Dolphins Protest...

Object Name: Endagered marine animals.

Creator: Nikhil Goenka ( Harry Alchemi )

Date:03/01/2009

Some whales, dolphins and porpoises are now so endangered they could vanish within a decade.
This warning comes from an international group of cetacean experts at IUCN - The World Conversation Union.

The blue whale population has decreased from 275,000,before whaling to less than 5000 now.


The Yangtze river dolphin has been declared extinct and the Maui dolphins of New Zealand are on the verge of extinction with less than 200 of them left.

Amongst Sea turtles the Kemp ridley turtle is the most critically endagered with its number falling from 42000 in 1947 to less than 1500 now.


Only about 1200 of Hawain monk seals are left and the number for mediterranean Monk seal is 600.

The primary reason for the depleting numbers of these creatures has been attributed to Human Disturbance.Hunting,fishing,pollution,etc are some of the human activites that are leading to their extinction.

In contrast the Human population is now 6.76 billion and growing by over 200,000 every day.

In a seperate story, 200 dolphins beach themselves at Manila Bay,Phillipinnes. Nobody knows the reason for such mass beaching. Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources director Malcolm Sarmiento told a local radio-"this is an unusual phenemenon".



Some say it is due to some disturbance in the sea ,other say possibly its due to a heat wave.

I would like to draw an analogy which DOuglas Adams,author Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy would aggree on : Dolphins , the second most intelligent species on earth have come to bay to protest against the carlessnes of human beings.

Almost about 200 dolphins ,out of which 3 of them lost their lives lead a silent protest stranding themselves on bay .


Note:

My vector represents a list of string and corresponding integer value.
Here the string indicates the type of endagered marine animal and the integer represents the number or population of the marine animal.
My story is about the endagered marine animals . But while going through news worthy items I found an interesting story of 200 dolphins beaching themselves and nobody knowing the exact reason why . I thought it would be perfect too use a bit of creativity and humor and draw an analogy here .after all DOlphins are the second most intelligent species and some of their behaviour are so complex even the humans fail to recognize.

Object Name: Extreme engineering

Creator: Nikhil Goenka ( Harry Alchemi )

Date:02/13/2009

Summary:

In 1989, the first President George Bush announced his plan to send American astronauts back to the Moon and on to Mars. He called the proposed space station ''our critical next step in all our space endeavors.'' It would be a base in the weightlessness of space where big rockets would be assembled and blast off on voyages of exploration: ''a new bridge between the worlds.''

As 16 nations struggle to complete the most challenging engineering project of all time, the station has suddenly become a $100 billion dead end.

So I choose the story to reflect the reach of human intelligence and imagination, how we continue to challenge ourselves to realize the greatest of our dreams vs the pitfalls encountered in realising these dreams.

So the denotation here is the cost value of 100 billion dollar, we can take the string "a new bride between the worlds" as denotation too , with the connation being human imagination and intelligence for the latter case and difficulties faced or pitfalls for the former case.

Relevant News Sources:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B04E4DA173BF930A35751C0A9629C8B63

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE2D91739F93AA35757C0A961948260

Motivation:

The space station is created to reflect the story. THe story revloves around it so the space station has to be an object. And the space shuttle is created to form a relation that the cost of 18 such shuttles ,which itself is a magnificent creation is the cost of this still incomplete project.symbol of human achievment

Description:

When making the objects I looked at lot of models of space shuttles and space station , read a bit about its engineering and gave special attention to details , to make it as real as possible mixed with my imagination.

The design of space station was inspired by not the actual International space station but by the first actual design of a space station proposed by rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun . The design, a wheel like revolving structure was also used in the movie 2001 a space odyssey.
I added a few thigns like the solar panels to it,considering the fact that any satellite or space based object including the ISS(international space station ) has one from which they get energy.


For the shuttle , I used a really simple model of a satellite shuttle rather than the ones used in Apollo missions (the plane liek structure). The satellite shuttle is also based on actual shuttle pics.


Youtube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjPwc42p5-s