There has been a lot of research in spotting digitally altered photographs. From observing exif data to analyzing pattern of lighting in the images. A number of cases of diverse incidents that can have huge ramifications, and believe me the scale of application is huge.

Case 1: Micro Level - Check this scientist out , who faked stem cell research  papers, here and here . The Scale of this application surpasses the photoshop work  done on this man , for  one particular song sequence.. “Give me Style”

Case 2 : Mega Macro Level :  - This one is really more funny. A small country surrounded by bullies { or so it gribes} chooses to display its strength by launching ICBM’s { Intra City Ballistic Missile} . Only problem is they imported poor chinese tech and had problems during launch.  ” Never Mind” said one smart cleric, “Lets use the new $ 1500 license we got from Adobe for putting masks on all women Photographs from our country.” Thus was born the Mega Nuke Photoshop Job.. Can be read here , here

All this stirs my Conspiracy theory mode..  and makes me think of all the possible places this could have happened..

• Moon Landing
• 9/11
• Rekha’s Ever Young Face

or even this

Jedi Satts : My Secret Life

U Definitely cant prove this is a fake :-D. Yes  I was tanned majorly .. Been on some war with KwillHoops Clan

[Updates to the Post]

Am in a non Flash Desktop , makes me wonder about the Claims of Adobe saying Flash 8-10 Version are present in 90% of all browsers..Believe me when I get them to visit all enterprises. Me thinks they dont count enterprises in their stats.

One has to definitely Check this one OUT[ Trailer Video of Quantum of Solace].

Yesterday was the saddest day in Indian Military history.Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw fought his last battle and was  victorious .At the age of 94 he laid down his life after a glorious life both on the field and off it. I can in no way measure to write any tribute for him.

But I would like to mention a popular feeling that is being echoed across all media.

Why were the representatives of Govt of India{ That includes you Pratibha Patil >-: } and the 3 Service Chiefs not present at his state funeral. Is this the kind of respect we show to our real heroes.

While on one side we celebrate a victory of 25 years, where a members of team playing a mere game are honored across by everyone. A real life hero like Sam Bahadur was not even given the due respect he deserved.

Fie on us Indians

Blogging from recommended Windows LiveWriter although MSN ensures clicks to their site by making all sorts of default installations.

The past week was horrendous , many of the programs I had installed were conflicting with the IP address of my machine and hence I was troubled with BSOD’s. Believe I have seen enough this week.

Finally a clean installation of my recovery disk and subsequent SP3 installation has made it kinda stable.

Meanwhile it makes me proud to say I am a participant of Download Tuesday and had a great start by making it crash after installation.Seems like I had to uninstall older version and install the latest one.

Well version 3 software is what I am betting on. To more stable weblife

This post is specifically for those who wish to develop Adobe AIR Applications on Linux.After spending half a day in searching in forums and support for solutions to the problems it was felt that documenting this would definitely help others in this area.

<disclaimer> Linux Distro -Debian based Linux Mint </disclaimer>

Installing the Runtime and SDK

Adobe AIR Runtime for Linux is primarily in Alpha stage and apart from certain select features it will suffice for a beginner programmer who wishes to develop standard apps. The Runtime and the SDK can be found here, with installation procedures being self-explanatory. The notes, Issues and FAQ can be read here.

Choosing an IDE

Although the SDK can be effectively used to develop the AIR apps I felt that use of an IDE would help in other things like, code assist, syntax error highlights and other stuff . I have chosen Aptana IDE for development. It can be downloaded here . The AIR development environment is available as a Plugin for Aptana. For those behind the Firewall the plugins can be obtained here

Once the IDE has been installed and all the plugins enabled it is difficult to deploy and run AIR apps as in Windows.

Make it Work

Following the steps does not a app work, there some minor issues that needs additional hacks and in other cases outright pain to complete.This is encountered only because I chose to use an IDE to develop my applications.

• On Installing the AIR runtime most of the ZIP files in Linux will be associated to the AIR Installer and hence the mime type might change.Changing the File allocation can be moderately difficult . The solution will be found here. http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forum id=72&catid=677&threadid=1350697&enterthread=y

• Deploying the AIR Application built in the Aptana IDE will not occur as adding the SDK root directory is no enabling Apatana to discover it. { Additionally it can also be that one has to restart Aptana on configuring the SDK root directory . }, the solution can be found here http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview. cfm?forumid=72&catid=677&threadid=1350697&enterthread=y

so to run the developed app it has to be compiled manually from the location of the SDK locations

-Go the bin folder in the SDK installation
-Open in Terminal
-Within the Terminal type the following
./adl -nodebug [ Path to the Application XML in the root of the Application]
ex
satts@01HW126313:~/Desktop/adobeair_linux_sdk_a1_033108/bin$ ./adl -nodebug /opt/lampp/htdocs/aircodex/application.xml


Shapeless,sizeless and generally unruly.

Step 3 :Calorie Reservoir

Next in line is the sugar syrup or the liquid for which people die for in parties and in Office Canteens after shelling out 5 bucks or so.It is absolutely necessary for you to understand that any amount of sugar will dissolve in a bowl of water, I challenge conventional science to prove me wrong.I might have emptied 600gm of sugar for 100gm of Gulab Jamun mix.

So for those who are calorie conscious there is always Total or SugarFree but I doubt the effects of aspartame on human systems after it is boiled for like 15 mins. Thats the amount of time it takes for the sugar syrup to be any consistent.

Step 4 : Frying the Base

The biggest mistake I made was assuming that to fry all I needed was a shallow pan, A deep pan preferably Non Stick is a must [ Trust me cleaning is difficult if it ain't so ]. My futile attempts to fry the balls on the pan turned the balls to tablets, cylinders, oblongoids etc etc.

The guiding principle is that the balls must be fried on a pan which is on a low flame. This is to make it consistently fired both inside and outside.

Step 5 : No Clue

Think the next step is to put the balls in the syrup , because thats where you usually get it in . Logical is it not… { Thank you Mr.Spock for tutoring me }

Seriously …. Believe Me……..

<image courtesy Rohan Bakshi >

Summer season in chennai is making life really a pain, I have resorted to desperate measures such as waiting in Photo Studios to analyze cameras, Looking at these models Canon S5IS and Canon Powershot G9 now,Or window shopping for watches.

Finally some friends and I went for Tashan Movie. Waiting for good post on this movie from the blogosphere to link here.

The primary objective of this post to continue ashok’s post on wierd signs. This one is especially corny as all have same objective and are in the same shop ,only on different walls

Poster One

Poster Two

Poster Three

[Disclaimer]
Well This post primarily is a link leeching technique of seo to raise my blog authority,sorry guru .[/Disclaimer]

Continuing with the ongoing Twitterization thats going on around the world.With Scoble watching a thousand twits on TwitterVision , there is a new entry into this.A sweet little service called tweetclouds that shows a nice little cloud of most frequent words in your tweets.

Well here’s mine

Its kinda nice that my words are generally happy

Or it can also I am cribbing about happiness

Well heres to more services around the Twitter mania and more followers in Twitter

btw my id http://www.twitter.com/satts

This post is dedicated to the one true legend Sir Arthur C Clarke , whose name co-incidentally came up a few days ago in a conversation I was having with Krish. At the age of () he has left this Earth to the World of HAL.

Science fiction novels have ability to transport you from ordinary world to a different dimension where Parallel universes can be traversed,Enemies can be stunned with a laser,Physical Bodies beamed from one location to another,Spaceships can travel in warp speed.

Asimov’s World is too into the future,but Sir Arthur’s Imagination always seemed plausible.Be it the Space Odyssey series or the Rendezvous series his works always have a touch of possible reality in them.Arthur’s Geo-synchronous satellites remain his prime contribution to the symbiotic relation between science and fiction.

Scientific development has always aped Fiction.Be it Jules Vernes Batteries submarines , Flip Open Communicators that modelled a Cellphone ,Carl Sagan’s imagination of Worm Holes to Ray Bradbury’s letters that NASA’s Endeavour’s to Mars.From Bionics to Black holes , from Minority Report to Hitchhiker’s Galaxy , SF writers and visionaries have paved the path for the development of Science.

Though the logic may fail on many aspects, I believe that modern inventions are becoming less dramatic because we have begun to expect all these dramatic and bamboozling fiction as realities.Who knows Adam’s Improbability Drive may be the pinnacle of scientific achivement.

PS : Another favorite person Actor Raghuvaran has passed away while this post was being written.

I may my respects for these two individuals, may their souls rest in peace but their memories forever in everyones heart.

China  recently blocked Youtube after a videos of Lhasa’s protests appeared on its website.The complete article can be read here.This comes in wake of Pakistan crippling the internet access around the world , after some idiot in its Govt controlled  ISP goofed up.

This comes as a shocking fact  and revelation,as to how a rouge intent on part of Governments across the world can curtain freedom of expression and right to information of its citizens.The most pertinent question that arises is “Who owns the Internet”.

In the age of peer networks, collaborative networks and the whole participation economy it is a sad fact that the ground work of Internet is still controlled by the Government, which at any time can  down the internet access to its citizens.

The blogosphere is powerless against rogue governments who control the Internet.I think not too long ago there were as incident about an Arab Blogger who came under fire and whose fate is unknown now.

Are we really free or is the whole big brother a sad reality and it brings my favorite quote to my head.