Hacker News: frasermarlow

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

frasermarlow — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 03:03:08 +0000

If I can find the right source materials, then challenge accepted.

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

frasermarlow — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 01:48:17 +0000

Thanks. Being on Hacker News is fun. But it turns out to be expensive too if your project takes off and Firebase charges for downloads!

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

frasermarlow — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 01:35:29 +0000

The source image is here if it helps - https://i.redd.it/r8403tg0wo5c1.jpeg.

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

frasermarlow — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 01:35:00 +0000

Good question. Check out Reddit - that is where I found the original. I understand it was made for the movies but I have not been able to locate the exact source or a place to order it from.

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

frasermarlow — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 01:21:24 +0000

The original map was found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/18fy0ga/middleearth_m... - give it a whirl!

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

frasermarlow — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 01:17:32 +0000

Well I included 13 Silmarillion events, but most are actually Second Age events that map perfectly fine. Three of them are First age so it's a bit fudgy. The project has no Beleriand events... they literally cannot be placed because Beleriand sank beneath the sea after the War of Wrath. Cuiviénen it tricky. The Sea of Helcar where it sat was reshaped when Morgoth's strongholds were taken out, so that is approximate. Would love to make age-appropriate (ha ha) maps, but I only had this one to work from.

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

frasermarlow — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 23:52:34 +0000

Honestly the hardest thing for this was getting the pins in the right place. I had Claude create a tool for me to get the location and have it correct placements. Even after a dozen 'pins' were on the map, it still had problems placing the next pin (relative to the ones it had). Claude has gotten better and honestly I had not figured out Claude in the browser when I built this.

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

frasermarlow — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 23:50:43 +0000

Yep, that zoom thing is a bit fiddly on mobile in particular. I will see what I can improve.

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

frasermarlow — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 23:49:55 +0000

Hey thanks. Good call, I will have Claude figure out the years for each event that can be pinned down.

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

frasermarlow — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 23:48:43 +0000

Best use case I have found so far :-)

Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth

frasermarlow — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 20:42:37 +0000

An interactive map of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, with events from across the legendarium plotted as markers.

I have been commuting a fair bit between the East and West coast, and thanks to American Airlines' free onboard WiFi, I was able to vibe-code a full interactive map of Middle-earth right from my economy seat at the back of the bus.

It's rather amazing how much an LLM knows about Tolkien's work, and it was fun to delve into many of the nooks and crannies of Tolkien's lore.

Some features: - Plot on the map the journey of the main characters in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. - Follow a list of events in the chronological Timeline - Zoom in on the high-def map and explore many of the off-the-main-plotline places - Use the 'measure distances' feature to see how far apart things are.

I also had a lot of fun learning about tiling to allow for efficient zooming.

If you are anything like me, this should provide a fun companion to reading the books or watching the movies (note that on this site, I followed the book narrative, and did not include Peter Jackson's many departures)

If you get the chance to check it out, I would love more feedback, and if there is demand, I might do the same for Game of Thrones.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47681112

Points: 112

# Comments: 22

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: A cartographer's attempt to realistically map Tolkien's world"

frasermarlow — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 19:23:41 +0000

There is a great (Free!) interactive map of Middle-earth (The Hobbit+ LOTR journeys) here: https://middle-earth-interactive-map.web.app/

Peter Thiel's big bet on solar-powered cow collars

frasermarlow — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:09:45 +0000

Article URL: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/04/unpacking-peter-thiels-big-bet-on-solar-powered-cow-collars/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47655338

Points: 28

# Comments: 64

New comment by frasermarlow in "So many em-dashes in Tim Cook's letter"

frasermarlow — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:37:01 +0000

Who's been using AI to do their writing?

So many em-dashes in Tim Cook's letter

frasermarlow — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:37:01 +0000

Article URL: https://www.apple.com/50-years-of-thinking-different/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47542499

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by frasermarlow in "St. Francis Dam Collapse"

frasermarlow — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 12:02:32 +0000

Flood one-upmanship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood

New comment by frasermarlow in "OpenCode – The open source AI coding agent"

frasermarlow — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 01:10:56 +0000

If you are doing data engineering, there is a specific fork of Open Code with an agentic harness for data tasks: https://github.com/AltimateAI/altimate-code

Teaching Claude Code the Art of Data Engineering

frasermarlow — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 13:32:15 +0000

Article URL: https://blog.altimate.ai/teaching-claude-code-the-art-of-data-engineering-introducing-altimate-skills

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779697

Points: 6

# Comments: 0

U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a Record 14M in 2023

frasermarlow — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 06:09:00 +0000

Article URL: https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/

Hacker News: frasermarlow

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth"

Show HN: An interactive map of Tolkien's Middle-earth

New comment by frasermarlow in "Show HN: A cartographer's attempt to realistically map Tolkien's world"

Peter Thiel's big bet on solar-powered cow collars

New comment by frasermarlow in "So many em-dashes in Tim Cook's letter"

So many em-dashes in Tim Cook's letter

New comment by frasermarlow in "St. Francis Dam Collapse"

New comment by frasermarlow in "OpenCode – The open source AI coding agent"

Teaching Claude Code the Art of Data Engineering

U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a Record 14M in 2023

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