Mastodawn

@xexyl @ioccc
Oh. We need a rank table (leader board) on the web site now.

@sirwumpus @ioccc that comes from an awk script I wrote .. but massaged into a width/height that would work for images esp on smaller screens. I actually proposed your idea years ago and was told to create an issue for it but since the toolkit needed updating and since I was reading and taking care of other things in 'real life' I never got to it. Actually my script could potentially be used in another script that would do this ...

@xexyl @ioccc

Surely this could be a simple static page. Its not like it updates every CPU tick 😜

@sirwumpus @ioccc yes it would be but generated from a script (see the bin/ files).

Maybe I can write it if I can find the energy and time.

@xexyl @ioccc

Well from past comments, you would have a lot more time if you put down reading LOTR for more than 24 hours (how long before you recite the first book by memory?)

Energy on the other hand flies far and wide in the wake of Nazgûl.

You'll come to it when needs must.

Congrats on IOCCC29.

@sirwumpus @ioccc hahaha. Well it's not just LR. In April 2018 I found out that before Christopher died he helped select previously unpublished letters. More than 150. Finally read the revised and expanded edition (read the first many years ago). This made me want to reread Silmarillion (which I have been wanting to for years). Then of course I might as well read History of Middle-earth (HoMe), Unfinished Tales (UT) which is thousands upon thousands of pages. [continuing...]

@sirwumpus @ioccc but I also might as well finally get to Nature of Middle-earth and also History of the Hobbit (both graced by Christopher, though the former only published a few years back whereas the other was published many years back). You're right though .. I always have LR going. A couple years ago I read it 10 times in a row. Yeah I might be crazy! I would have read it even more times but due to various things (like surgery) and the contest I never did. [cont...]

@sirwumpus @ioccc That is regrettable because I probably will never be up to trying it again even if it's fun.

Less commonly I read the appendices but this time I think I'll read them again. Several hundred pages also.

Still you're right that if I did not read this stuff I'd have more time for other things. But I think I go insane if I focused even more on code. I (usually - not lately due to personal issues) spend a lot of time already [cont...]

@sirwumpus @ioccc actually though for some insane reason I can't NOT read it. I find that if I don't for a certain amount of time (and that can be VERY short) I start to feel the call for it: much like the Ring! Oh well. I enjoy it and that's what matters. Lately it's about all I feel up to on my free time. It's a nice distraction though. But yes you're right. To be fair @landnnoll also has read those other things (well most including HoMe) and he rereads LR and Hobbit too. Leo also read HoMe.

@xexyl I've started a reread of The Hobbit (I won't say where).

@sirwumpus the last few times I read it I read the first edition (though a reprint of it from some years ago: there were only 1500 copies originally back on 21 Sept. 1937).

I knew of the main difference from HoMe VI ('Return of the Shadow'). Back then before it was even meant to be published the Ring was just a ring: a literary device to make one invisible; Gollum was really going to give it away! He was desperately anxious when he could not find it. But...

@sirwumpus this and the Necromancer (who was originally just a reason for Gandalf to leave the party for a bit) and the Ring were the obvious things that could be used for a sequel.

Sauron already existed in the First Age as a Maia. Silmarillion was created in its original form long before Hobbit came into existence. I was shocked to find out (the other day) that Lord of the Rings reader's companion is not for people who never read it! It has a lot of interesting things: some in HoMe but more.

@xexyl @ioccc

C coding is living for many of us. And taking the tangent, #AI will be the death of living one way or another.

Follow your passions deeply, for tomorrow may divert you without warning. Love what you can, feel the sun, smell the fragrances, watch the rain.