This article of National Geographic brings up that particular question.
Scientists made one of the most spectacular discoveries in paleoanthropology in half a century: The skeleton of a 18.000 year old 1-meter tall adult. They determined that this human species is completely new to science.

However they also found pieces of dwarf elephants and lizards, so the species was probabaly a hunter just as our ancestors were at that time. And although the adults body was the size of a 3 year old modern human child, its brain was only one third of the size of such a child.

So the romantic view that hobbits did really exist gets hammered down in the same article, but scientists find it spectacular none the less. But it would still be a nice and beautiful image that the Lord of the Rings is indeed a historic journal, just like J.R.R. Tolkien described it.

I just read an interesting article about Google. Seems that google puts some serious cookies on your PC which expire sometime in 2030. Normal Cookies have a lifespan of a few days or weeks. Although Google is big in the ad-business it is far from a “nasty” company (like lets say the Bayer Pharmacy group which invented heroin and morphium) - and anyway there isn’t any real alternative to Google.

So in the end, read the linked article and make your own decision if you will use Google freely in the future - I for sure will, because if any company got some data from me, I would have it to be Google.

The concierge says about the worlds tallest virtual building:

Did you know that this building ist taller than the Petronas towers, the Sears towers and the Chrysler building put together? In your face, rest of the world!

I say: really cool.

Ever wondered what would happen if He-Man met Superman? You can read for yourself over here. Of course I wouldn’t assume that somehow some unknown writer just got stuck with his ideas, so naturally he just let two heros clash together against a foe of one of them…

I just found the South Park Studio V2 where you can make a version of yourself South Park styled. This is what I would probably look like if I hanged out there:

I just realized, while reading other blogs, that today is Valentine’s Day. Besides the fact that I have no Valentine to make a sweet present to, I can rant about this and other business-holidays:

Valentine’s Day, just as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, even New Years Eve and some other holidays I sure forgot to mention now, are probably just made for people to go shopping. If you really wanted to show someone that you care for her/him, or appreciate what your parents did for you, you could and should show them every day. Not in buyable gifts, but in gifts of heart.
It doesn’t change anything if you are an ass to someone most of the time, only to go to them on one special occasion that the “moral majority” told you and bid them forgiveness.
The same counts for New Years Eve. Sure it is really nice to celebrate the new year with all your friends and party till midday on the 1st. But (with a big B) what are all those good intentions made on this night for? After a week or even less they are gone with the wind. “I will stop smoking this year” and all the other “good” intentions made could be made any other day the year too, but with a lot more will to do them and a higher chance to succeed. It is all too easy to say something you will/will-not do in the next year on New Years Eve. Really starting/stoping something out of your own choice, not because a holiday told you to, those intentions will last. And because you made them on your own free will, you will know why you made them and with what sacrifices they come or go. But you made a choice, not the day.

What is freedom but the ability to make choices? Between courage and cowardice… duty and love… or even heaven and hell. The nature of the choices we make define us as human beings. We choose the world we inhabit. Each of us creates his own world… We conjure paradises from our hopes, and nightmares born of fear. What if they are both illusion?

You are Chamomile Tea.
Your an original! Helpful to anyone in need and
always willing to lend a hand, you take action
but not through violence, people listen to you
for you have a knack for giving wonderful
advice! Many look up to you and you try your
best not to let them down. You have many
friends steadfast or no who consider themselves
lucky to be near you. You may have been hurt in
the past but you dont let that stand in your
way! You have a wonderful outlook on life and
try to see the good in people which is an
awesome gift!

What type of Tea are you? {-With Anime Pictures!-}
brought to you by Quizilla

You sure know the times when you come around somewhere with only your Laptop with you, half an hour or so sparetime while you are waiting for the bus or train or whatever, and you don’t know what to do with those minutes. Todays link, the Home of the Underdogs has a sheer endless amount of old and new games, be it some quick action, long advantures or just your good old puzzles. Especially if you don’ have the latest hardware (or just some old office PC who doesn’t play any now-buyable games at all) you should check out some of the Underdogs’ games because they have real gems there!

Just read this about a students anti-bush artwork: link

The art itself really has some truth in it, because Bush does at least in some parts, act like Hitlers. He invades countries that don’t even threat him, installs new governments there and more. The 17-year-old artist wanted to express this in his project - which he had to do for school. I don’t want to play down the Holocaust, Hitler or any of his methods, those very unhumanly, cruel to the last, and if somebody sometime gets access to a time machine, Hitlers death would be worth risking a time paradoxon.

But back to the points, the pupil now gets bashed from media being a “leftist” and the teacher who gave him an A also because she “demonstrats to her other students that Bush-bashing and America-hatred, are commendable pursuits, worthy of reward.”

Which shows once more that America really is black and white, without any memorable shades or gray…

If you ever didn’t know what to watch, or just got some minutes or even hours without something really useful to do, just watch yourself some music videos, anime episodes or other short & longer movies at those free video-on-demand sites:

Sputnik7
Video-C

Imagine that all your live revoles around Internet, Computers, Television, Mobile phones and other medias. What if all of a sudden there is a power failure?

“Live / Life” by Hi5 Productions picks up just that track and puts it into a 3-minute movie. You can check it out here, it is only 8mb:

Download Live / Life (thanks to theGreySheep for the mirror)

If you don’t know it yet, you have to check it out: Google News. Google does what it does best, meta-crawling the web, this time for news around the globe. When you see an article about something interesting there, there are always links to like 20 other sites that had an article about that particular newsflash.

So with all the news from different sites and headers you now really can get an objective view of things, not only the one view that your local paper throws at you!

This is a snapshot of 4 people (including me) out of the 6 people who make up Hi5 Productions ^_^
Hi5 is a group of DTV (digital TV) students whos profession is to make movies, imagine new formats for TV and other creative stuff.

(Eyes have been blacked out to save the guys from Spam Snail-mail)

I always was a defender of the Opera Browser, although it isn’t freeware as Mozilla Firefox is. But I always loved some key features of Opera, like the mouse gestures, the option to save your windows and tabs when you close the browser and others. This was what really prevented me from trying and using FireFox.

But now, lo’ and behold, I switched to FireFox, because every feature Opera can throw at you FireFox can now emulate, or even evolve. So to make the long story short, here are some links for FireFox extensions that make it behave more like Opera:

Dictionary Search
All-in-One Mouse Gestures
Paste & Go
Session Saver

If you ever wanted or needed a (nick)name that sounded like something straight from the Lord of the Rings, this is the place for you:

Elvish name generator
Hobbit name generator