re: In tolkiens universe is it ever explained why Sauron doesn't notice the ring

To answer your question about why there were no technological advancements during the history of Middle Earth you really have to understand who Tolkien was and why he spent his free time writing about hobbits and Elves. Tolkien grew up during the tail end of the Industrial Revolution and mentioned in his letters seeing the changes that industrialization and technological advancement wrought on the small town where he spent his childhood, and how much he hated it. He also fought in the First World War, and saw his sons fight in the Second, so he experienced firsthand the true destructive power of a fully industrialized society. His writings about Middle Earth, a place where technology doesn't really exist, were as much a reaction against those experiences as they were an exploration of language for him. It is only within this context that you can truly understand the Scouring of the Shire (which, if you have only seen the movies, you will not know about at all). "Sharky's" destruction of the peaceful, rural Shire in order to build ugly mills and smoke-belching factories was an echo of Tolkien's childhood experiences, and the returning hobbits' ability to roll that destruction back through magical means is no more than an expression of Tolkien's own desire to return the English countryside to the way it was in his youth. In the end, technological advance is not, after all, absent from Middle Earth - instead, it enters the story as a tool of ultimate evil (its last remaining tool, in fact), and it is decisively defeated.

Now, if you want an answer to your question that makes sense completely within the bounds of the story, I suppose that if humanity had access to magic on the scale of the Elves or the Numenoreans, we would not put very much emphasis on technological advance either. There would not be much need for it.

Thank you! I'm glad someone else can enjoy the depth of my geekery.

That's true, magic in Tolkien's world is not really the same as magic in, say, the legend of King Arthur. The ability to use magic in Middle Earth is an innate power and does not appear to be "learnable," although the knowledge of some things (such as how to forge Rings of Power) does appear to be transferable from one magic-wielder to another. The Valar (the gods) and Maiar (immortal beings roughly equivalent to angels; Sauron was one, and the Balrog, and so were Gandalf and the other Wizards) could obviously use it, and Elves had the ability to use it (which was amplified if they had spent time in Valinor, to the point that the strongest of them were able to contend with the weaker Maiar). The Men of Numenor had the ability to use it in a limited way, but other Men did not. Dwarves and Orcs did not appear to be able to use it at all.

The above is only my thought on the matter, and I don't claim it to be the "right" answer. I don't believe Tolkien ever goes into much detail about how magic works.

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That's true, magic in Tolkien's world is not really the same as magic in, say, the legend of King Arthur. The ability to use magic in Middle Earth is an innate power and does not appear to be "learnable," although the knowledge of some things (such as how to forge Rings of Power) does appear to be transferable from one magic-wielder to another. The Valar (the gods) and Maiar (immortal beings roughly equivalent to angels; Sauron was one, and the Balrog, and so were Gandalf and the other Wizards) could obviously use it, and Elves had the ability to use it (which was amplified if they had spent time in Valinor, to the point that the strongest of them were able to contend with the weaker Maiar). The Men of Numenor had the ability to use it in a limited way, but other Men did not. Dwarves and Orcs did not appear to be able to use it at all.

The above is only my thought on the matter, and I don't claim it to be the "right" answer. I don't believe Tolkien ever goes into much detail about how magic works.

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There were several levels of "magic" in Tolkien's work, and it was based at least in part on the hierarchy of the races.

You have Eru/Illuvatar, who basically translates over to our concept of The One God, omnipotent. He orchestrated (pun intended, for those who've read the books ) creation, and sits back letting it unfold. He has acted only once in the course of the story, after we get to the point of there being actual living beings... he removed Numenor, if I remember right.

You have the Ainur, which were the Valar and Maia. These translate to the Olympian Gods, capable of real magic, and some were very powerful... but they are limited to within the world (or perhaps, the Universe, reality, etc). Melkor/Morgoth was the single most powerful of these, but has taken on the role of Lucifer basically (rebellious vs Eru, Enemy of all others). He's in contention with the Valar, who mostly have 1:1 analogues to Olympians or Norse Gods.

Sauron, Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast are Maia, and thus spirits or angels/demons. So are the Balrogs. They are all magnitudes more powerful than living beings, and they can do magic too.

The Elves are "alive", and can't do "real magic", but they are different then Men. They don't die like we do, they don't grow old or sick. If slain, their spirits don't leave this universe, they travel to Mandos, a place located in the West with the Valar, and then continue to exist there. So the Elves killed in battle aren't truly "dead and gone", they have left to the West, and are limited in their ability to travel around there (I think). They, especially the Noldor strain, love to make things, and since they live thousands of years, they become skilled in their craft. Their "magic" is the results of this craft. It would be like a guy like Da Vinci having thousands of years of clear-minded thinking, to work on his inventions, rather than having only 50-odd years, and then passing it down to the next. Just imagine what could have been invented in that context...!
Regarding their spiritual 'magic', Tolkien conceived of the world having multiple planes of existence, and the Elves can observe them all, where we can't. Thus, when you see Elves shining when Frodo puts on the Ring, he's in another plane, invisible to Men, but still visible to those trained to sense it.
Those who were in the West with the Valar can do so, those who never went West can't.
The Elves of Tranduil and the common Elves of Lorien never went West; but Galadriel and some other have been there, and they perceive that plane of existence. The Rings seem to work in that plane.

The Elves made the Palantirs, which allowed you to communicate across great distances (and even view across time per the books, if you could control it enough). This "magic" could simply be a far more advanced version of an iPhone with Facetime (which, itself, would be magical to people 100 yrs ago). Sauron "hacked" the Palantir network, so that anyone who uses one dials him.
They also made weapons; Gandalf and Frodo carried blades made by the Elves of Gondolin in the First Age, that glow in the presence of Orcs and can cut through almost anything. (Movies don't show Gandalf's blade doing that, for whatever reason). These blades are far superior to anything, techwise, otherwise used by anyone in LOTR.

Mithril, if I remember right, was a metal that resulted from a collaboration of Elves and Dwarves in the Second Age. Extremely strong and light, glows in moonlight, mined by the Dwarves in Moria and worked by the Elves (Celebrimbor etc) in Eregion. Frodo's armor is made of that, as were the doors of Moria and possibly the door to the Lonely Mountain. Another lost tech.

The blades that were given to the Hobbits by Bombadil were made with Numenorean tech, and belonged to royalty from the Northern Realm, that fell a long time before (that's Aragorn's lineage, he wasn't from Gondor, he was descended from the kings of Arnor). There was something (spells? If we don't have magic, then it is again technology) designed into these blades that were intended to work against their main enemy, the Witch King of Angmar, who is the lead Nazgul. Merry stabbed him in the foot on the field at Gondor with one of these blades, which broke his protective "shielding", and allowed Eowyn to strike him down.
Aragorn's blade Narsil, which was the same blade that Isildur used to cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, was made by the same Numenorean tech, and worked the same way.

"Modern" swords in LOTR don't have any effect against these foes, so it would seem like a lot of lost tech and "magic".

There may be a measure of genetic programming in here too. Of the various levels of races, there was ONE union of Elves and Maia, that of Elwe and Thingol, that produced Luthien. So Luthien was half Elve and half Ainur, and she married Beren, a Man. I think you can trace the heritage down from them to Aragorn, so that Aragorn and his blood relatives have a strain of the Ainur (the Divine) in them.
This line includes Elrond, so he is not just "half Elf", but has some Divine in him too. He chose to be Elvin, his twin Elros chose to be a mortal, (as did Arwen). Elros was the first king of Numenor, if I remember... so Aragorn was a distant cousin of Arwen.

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But during that ~50 year timeframe he has the ringwraiths investigating what happened to the ring after he lost it. It just takes that long for them to follow the breadcrumb trail to Bilbo's house.

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What's the explanation in TFOTR for when the ringwraiths are literally 2 feet from Frodo and the ring and they don't instantly discover it?

Well, there's magic, and then there's other stuff. The Elves seem amused with the Hobbits' amazement at certain things. The ropes, the cloaks, the lembas bread, all these things seem to have a mystical quality in the eyes of others, but to the Elves they are simply well-crafted items.

The Elves valued lore and knowledge, which it the root of technology (they learned how to make things).

That's the difference I suggested, and it doesn't make it less magical... but there's a difference between willing a Magic Ring into existence, and learning all the craft and skills necessary to forge one.

The Ainur were involved with the creation of Arda, the world, and they understood the fabric of reality, and how to work with it (true magic outside the reach of the lesser races). The lesser races knew how to build things that gave them enhanced abilities, and that is a technological achievement.

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My question is, if these folks have been around for thousands of years, how come there were seemingly no technologic advancements in all that time? I'm not saying Frodo needed an iPhone with iMaps on it, but at least a cannon or something. They were literally using the same weapons Isealdor used.

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Same question for Game of Thrones. Controlled flammable materials are still considered to be the shite.