Dwarf_Sibling writes "Hard to believe but with over 11,000 votes tallied LoTR:FoTR has displaced "The Godfather" as the highest rated movie at IMDB. Over time I'd guess this will fall lower, but this is an amazing accomplishment for a fantasy movie."

Vindi submitted a New Scientist story about a CPU fan that flaps in the breeze. 2cm metal or polyester fan blades, and use less power then a traditional rotary fan. They move less air then the traditional fan, but for laptops, using 99% less power can't hurt. Update Hey its a duplicate from saturday! Guess I shouldn't post while planning my trek to see LotR tomorrow. Go ahead, flame on.

tenchiken writes: "First the bad news, Square has announced that they are selling off Square Studios. This is the group that was responsible for the FF Movie and also a forthcoming short for The Matrix. Better News. Final Fantasy X, the first FF for the new PS2, is shipping tommorow (in stores Wed). You can find reviews at GameSpot,Gamers, IGN, etc. The reviews are all positive, and I will be waiting in line on Wed morning to pick up my copy. Square's new online game for the PS2 FF11 is also coming along nicely. Playonline Has a 'webcam' up feeding 24x7 images. The pictures look great. The above pages are Japanese." CowboyNeal and I both have our copies of FFX on reserve and are planning on some time off to watch LotR and play FFX this week.

Danny Yee writes with the perfect background reading (once you've finished the Tolkein books, of course) before checking out the new LoTR movie: "For something completely different, reviews of The Complete Sagas of Icelanders and Seamus Heaney's Beowulf. Essential background reading for serious Tolkien fanatics! You might also want to check out my other medieval literature reviews."

TheAlchemist writes "Eighteen years ago a Lord of the Rings game appeared in a Parker Brothers catalog for the Atari 2600. Unfortunately, the game was never released, along with several other titles that appeared alongside it. Just in time for the first Lord of the Rings movie release next week, AtariAge.com has discovered a long lost prototype of this game, probably one of the most sought after 2600 vaporware titles. You can look at screenshots, a picture of the prototype box, the prototype cartridge, and download the binary image that you can then run in one of several Atari 2600 emulators. More information about the game can be gleaned here."

With the Fellowship of the Rings just around the corner, the Slashdot Submissions bin is overflowing with stories about the film since it premiered in the UK already for you lucky brits. If you don't mind a little spoilage, here is the guardian's review, the BBC review, the telegraph review, some pictures from the premiere, and one last review. Also, Scifi.com is reporting that the film has already been pirated. The reviews have their nitpicks, but on the whole its looking good. M : LOTR tattoos!

sushi writes: "Another LoTR article: this one focusing on the technology used at Weta Digital (the CG shop). Interesting that they are undertaking "major" R&D into running more Linux, and that Linux "delivers about two times the price performance compared to systems running proprietary operating systems". I've been lucky enough to have seen inside this place, and it's cool to see a render-wall of linux boxen. Full story from a New Zealand newspaper." We linked to another good article about WETA a month ago.

PatJensen writes "Star Trek TNG: Nemesis, the 10th Star Trek movie gets the green light from Paramount today. It will be directed by Stuart Baird, who did Executive Decision, US Marshals and Tomb Raider. Looks to be pretty action packed. Digital Domain (LOTR, Titanic) will be doing the SFX. The movie seems to be based around Romulan conflict with the Federation. " Can't be as bad as Insurrection. At least, I hope not. BTW the first movie is out on DVD now and they did a pretty good job with the re-release.

Rocknalle writes: "As reported on The One Ring queues have have already started lining up for The Fellowship Of The Ring. Team GladBlad (having placed themselves nr. 1-4 in the queue), are reporting live from the event via notebooks and and cellular networking (9.6 Kbps rules! :-). Visit GladBlad and see what happens when geeks goes outside." The other LOTR news I know of is a description of the journalistic teaser trailer. Salon seems to have liked what they saw.

An anonymous reader sent in links to two LOTR pieces in the Village Voice - a short bit about the LOTR excerpt shown at the Cannes film festival, and a longer piece about Tolkien and geekdom written by the guy who wrote A Rape in Cyberspace. I don't think I really agree with him, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

More updates and links below on HavenCo, robots that kick balls, and what can already be said to be one of the millenium's most anticipated movies thus far. Oh, and some nice auditory/textual backup to the recent story about RMS vs. Goliath.

Kurobara writes: "just thought everyone would like to know that the NEW LOTR trailer is avabile online (stream only for now). I'd give a description but I'll let the trailer speek for itself, suffice to say it rocks ^_^ (spotted on theonering.net)" It's not at all easy to find the new trailer - if you see the flame and ring, you're looking at the old one. First words of the new one are "Legend tells of a ring...". Ah, here we go: Old Wolf writes: "The latest trailer for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring can be streamed here, or downloaded in full. Only Real format at this stage unfortunately. A collection of .jpg stills and commentary can be found here at TORN."

fjordboy writes: "The Lord of the Rings.net official movie site has an Internet-only teaser available tonight on their Web site and on their Real Channel. Go to the Web site to see the film, (or you can go to see the movie Thirteen Days in theaters to view the first theatrical release of the LOTR teaser)." If you're still awake in California (or in sympathy) and have power, guess you have first dibs.

AngrySpud writes "For those LotR fans out there, Salon.com has posted an MP3 of J.R.R. Tolkien himself reading from The Two Towers. It can be found here."