tolkien - How big were various armies in the War of the Ring?

After some intensive reading I found this:

Chapter: Helm's Deep

The Host passed through the breach and halted on the sloping sward above. They now learned to their joy that Erkenbrand had left many men to hold Helm's Gate, and more had since escaped thither.
'Maybe, we have a thousand fit to fight on foot,' said Gamling, an old man, the leader of those that watched the Dike. 'But most of them have seen too many winters, as I have, or too few, as my son's son here.'

That is how many were in Helm's Deep before Théoden arrived, but not how many riders Théoden had.

Isengard was at least 10000 strong, as witnessed by Merry and Pippin:

'He emptied Isengard. I saw the enemy go: endless lines of marching Orcs [uruk-hai]; and troops of them mounted on great wolves. And there were battalions of Men, too. Many of them carried torches, and in the flare I could see their faces. Most of them were ordinary men, rather tall and dark-haired, and grim but not particularly evil-looking. But there were some other that were horrible: man-high, but with goblin-faces, sallow, leering, squint-eyed. Do you know, they reminded me of that Southener at Bree; only he was not so obviously orc-like as most of these were.'

Then the Gondorian army to support Minas Tirith:

'Forlong!' men shouted. 'True heart, true friend! Forlong!' But when the [axe-]men of Lossarnach had passed they muttered: 'So few! Two hundreds, what are they? We hoped for ten times the number.'

and, a bit later:

The men of Ringló Vale behind the son of their lord, Dervorin striding on foot: three hundreds. From the uplands of Morthond, the great Blackroot Vale, tall Duinhir with his sons, Duilin and Derufin, and five hundred bowmen. From the Anfalas, the Langstrand far away, a long line of men[c. 900] of many sorts, hunters and herdsmen and men of little villages, scantily equipped, save for the household of Golasgil their lord. From Lamedon, a few grim hillmen without a captain. Fisher-folk of the Ethir, some hundred or more spared from the ships. Hirluin the fair of the Green Hills from Pinnath Gelin with three hundreds of gallant green-clad men. And last and proudest, Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amroth, kinsman of the Lord, with gilded banners bearing his token of the Ship and the Silver Swan, and a company of knights in full harness riding grey horses; and behind them seven hundreds of men at arms, tall as lords, grey-eyed, dark-haired, singing as they came. And that was all, less than three thousands full told.

He doesn't write how many were in Minas Tirith in the first place.

Then the Rohirrim come with 6000 riders, as observed by Ghân-buri-Ghân in 'The Ride of the Rohirrim'. They are heavily outnumbered by Orcs in that region.

There are roughly three times as many (18000) Haradrim as Rohirrim:

And if the Rohirrim were at their onset thrice outnumbered by the Haradrim alone, soon their case became worse; ...

The fleet of Umbar encompassed "50 great ships, smaller vessels beyond count"

After the Battle of the Pellenor Fields, the force to attack the Morannon was 7000 strong:

This then was the end of the debate of the lords; that they should set forth on the second morning from that day with seven thousands, if these may be found; and the great part of this force should be on foot, because of the evil lands into which they would go. Aragorn should find some two thousands of those that he had gathered to him in the South; but Imrahil should find three and a half thousands; and Éomer five hundreds of the Rohirrim who were unhorsed but themselves warworthy, and he himself should lead five hundreds of his best Riders on horse; and another company of five hundred horse there should be, among which there should ride the sons of Elrond with the Dúnedain and the knights of Dol Amroth: all told six thousand foot and a thousand horse.

And then, not going:

But the main strength of the Rohirrim that remained horsed and able to fight, some three thousand under Elfhelm, should waylay the West Road against the enemy that was in Anórien.

In the End less than 6000 actually arrive at the Black Gates, because some stayed at the crossroads, and some went to free Cair Andros

I'll write more if I find anything . . .

lord of the rings - Why Were the Weapons in Middle-earth So Rudimentary?

In Middle Earth one can find examples of magical weaponry: elven swords of the Elder Days not only glowed when orcs were near, they also caused them to feel pain (other objects made by elves also have this power in them, mere touch for a wicked being feels like ,,burning" or ,,freezing" even elvish special food like lembas was suffocating for them, of course lembas are extremely magical can save life and boost strength of those who eat it). Also the dwarven or numenorean weapons can be viewed as enchanted, daggers of Barrow Down had ,,spells for the bane of Mordor", from the evil side Witch-king could make his sword burst into flames (no idea whether it's inherent ability of the blade or his owner's sorcery), also the famous morgul-knife which with single wound could turn a living being into wraith under command of Sauron and Nazgul. Blades made by elves, dwarves and dunedain were generally made from better steel, were super sharp able to cut other metals for example like weapons made by dwarven smith Telchar of Nogrod (who was supposedly one of the best craftsmen of his whole race), we have also Gurthang/Anglachel sword made by Eol the Dark Elf from meteroritic iron, it contained much of it's creator's malice, had some sort of malevolent sentience and could easily cut through metal armor and ,,earth iron" like wood, of course those weapons also had quality of imperviousness for corrosion and rust, and could survive thousands of years and be like brand new. The case of Narsil/Anduril might seem ambiguous but it is heavily implied it was magical (Narsil could ,,shone with the light of sun and moon" and evil forces can be harmed better by this holy light which came from Two Trees of Valinor, also Varda, Queen of Stars commanded the very essence of light and creatures tainted by dark power fear and often receive damage from light, the power contained in phial of Galadriel used by Frodo allowed him to pass the magic barrier of Silent Watchers in Cirith Ungol, in the phial was captured light of Earendil star).

There is also case of Dragon helm of Dor-Lómin made by Telchar, with ,,runes of victory" and power to protect from wounds (how it works exactly we don't know but some magic was applied to it), dwarves of Erebor in Third Age made armour from silver which was hard like steel (,,power of triple steel"). On a lighter note, Bilbo's song about Earendil mentions runes on his shield ,,his shining shield was scored with runes to ward all wounds and harm from him" of course it might be just poetic language but hey it could happen, it's a fantasy world after all, hahah :).

meaning - What does "Kalipedia" mean?

Joyce is famous for his neologisms and Kalipedia is one such. The entire sentence reads:

Kalipedia, he prophesied, would soon be generally adopted and all the
graces of life, genuinely good music, agreeable literature, light philosophy,
instructive pictures, plastercast reproductions of the classical statues such as
Venus and Apollo, artistic coloured photographs of prize babies, all these
little attentions would enable ladies who were in a particular condition to pass the intervening months in a most enjoyable manner.

The word is constructed from the Greek kali (meaning beauty, as in calligraphy) and paedia (meaning education) and could be construed to mean education through beauty or perhaps enrichment through beauty. Joyce (or his character, Mr. Mulligan) very likely derived the word from the Greek phrase, Kalos kagathos:

Kalos kagathos (Ancient Greek καλὸς κἀγαθός [kalos kaːɡatʰǒs]), of which kalokagathia (καλοκαγαθία) is the derived noun, is a phrase used by classical Greek writers to describe an ideal of personal conduct, especially in a military context. Its use is attested since Herodotus and the classical period. The phrase is adjectival, composed of two adjectives, καλός ("beautiful") and ἀγαθός ("good" or "virtuous"), the second of which is combined by crasis with καί "and" to form κἀγαθός. Werner Jaeger summarizes it as ”the chivalrous ideal of the complete human personality, harmonious in mind and body, foursquare in battle and speech, song and action”.

meaning - What does "[got] a bird-dog on" mean?

I have recently discovered the, in my view, rather splendid song Guitar Town by Steve Earle. It contains the following lyric:

Hey pretty baby are you ready for me,
It's your good rockin' daddy down from Tennessee.
I'm just out of Austin bound for San Antone
With the radio blastin' and a bird-dog on

Wise words, for sure, but this small town middle-class boy from the UK does not understand what it means to "have your bird-dog on"!

I have searched Urban Dictionary and other sources located through Google, and they all tell me a "bird-dog" is a man who chases other men's women, or sometimes just a man who chases any women. None of those explanations seem to fit with Steve Earle's meaning in Guitar Town. Unless he means that he is in the mood for chasing women, but the rest of the song is about driving from town to town putting on shows...

See also http://youtu.be/otTW0JczoGQ at around 0:19

game of thrones - How do the Unsullied prioritize their orders?

This is an example of the book explaining it better. Though there are differences between the show and the books they are based on, this scene is close enough that I can answer your question better because of what I read and the detail it went into that the show didn't have the time to.

The Unsullied are trained in a way to be mindless and abject of desire or care. They are given special narcotics which desensitize them to feeling physical pain or pleasure and are trained to obey any command they are given by breaking their spirits by having them kill a baby while the mother watches and by killing their puppy that they have raised. The symbol of their obedience is the whip that Daenerys receives from Kraznys. There is no other training given to the Unsullied they must obey whoever holds the whip and is proclaimed their master.

The problem with Kraznys and his people is that as slavers they assume that everyone needs their services and that no one would ever fight them because they make the Unsullied. Daenerys however is so sickened by what they have done and what they will continue to do that she buys the Unsullied because she is in need of an army and because she wants to end the practice of making them. All of the other slavers do have whips but they are not whips that symbolize control over the Unsullied. Think of the whip as a key. It doesn't matter to the Unsullied who has the key just that the are controlled by the owner of that particular key. Daenerys orders them to kill all of the slavers.

lord of the rings - Who steered the Grey Ships into the West?

The journey into the West by Elves leaving Middle-Earth was a one-way trip. Not a shuttle service.

That would imply that any nautical crews on the ships also weren't coming back.

However, floating the boats isn't a task for amateurs: you'd need to make sure that any trip had properly trained crews.

I had this silly image in my head where things go something like this:

Elrond: Avast, ye landlubbers!

Galadriel: ... what?

Elrond: Just lightening the mood. We're outta this here sad and sorry lands. Next stop: Tol Eressea. Now, everybody call me captain!

Gandalf: I've got your "captain" right here, boyo! Now, who knows how to steer one of these things? Cirdan gave me a ring, not a Boating for Dummies book.

Galadriel: Is this thing supposed to be taking on water?

Elrond: No idea, but we can always throw one of the hobbits overboard. They're really just ballast.

Bilbo and Frodo: ...

Seriously now:

Who steered/crewed the Grey Ships and where did the crews come from seeing as it was, by definition, an attrition process?

Were they "magical", imbued with some pathfinding auto-pilot by Cirdan? Then, how did Legolas' ship work? He was a landlubber, from Mirkwood.

Did Cirdan keep training crews among those who had decided to leave, with just enough minimal personnel to get them safely into the West?

Was it just one of those "Elves instinctively know bloody everything"?

star wars - Which one was more expensive: Clone Army or Droid Army?

I would have to lean towards the droid army. The development of all of the systems, vehicles, let alone production, must have cost incredible amounts. Also, the sheer amount of them was large, and they were in service long before the clone wars for the various Unions that had them. The wiki states that a Lucrehulk class battleship can hold over 329,000 B1 Battle Droids. Research on the production of Lucrehulk class battleships shows that at the low end 1,000 were produced and at the high end 24,000 were produced. So, assuming that every Lucrehulk was fully loaded(a fair assumption given the might of the organizations that were supplying droids), and looking at a mid range figure for the production of Lucrehulks (10,000), you would have a B1 strength of 3,296,000,000. You would also have 15,000,000 vulture droid starfighters, 500,000 C-9979 landing crafts, 62,500,000 AATs, 5,500,000 MTTs, along with the other droid types (B2 Super Battle Droids, Droidekas, MagnaGuards, and so on and so forth.) You can see that there was an unimaginable amount of droids that the Separatists had to play with. Take note that this was just with 10,000 Lucrehulk Battleships, and the Separatists have many other sources of droids and cruisers and frigates that all can carry droids and that did carry droids. But, to show you the hopelessness of the Republic, we will use the B1 strength in only the Lucrehulks. The actual figure was probably in the trillions.

The original order for clones was 3,000,000 and another order was made later in the Clone Wars. However, they were not all produced during CW, and Lama Su tells Kenobi that they have created 200,000 units with millions more on the way. So, even if we are generous and include all 3,000,000 clones in the cost, then a clone would be about 110 times more expensive than a droid for the clone army to be more expensive than the droid army.

Sorry, did I say 110? I meant 110,000. Yeah. A droid's blaster alone costs 900 credits (Thanks, Wookiepedia). So, a generous estimate for the cost of a B1 would be 2000 credits.
So, for the clones to be more expensive than the droids, each droid would have to cost 219,733,333 credits. If you are not from the Star Wars Universe, that is a lot. Like a lot. Like buy a planet a lot.

Basically, per unit, for the armies to cost the same, a droid would have to cost 219,733,333 credits. Now, REMEMBER, that is just considering the B1 droids that were on 10,000 Lucrehulk battleships.

For the next part of the question, whether cost was a deciding factor, the answer is no. Since no one knew that Palpatine had purchased the clone army (see the bit below), cost was not a deciding factor. And, for the Seps, since the organizations that produced battle droids were part of the Seps, cost was not a factor.

I’m pretty sure that’s it, feel free to suggest any edits. Hope it helped!

Note: In my cost calculations, I did not begin to account for cruisers/starfighters/frigates. The amount of math would be incredible, seeing all the types of spaceships, but it is fair to say that the Seps would still leave the Republic in the dust in quantity.

To the comment above, (I don't have 50 reputation), when Palpatine became Supreme Chancellor, he took funds from the public and sent them to Kamino secretly, so the cloning facilities got paid by The Republic, and since Sifo-Dyas had ordered the clones, it looked good for Kamino.