Random Articles - RAW 151031

A mixed bag this week from Maps to Making Friends, enjoy with your favourite beverage before Orwell’s Estate sends a takedown notice...

• Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered inside copy of Lord of the Rings
• The Web’s Cluttered Attic is About to Get a Little Neater
• George Orwell’s Estate Goes Orwellian, Sends Takedown Notice Over a Number
• Springfield, MO Christian bookstore to close after 25 years, citing digital competition
• e-Reader ownership declines by 50%
• We Sent a Guy From Our Office on a Quest to Make New Man Friends

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Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered inside copy of Lord of the Rings

theguardian.com - A recently discovered map of Middle-earth annotated by JRR Tolkien reveals The Lord of the Rings author’s observation that Hobbiton is on the same latitude as Oxford, and implies that the Italian city of Ravenna could be the inspiration behind the fictional city of Minas Tirith. Map goes on sale in Oxford for £60,000 after being found inside novel belonging to illustrator Pauline Baynes.  Read more...

io9's article on this.

The Web’s Cluttered Attic is About to Get a Little Neater

the-digital-reader.com - The Internet Archive has been tracking the Web’s shifting landscape for nearly twenty years now (since 1996, to be exact). Anyone interested in B&N's earliest recorded homepage or forgotten early ebook startups merely has to type the desired URL into the Wayback Machine's search box, and it will (usually) handle the rest. Read more...

George Orwell’s Estate Goes Orwellian, Sends Takedown Notice Over a Number

the-digital-reader.com - Here's a tale which is both sad and ironic. TorrentFreak reports that the estate of the author George Orwell has taken his most famous work as a how to manual, and not a cautionary tale. Ironically, the estate itself has gained a reputation for exerting tight control of copyrights and trademarks, surveilling the Internet for possible offenses. Read more...

Springfield, MO Christian bookstore to close after 25 years, citing digital competition

teleread.com - From my old hometown, Springfield, Missouri, comes this story of a bookstore closing after 25 years in business. In this case, the bookstore is the Christian Publishers Outlet, a Christian book, video, and music store. Read more...

e-Reader ownership declines by 50%

goodereader.com - e-Reader ownership is at an all time low according to Pew Research. The company released new data on device ownership and found 19% of adults reported owning an e-reader, such as a Kindle or Nook.This is a sizable drop from early 2014, when 32% of adults owned this type of device. The decline in dedicated e-ink e-readers is directly proportional to the rise of smartphones and tablets. 68% of adults now have a smartphone, nearly double the share that Pew Research Center measured in its first survey on smartphone ownership in mid-2011. At that point, 35% of adults had smartphones. Read more...

We Sent a Guy From Our Office on a Quest to Make New Man Friends

source

vice.com -  The reason we sent him was to find out why it is that Australian men, even happy and well-adjusted ones, are often at a loss when it comes to forming new male relationships.  View more...

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