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Funes, appointed by Benedidct XVI in 2006, said that the search for forms of extraterrestrial life does not contradict belief in God. “How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Funes said. “Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother,’ and ’sister,’ why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation”. Funes said that such a notion “doesn’t contradict our faith” because aliens would still be God’s creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like “putting limits” on God’s creative freedom, he said. The Bible “is not a science book,” Funes said, adding that he believes the Big Bang theory is the most “reasonable” explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter. He did say however, he continues to believe that “God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the result of chance”.

That said, as one blogger wrote, if extraterrestrials did in fact exist, they had better not be homosexual, or practice abortion.

Fr. José Gabriel Funes is Director of the Vatican Observatory, which has sites in Rome and in Arizona. Funes obtained his doctorate in Astronomy with the study of the kinematics of the ionized gas in the inner regions of 25 disk galaxies. Funes specializes in extragalactic astronomy. His field of research includes the kinematics and dynamics of disk galaxies, the star formation in the local universe, the relationship between gravitational interaction and galactic activity. I have no idea what any of that means, but it sounds bloody impressive.

Sources: BBC News, Shakesville, Catholic News Agency

To read the full interview/article in English, click here.

As you can see from the screenshots, the layout and interface are just awesome. What I love is the menu. A completely customised view of your Twitterverse is only a click away. And now, all happily located on my desktop for when I can’t be bothered dealing with the Touch’s smaller screen.

The thing that gets me is the highlighted disclaimer (I know you can’t read it, that’s why there’s a larger image). As if Starbucks are going to run out of coffee. ‘While stocks last’?

* Quick digression: lolcat has become an area of increased interest for me. I first noticed it when ‘teh’ started popping up everywhere I went, the we started replacing the letter ‘y’ with ‘eh’. I’m not 14 so I didn’t really understand what was going on, though ‘teh’ is one of the most common mis-typings you see on the net. But to end my digression, if your lolcat isn’t quite up to scratch (no pun intended) you can head over to the translator TO BRUSH UP ON UR SKILLS BEFORE READIN TEH LOLCAT BIBLE (conveniently started at Genesis 1). *

I don’t have all day to stuff around with my profile page, nor do I want to read delete hundreds of emails about this person roundhousing that person while so-and-so throws a turd at such-and-such. That’s why I like Twitter. 140 characters to talk about whatever has your attention right at that point in time. Do it once a day, once a week or twenty times a day (as some people seem able to do). I follow 14 people (six of whom rarely update) and receive no email updates because they’re all contained within whatever client you choose to tweet in (and if you really want email notifications, you can tell Twitter to do so). Key information, minimum fuss.

Which brings me to BrightKite, location based twittering. Currently in public beta (read: we’ll invite you when we want to), the whole concept looks quite exciting. While it seems the mobile capability is limited to the USA (and limited carriers) right now, in all truth you’re just a free wifi hotspot away from tweeting WITH your location as well. Of course, an iPhone launch in Australia and some competitive mobile data plans would go a long way to seeing me tweet whenever and wherever I am. Being able to bring location (through Google Maps), pictures and tweets (tagged to location) into one service goes a long way to allowing users the opportunity to properly connect with one another. ‘Cos remember, it’s all about interaction. Check it out and while you’re there, check out my page. I promise to have a more locations soon.

How did they come up with this I head you ask? I think I have some idea… (more…)

So anyway, now that our little one is a bit older and is enjoying the company of other littlies, it is apparently not good enough to play at home with Mum, we must get out of the house. So I had to search Melbourne for things to do with her. It’s not as easy as it sounds as I had to be sure it was at a time when she may not be sleeping, eating or screaming. We started going to the local library for Rhyme Time and Story Time and the kids get to do a bit of arts and craft afterwards. Now, Little Miss is way too young to really get stuck in to the activities and she likes to jab other people with scissors so they are now off limits, but she can scribble very nicely (though sometimes she does manage to deface other kids works by losing control of her lightning fast crayon) I obviously have to help her to finish off.

Well, my gripe is this. There is one Dad that comes every week and honestly does the whole project for her little girl…perfectly, not a scribble out of place, while his poor babe looks on and begs to help. Dad lets her do the mundane things and at the end he proudly shows up his work and hands it over to his daughter. You can see other parents fixing up their kids work and trying to make sure it is as good as possible. I feel a little inadequate as I was actually helping Little Miss a fair bit and her work looks like crap (though totally gorgeous and cute because she helped of course).

You can just imagine what this dude will be like when she is older. Competition between parents is so rife already at this young age that I am not looking forward to the politics involved when I have to show up to PTA meetings and help out in the canteen. I am certainly not the kind of person who will be trying to get into the good books with her teachers by sending in expensive presents for Christmas and birthdays and please, who can really be bothered with working bees at schools, picking up rubbish and mowing lawns voluntarily when they already have some lazy bastard that the schools are paying to do it during the week?!

I have a friend who is on the committee already, just for kindergarten! I thought things would get easier as kids grow up, you know, they can start to speak and tell you what is wrong instead of whining and you playing some sort of angry charades with an even angrier little person, but I have just realised that I have to protect her from all sorts of scenarios. God forbid that she should be bullied in high school as I am originally from the bush. I swear I will dig out some mockies and hunt down the bully and get bogan on it’s ass! But for now I shall sit back and watch and enjoy Little Miss’ naivety on all things weird in her parents world.

If you guessed either Donnie, MonkeyBoy, Jade or Jimmy Whatsisnem… you’re absolutely correct!

So now I have the formalities out of the way, let’s get straight to the begging. I’ve been quite an avid supporter of MacHeist. Not necessarily on the blog but definitely within my circle of Mac friends. Well, the guys at MacHeist have another bundle up for sale thought this one is more a “best-of” sort of affair. If you bought the last bundle, then this probably isn’t for you but for a recent switcher (or even a potential switcher) or a seasoned Mac user looking to add some unexplored apps, this bundle offers a great introduction to life in OSX.

So what’s in it for me? Well, click through the picture and every bundle you buy will give me a referral point. Three points is all I want so I can get myself a copy of RapidWeaver, a really beautiful app for web design ‘cos this little bee is getting tired of the blog’s appearance. I might just be motivated to redesign, especially considering I’ve been working my way through an enormous manual on XHTML and CSS.

Come on Beezhouse readers. Help a brother in need. Show me just how low I have sunk…

Whilst hardly a practising (in the traditional sense) Roman Catholic, I still retain an interest in matters of faith. Karen Armstrong’s Charter for Compassion rings true with many of my thoughts on the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) - there is a single unifying ideology of compassion which gets lost amongst a sea of commentary. Sometimes people add too much crap to a really great idea. Karen is truly engaging throughout and her wish of an open dialogue between the faiths is one that I share.

Which brings me to Dave Eggers. Apart from being a fairly prolific author (his first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize), he was instrumental in opening a tutoring lab for young people in San Francisco’s Mission District called 826 Valencia. His TED Prize Wish outlines the setup and growth of 826 Valencia, and the subsequent implementation of the concept in other American cities. Entertaining and inspirational in the same breath, I couldn’t help but be amazed by the foresight of the project.

I wonder if I’ll ever speak before a TED conference. Guess I’ll have to do something worthwhile in the meantime…

Edit: at the suggestion of one reader, I have included direct links for downloading the relevant talks. Just means you won’t have to deal with auto-loading movies. And for those who enjoy watching video on their iPod, I recommend you download the zipped version and then use iSquint to convert it into iPod-friendly format straight into iTunes. Enjoy!

Karen Armstrong: Zipped mp4 or iTunes

Dave Eggers: Zipped mp4 or iTunes

I get my ADSL2 through iPrimus and my two main options for a download limit are either 6GB or 21GB. $10 difference in plans but I see no need for a 21GB limit that I have no hope of reaching. If I can’t use it all, I don’t feel like I’m getting value for money.

I got an email from iPrimus today, stating I was nearing my download limit. Actually, I wasn’t but that’s a completely different issue. I’ve thought about using a webclipping from Safari to turn my usage page into a widget, and have also considered using something like Fluid but both these options, whilst quite elegant in what they do, serve me no purpose when my information is behind a secure login. Enter Lemonjar.

This Melbourne-based tech company have put together several widgets for some of the major broadband suppliers in Australia. Sadly, they don’t have one for iPrimus and I don’t feel inclined to ask… yet. These widgets are donationware so if you can find a use for them, they make your life easier or they bring your cat back from the dead, strongly consider making a donation. Independent developers are the reason my Mac experience (20 years and counting) continues to rock.