Thursday, November 06, 2008

Jurassic Park Creator Michael Crichton Is Dead


He had truly led us into his world of imagination through his fiction works that were fascinating and are usually told out of time.... like they say he is a prognosticator who knew where these Technologies would lead us to and had lot of imaginative intuitions on the implications of the technological advancements..... its really a worrysome news for all readers and his followers like me and is indeed hard to digest his sudden demise even as we were expecting his next Fiction work....


So sad to agnise that after his NEXT, its nothing.. we miss u crichton.....
Chuppandi AKA Subbu

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Jurassic Park Creator Michael Crichton Is Dead
Swapnil Bhartiya, EFY News Network (Thursday, November 06, 2008 11:13:26 AM)


The magician who brought alive dinosaurs has died at the age of 66.

Thursday, November 06, 2008: Michael Crichton, the author of the phenomenon Jurassic Park, died Tuesday at the age of 66. He was suffering from cancer. Crichton was a multi-talented person. Regarded as the father of techno-thriller, he was also a film producer, film director, medical doctor and television producer. His books have sold over 150 million copies worldwide. His works were usually based on the action genre and heavily featured technology and tried to peep into the consequences of misuse of technology.


"Michael's talent out-scaled even his own dinosaurs of Jurassic Park," says Steven Spielberg, the director of 1993's Jurassic Park. "He was the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts, which is what gave credibility to dinosaurs again walking the earth. In the early days, Michael had just sold the Andromeda Strain to Robert Wise at Universal, and I had recently signed on as a contract TV director there. My first assignment was to show Michael Crichton around the Universal lot. We became friends and professionally Jurassic park, ER and Twister followed. Michael was a gentle soul who reserved his flamboyant side for his novels. There is no one in the wings that will ever take his place."

There is a very interesting anecdote. During his undergraduate study at Harvard University, Crichton copy-pasted an essay by George Orwell and submitted it as his own. But the essay of Orwell was marked as 'B' grade. The experiment of Crichton worked, and he learned that the mediocre people just cannot appreciate the quality work.

Chaos was one of the focus areas of Crichton's works. Most of his plots portrayed technological developments going out of control and thus leading to chaos. Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, Airframe or Westworld – they all have the same focus, technological advancements going awry.

Expressing his grief at the unfortunate demise of Crichton, Arvind Mishra, secretary, Indian Science Fiction Writers' Association, said, "If anyone is to be given a sole credit to popularise science fiction in India and take this genre to even gullible masses through his epoch-making writing -- Jurrasic Park, it it no one else than Michael Crichton."

The author who wrote the famous lines in Jurassic Park, "Life breaks Free...But life finds a way" has finally gone to an eternal sleep from where he will never wake up, leaving us behind with a lot to learn. And remember his warning, "Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves."
-- Swapnil Bhartiya


Bhuvan, ISRO's new eye in the sky - ISRO's take on Google

AHMEDABAD : Imagine if you could count the lions in Gir or fishermen find concentration of fish in the sea, just by dragging a mouse on a computer screen. Space Applications Centre of ISRO has just made that possible by an innovation called Bhuvan.
Bhuvan, meaning earth, is the addition to the numerous scientific innovations by SAC and is a satellite mapping tool, just like Google Earth or Wikimapia, but allows you to zoom far closer than the aerial view from a chopper. If Google Earth shows details upto 200 metres distance and Wikimapia upto 50 metres, Bhuvan will show images upto 10 metres, which means you can easily see details upto a three floor high building and also add information.
Announcing this at the Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA) International Congress here on Tuesday ISRO chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair said, "Bhuvan will use the data recorded by the Indian satellites only. The prototype of Bhuvan will be ready by the end of November and ISRO is hoping to officially launch the service by March next".
He added that while other mapping sites take four years to update, Bhuvan will be upgraded every year. "This will be able to give you an image from only 10 meters away", he said to the excited gathering.
Unlike the other two webmaps, Bhuvan will focus only on the Indian sub-continent.
"With Bhuvan we will be able to produce very local information which will be specific to only to our own country. This information available from this mapping system will be useful in addressing very local problems like floods, famines, infrastructure development, education and much more," Nair said.
"The information on Bhuvan will be layer wise and the options of viewing filtered information will be available. Inputs from a lot of local players, like farmers, fishermen and likes who know the local area in and out, will also being integrated in Bhuvan. This is for the primary reason to make it of more use to the general public," he said.
WHAT BHUVAN MEANS
Google Earth Bhuvan
Zoom levels up to 200 mt Zoom levels up to 10 mt
Single layer information Multi-layer information
Images upgraded every 4 years Images upgraded every year
No alternate viewing options Options of viewing on different dates
Uses international satellites Uses Indian satellites