The Lord of the Rings saga lies hidden deep in your Mac
As Hobbitmania continues to build in anticipation of the worldwide release of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, OS X users can slake their thirst for Tolkien lore by firing up their Mac's Terminal app, typing cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr at the prompt, and hitting Return. They'll then be treated to a …
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Hobbit Schmobbit!
Pfft. I prefer my terminal movies with more action and stunning special effects. You still can't beat the original terminal Star Wars:
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
Re: Hobbit Schmobbit!
I wish I had IP6, I'd love to see the colour version.
Re: Hobbit Schmobbit!
If you do use IPv6 it says that it is the same and that the difference is in the visitors. I know, I just tried both.
Not for me
Does nothing...
-bash: cat/usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr: No such file or directory
Re: Not for me
Missing space between the command and the parameter (cat <deliberate space> /pathname)
Re: Not for me
Try putting a space after cat
cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr
Yeah. I like the way Aragorn (Elessar) dies and *then* gets married. Bloody weirdos, those elves...
Yeah you're right. . . the list is all over the place . . bit like Apple really though so kinda to be expected.
Not just OS X
For whatever hat-stand reason, I have this on Ubuntu 10.10 as well.
Re: Not just OS X
Linux distros often have lots of BSD stuff in them including, rather bizarrely, configuration utilities for things like WiFi. I think stuff never gets removed once it lands.
Re: Not just OS X
Huh, there's other calendars in there too. Like for history, music, computer-related dates, etc.
Re: Not just OS X
Ah, type calendar and it lists the events for today and tomorrow, using all of the files.
Re: Not just OS X
The BSD calendar made it way into Debian years ago.. and from there it has been carried across most of the major Linux distros, (incuding Ubuntu et. al.) ever since...
Re: Not just OS X
It's the source data to provide an "on this day in history"-type feature in the calendar(1) utility. Only "history" here includes Middle Earth "history"...
One OS to rule them all,
One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them.
Re: Forget OSX
And powerpc64 debian...
"Apple knows the deep magic from the dawn of time, but debian remembers the deeper magic from before the dawn of time."
Re: Forget OSX
Deeper magic? Are you mixing your milieus?
I'll try again
I'm sure Frodo and Bilbo's birthday is the 22nd of September not the 14th
Re: I'll try again
that does seem to be the case if Appendix D of the Return of the King is to be trusted.
And Sauron falls on the 25th March
And Ellessar is crowned on 1st May not 23 April
and Elessar marries Arwen on "Mid-years day" not 23 June
end of the War of the Ring is 3 November with the death of Sauron.not 25 October.
good job all this is fictional and not at all important.
Re: I'll try again
Ah-ha. Hving read a bit of Appendix D, it's all to do with mapping the entirely fictional Shire Calendar onto the real Gregorian Calendar
Re: I'll try again
That has to be one of the nerdiest things I've ever read, matched perhaps only by the achievement of the calendar programmers in doing the mapping in the first place. Of course, I say this as a man who when younger read the appendices to Lord of the Rings obsessively and felt that the Shire calendar made significantly more sense than the mess we inherited.
Re: I'll try again
And for any Perl Mongers, here's how to convert the dates:
http://search.cpan.org/~tbraun/Date-Tolkien-Shire-1.13/Shire.pm
Re: I'll try again
Once upon a time I had a desktop gadget in Linux (this was before Microsoft had thought of desktop gadgets) that was a Faerunian calendar. That was slightly nerdier than this I think, if only because I was actually USING a fictional calendar from D&D as opposed to mapping one from LOTR into the real world.
On a related note, can I have back some of that time I had way too much of in my early 20s?
>"when exactly was Bilbo rescued from Wargs by Eagles, after all?"
In "The Hobbit": chapter 6, if my information is correct. Shortly after winning the ring from Gollum and escaping from the tunnels under the Misty Mountains, Bilbo meets up with the rest of the crew and they make it as far as a nearby forest where they are attacked by Wargs, allies of the Goblins of the Misty Mountains. They climb up trees to hide, the Goblins arrive and start to set fire to the trees, the eagles - old friends of Gandalf - swoop in and rescue them.
Re: >"when exactly was Bilbo rescued from Wargs by Eagles, after all?"
Your are correct AC. The Goblins were riding the Wargs though; Wargs are kind of like big dogs.. There's an awfully corny song that accompanies that scene in the book. I hope the songs don't get into "There and Back Again", which is the name of the story.
Re: >"when exactly was Bilbo rescued from Wargs by Eagles, after all?"
Wargs are kind of like big dogs.
Yes. In the same way that nuclear tipped ICBMs are kind of like firework rockets....
Re: >"when exactly was Bilbo rescued from Wargs by Eagles, after all?"
There's a lovely image floating around the internet of Gandalf holding an AK-47, caption is "When you absolutely have to kill ALL the orcs in the room". Remember, LOTR is a fantasy (it is?) so there are a number of geek-sites devoted to alternatives. Sauron vs. The Galactic Empire, etc. ("nuke 'em from orbit"). Technology trumps magic every time - Sauron and all the orcs/wargs/trolls/balrogs/you-name-its going up against any reasonably competent modern military is going to be over in a few hours at most. If the modern military decides to get really serious and starts by nuking Isengard and the Dark Tower, it will be like Bambi meets Godzilla plus radioactive fallout. Part of the appeal of LOTR is that for the most part, the outcome is seriously in doubt. The bad guys have a very good chance of winning this, grabbing the ring, and ruling Middle Earth forever. I, for one, would love to make a deal with Elrond for a few dozen Stinger missiles, part of the price will involve a few elf maidens ;-) oh and by the way, would you like to look at the REST of my arms catalog, sir?
Re: >"when exactly was Bilbo rescued from Wargs by Eagles, after all?"
"Technology trumps magic every time - Sauron and all the orcs/wargs/trolls/balrogs/you-name-its going up against any reasonably competent modern military is going to be over in a few hours at most."
But that's missing Tolkien's point. That's exactly what Saruman does. Then you become Sauron.
Re: >"when exactly was Bilbo rescued from Wargs by Eagles, after all?"
Jon-Tom might disagree about magic vs technology
Re: Is also available
And in Mint, Mythbuntu & Crunchbang. Oddly, there are a couple of misspellings in the version quoted here - Ellesar for Elessar passim, for instance - and more typos in the versions I have to hand, e.g. Lorian and Osgilliath.
I mean, these things are important.
Those calendars are meant to be used with calendar(1) they come from FreeBSD.
See also
cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.music
and .computer
Pagan days!
Next up "12/09 Yule Cleansing - The Danish fetch water for brewing the Yule-Ale"
from: /usr/share/calendar/calendar.pagan
Eg:
> $ calendar -f calendar.lotr -A 10
5 Dec Death of Smaug
> $ calendar -f calendar.computer -A 10
8 Dec First Ph.D. awarded by Computer Science Dept, Univ. of Penna, 1965
> $ calendar -f calendar.music -A 10
30 Nov George Harrison dies at 13:30 in L.A., 2001
4 Dec Frank Zappa dies in his Laurel Canyon home shortly before 18:00, 1993
5 Dec Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies in Vienna, Austria, 1791
6 Dec The Rolling Stones play Altamont Speedway near San Francisco, 1969
6 Dec First sound recording made by Thomas Edison, 1877
7 Dec Harry Chapin is born in New York City, 1942
8 Dec John Lennon is shot and killed in New York City, 1980
8 Dec Jim Morrison is born in Melbourne, Florida, 1943
9 Dec The Who's "Tommy" premieres in London, 1973
Any reg types reading this, you need to sort out the line spacing in PRE blocks :/
Nope...not correct
The calendar does not match the timeline in the appendix to LotR...in answer to the question psoed about its accuracy.
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