I couldn't just pass this up especially after I made a comment regarding this just now in a friend's blog. See the comic here. If you liked the matrix or some aspect of the concept, watch "The Thirteenth Floor". I am sure you will like it :)  Here is the trailer..

    For people who are interested in Philosophy, Physics and the Theory of Everything :). One of the universal constants in all theories is the Speed of light.  Many theories including Einstein's theory of relativity rely on the fact that the speed of light is a constant. Many laws of physics and perception break down at hyper speed travel. However, recently there have been certain theories which have claimed that the speed of light is not a constant. It is just has its current speed as we know it right now. For people interested in learning more about this.. read "Faster than the speed of light". It is a good read. 

    Some scientists have tried to prove that they had achieved speed faster than that of light as we know it.  See this article in the Daily Mail  for details. It would be really amazing if we could travel faster than the speed of light. We can finally venture into Warp speed and cross the final frontier as we know it .. Although i pretty much doubt that we could see any of this become a reality in our life time. However if you are a Trekkie like me, read "The Physics of Star Trek". Another good read about the fictional part of the Physics involved in Star Trek. 

   Is Faster than light even possible? For the geek in you.. here are some theories :).

    I was viewing a documentary called War Photographer. It is about one of the famous war photographers amidst us today James Nachtwey. We would have never realized the reality of war as described in this documentary. We are so oblivious to all these happenings. Mainstream media does not do justice these days with respect to what is going on different war fronts. Look at the following video to get an idea of what James goes through. People really interested, can borrow the DVD war photographer from the King County Library.

   Wondering what the title has to do with this post.. Well i searched for photo journalism on live search and the first link I hit is this. VII is a photo agency formed by 7 of the famous photo journalists, now contains more than 7. They publish pictorial essays of the various events they are covering in here. Most of these pictures do not appear in the mainstream media. I was particularly thrilled by this one taken by James Nachtwey on September 11, 2001.

   I have never given so much importance to war photographs although i have been intrigued by the concept ever since i saw Brad Pitt take pictures in war in Spy Game. Watching this documentary has made me appreciate a whole new dimension of war photography. It is a tough job to keep your emotions in check, avoid getting yourself killed and then let the rest of the world know what is happening at the battle front.  

   That being said, there are people who abuse war photography for their personal gain and propaganda. I came across this nice little clip on you tube which explains how people capitalize on war photographs and how people misuse the horror for their personal propaganda. Here's the clip..  

    After a big gap, here is well the bigger picture. In my last post, I said we should do everything we can to play our part to help earth. Here are more reasons as to why we should do this.

    From watching the planet earth series, it is very clear that there are a number of species of animals  nearing extinction. But there is nothing that we can do to save these immediately. Most of these species are in third world countries like India and Africa. The reason that these are becoming extinct in the first place is because the locals are killing the animals and selling tusks,hides,horns,etc. to pay for their day to day survival. One cannot go and ask these locals to stop hunting these animals because they are facing extinction. In most of these countries, there is no easy means of survival. It is unethical to ask these men and women to give up their survival in order to save some rare species of animals. One's own survival always takes precedence over everything else... which questions the very basic ethics of existence..

    The same logic extends to the problem of global warming as well. Billions are trying to earn just enough to feed their family. They do not care about the fact that the vehicles they drive does not meet the emission standards and so on. So in a manner of speaking preservation of the natural ecosphere and trying to make human civilization survive a little longer is luxury.   

    Taking a step back into an even bigger picture. The Universe is 15 Billion years old. The earth is 4 billion years old. Life's evolution on this planet has been for a mere insignificant amount of time when compared to the life of the universe. That is the reason why life is so precious.. In the bigger scheme of things, no matter what we do, our sun is going to burn out in another 5.5 billion years and our Milky way galaxy is on a collision course with our neighbour the Andromeda galaxy. Assuming life on earth does survive that long, hopefully we have discovered interstellar space travel and moved out of the galaxy. Still life as we know today might not be the exist then..

   Taking another step back, many religions do not believe in all the scientific facts that i just said. People have totally different theories about the evolution or creation of life on Planet Earth. In either case, please do everything you can to preserve the natural habitat on the planet. Selfish politicians and power hungry armies spend billions in the name of war and military enhancements. It only takes a few millions to save a species and guide people to follow steps that would preserve the natural habitat and these endangered species of animals and plants. Saving the natural habitat on the planet is for those of us enjoying a luxorious life. We should do our part..

     Humans as a species have claimed themselves as the dominant species on planet earth. We are so engrossed in day to day things that we never spend time or think about the millions of other species that make our planet one of the unique planets in the universe. We have assumed that our blue planet can withstand any amount of damage we do to it. We as a species are responsible for the virtual extinction of many species of plants and animals. We have caused the destruction of entire ecologies on this planet. Each one of these species took billions and billions of years to evolve. Upsetting the natural ecology comes at a price. Humans as a species also have to face the effects. The threat of global warming is finally upon us. We can see the changes in climate even this year. 

      The sheer number of plants and animals on our planet is mind boggling. If you can try to see a show called Planet Earth on Discovery Channel. I started to think i should get HDTV just to watch this show :). Even better if you can get to see the big picture Deep Sea 3D on IMAX. Although this is only about aquatic ecologies, its amazing to see the various animals on plants in 3D. We are but just one part of this big picture. We should play our part in preserving the balance of nature. Or else we would become responsible for our own extinction.  

 Here is a scene from Planet - Earth series.

And here is a trailer for the IMAX movie  Deep Sea 3D.