looks like BugMeNot is back…
  • IE View – I avoid M$ Internet Explorer like the plague, but on occasion a site requires IE to properly load. This extension allows you to quickly “view in IE” via the right-click menu.
  • Linkification – “view plain-text URLs and e-mail addresses as actual links;” very handy.
  • AutoFill – create multiple user profiles and quickly fill in forms. Make sure and add the button to your toolbar, which unfortunately is not automatically done for you.
  • keyconfig – manage keyboard shortcuts, which unfortunately conflict on occasion.
  • All Music Guide – I mentioned this one in a separate post, but it’s worth repeating. This extension helps to fix some of the interface issues associated with the AMG redesign.
  • Finally, I found that Reload Every’s functions are available in Tabbrowser Extensions, so I uninstalled Reload Every.

As always, make sure and restart Firefox after you install each new extension. For the latest extensions and themes, the Mozilla Update site is indispensable.