Fake photos are initially difficult to spot. There are some photos that look too real, but at a closer inspection, have been tampered with multiple times. So how can we actually decipher if a photo has been edited or fabricated? It can be spotted by looking at shadows included in a photo, as Hany Farid tells BBC: 

One trick he has picked up over time is to check the points of light in people’s eyes. “If you have two people standing next to each other in a photograph, then we will often see the reflection of the light source (such as the Sun or a camera flash) in their eyes,” he explains. “The location, size, and colour of this reflection tells us about the location, size, and colour of the light source. If these properties of the light source are not consistent, then the photo may be a composite.”

Another giveaway is the colour of people’s ears. “If the Sun is behind me, my ears will look red from the front because you’ll see the blood,” he says. “If the light is coming from the front, you won’t see the red in the ear.”

Take shadow, for example. If you draw a line from the edge of a shadow in a photograph, to a point on the object that is casting the shadow, you can trace that further to reveal where the light in an image is coming from. If you map out several points on a shadow, the lines should intersect.

If a photo has been tampered with, the shadows of some objects in the image may not match the light sources in the rest of the picture, says Farid. He has shown it is possible with this method to identify images that have had objects or people added after they were taken.

image via BBC

A homemade version of Jurassic Park complete with cardboard dinosaurs!

Jean II Le Maingre, who was also known as Boucicaut, was a French knight and military leader in 15th-century France. He is well-known for his outstanding military skill and he was considered back then as the “embodiment of chivalry.” He was a man who always prepared his body (and probably his mind, too) for war.

Boucicaut traveled from Prussia to the Ottoman Empire, fighting in conflicts that helped define the map of medieval Europe. And he couldn’t have done so without a stringent, self-imposed exercise circuit, ideal for someone traipsing around in a clattering metal outfit.

And because he always made his body ready for battle, it wouldn’t be surprising if he did fitness feats that cannot be achieved by an average human being.

Boucicaut’s most astonishing fitness feat, though, was scaling a ladder while clad in his 60-pound suit of armor, taking each rung with both hands at the same time, without his feet to support him.

What was his workout like? Find out over at Atlas Obscura.

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

People see us differently than how we see ourselves. While you might see yourself in a positive light, other people don’t, and more often than not, they would point out what’s wrong with you, and sometimes with brutal honesty. If you’re the boss, however, getting negative feedback might be something very rare for you, because one does not simply give his boss honest feedback, in fear of getting fired.

As a leader, you may believe that you’re approachable to your employees, but research shows that you’re scarier than you think.

I once received this exact feedback during a team member’s exit interview: “You’re scary.”

[...]

The good news is that there are things you can do to solicit honest, useful, and timely feedback from your team. Here are four strategies to help you collect important impressions on your performance.

The strategies are as follows:

• Call yourself out first
• Ask for ideas, not judgments
• Cultivate an air of calm
• Incentivize future feedback

Head over at Fast Company to know more about these things.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Instagram is a social media platform where people dump their best photos. The app has a built-in filter feature which users can use to make their already fabulous photos even more fabulous. Now, the king of design editing softwares, Adobe, has released a new camera app with the powers of Adobe Photoshop, which makes Instagram’s filters look obsolete. The app is called Photoshop Camera.

Adobe has put some of the powerful photo-editing capabilities of its Photoshop software into a new camera app that uses AI to do all the hard work for you. But the app doesn’t just apply filters you can preview before you snap a pic—Photoshop Camera can even replace unwanted parts of a shot while you’re still framing it.

The new app, available for free on Android and iOS (a paid Adobe Creative Cloud subscription isn’t needed) is part of the company’s recent efforts to make its powerful image-editing and creative tools available and accessible to a wider user base. It’s an approach that, for the most part, hasn’t compromised the advanced capabilities of Adobe’s image-editing tools. That’s thanks to the company’s artificial intelligence system, called Sensei, which automates the editing process for novice users who don’t have hours to spend on a photo, or years to learn and master a piece of software as complex as Photoshop.

Amazing!

Learn more about the capabilities of the app over at Gizmodo.

(Image Credit: Andrew Liszewski/ Gizmodo)

Taking care of children is a thrilling and challenging task, one full of ups, downs, twists, turns, and mishaps — colorful experiences which you could write or draw about. “Professional comedy writer and amateur father” James Breakwell does just that in his webcomic series.

Where the Unbelievably Bad Webcomic series excels is character development and storytelling. It unravels Breakwell's everyday life with his wife and their four daughters, providing insightful and humorous insights into the chaotic reality of the modern family.

Breakwell's kids are the starting point for almost all of his jokes but his comics are an homage to parenting in general. "Everybody's kids are weird and my comics celebrate that," Breakwell said, "anyone who says they have normal children is lying."

Check out many of his stories over at BoredPanda.

What was your most memorable experience being a parent?

(Image Credit: James Breakwell/ BoredPanda)

Bill Wurtz’s “History of the Entire World, I Guess” may just be considered as the greatest of the many history videos that can be found in YouTube for two reasons. The first reason was it was able to tell the whole history of the world in just a short amount of time. The second was it was able to teach in an engaging and interesting way. Unfortunately, because the video constantly bombards you with historical facts, you won’t find time to process the information in your brain, and you might have to watch it in segments, or watch it for several times.

Mr. Terry helps us break down the many historical events that Bill Wurtz covers in his video, and he explains why these moments in history are important.

While the video may be a bit long (lasting about 51 minutes), it’s not boring.

(Video Credit: Mr. Terry History/ YouTube)

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My typical Sunday morning rituals - wake up and embroider in my pyjamas 🦄

A post shared by Embroidery on tulle ♡ Мoscow (@kathrin_marchenko) on Nov 24, 2019 at 1:19am PST

That's the adjective that I will use. Marchenko embroiders images on translucent tulle, which gives them the appearance of suspending in midair or, in the case of this mermaid, mid-water. She explains to Bored Panda that the effect of tulle is that "it makes embroidery visually more voluminous."

This public service announcement from New Zealand aims to get parents to drive home the fact that pornography doesn't depict sex, or anything at all, realistically. It's part of their Keep It Real Online campaign, and it's truly funny. -via Boing Boing

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This is my body.

A post shared by Ellen Sheidlin (@sheidlina) on Jun 14, 2019 at 4:09am PDT

The enigmatic artist Ellen Sheidlin offers no clue as to the meaning of her sculpture aside from the words "This is my body." It immediately reminded me of the liturgy of the Eucharist, but an Instagram commenter suggests that it is an allusion to a famous horror manga about a person who lives inside a chair.

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Peelometric

A post shared by Adam Hillman (@witenry) on Mar 23, 2020 at 3:51pm PDT

Isn’t it just satisfying to see things arranged in such a really meticulous way that you just stare at it with awe and amazement? This is just what Adam Hillman does in his masterpieces, which were featured on Colossal.

Using produce, candy, and breakfast fare, Hillman organizes an array of perishables into patterns and geometric sequences, which he often shares on Instagram. “There’s something beautiful about working with something so transient, and the beauty of the materials is something that can only be preserved through photography long after the food within the photo has either rotted or been eaten,” he tells Colossal.

Check out Hillman’s impressive artworks over at the site, and visit his Instagram account to see more of his magnificent artworks.

(Image Credit: Adam Hillman/ Instagram)

For many people, cockroaches are disgusting pests and should be dealt with immediately when spotted. These are dangerous creatures that spoil food, spread pathogens, and cause psychological distress (especially when one begins to spread its wings and fly). But looking at them through the lens of science and technology, they are wonderful creatures and could be sources of inspiration.

Check out this cockroach-inspired robot developed by scientists from Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

HAMR-JR is a half-scale version of the cockroach-inspired harvard ambulatory microrobot or HAMR. About the size of a penny, HAMR-JR can’t climb up the waterspout yet but it can run, jump, carry heavy payloads and turn into a dime, making it one of the most dexterous microrobots to date.

Most robots at this scale are pretty simple and only demonstrate basic mobility,’ Kaushik Jayaram, a former postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and wyss and first author of the paper comments. ‘We have shown that you don’t have to compromise dexterity or control for size.’

Head over at DesignBoom for more details about this robot.

(Image Credit: DesignBoom)

Ernest is one loving and caring cat. He just loves all of the animals on the farm, whether it is the donkeys, the alpacas, the cows, the goats, the sheep, the chickens, and the pigs, which are his favorites of them all. He loves licking them, and giving them massages whether they’re standing or lying down.

Check out this video of Ernest over at The Dodo.

(Image Credit: The Dodo)

I remember the first time I watched DC’s 2013 film Man of Steel, and I was surprised at how the film portrayed the superhero that I loved when I was a kid. This wasn’t the Superman that I grew up with. And to be honest, the 2013 film was kind of boring compared to the 1978 Superman film, which starred the late Christopher Reeve. But what made Christopher Reeve’s portrayal of the superhero more likable than the more recent one portrayed by Henry Cavill? Cracked.com has this to say:

Well, common wisdom seems to dictate that if we're looking for the right kind of Superman, Christopher Reeve is about as perfect as you can get. He was strong when others weren't, kind when the world turned its back on him, and had an almost puppy dog sense of loyalty toward doing the right thing and being pleasant to everyone. And that's great and makes for a great Superman, but just having a guy who's nice all the time about everything doesn't make for a very interesting character. And that's why it's important to remember Christopher Reeve's most underrated talent when playing Superman: The ability to make the guy a charming little ****.

Check out their full analysis of Christopher Reeve’s Superman over at the site.

(Image Credit: DC Comics/ Warner Bros./ Wikimedia Commons)

Junji Ito is popularly known for his horror manga works, like the Enigma of the Amigara Fault. But unbeknownst to many people, he is also a cat manga author, and people have thought of him as a cat person, which he really is. He is a nice person, but can scare the soul out of you through his horror works.

Ito states that his fascination for cats started when his wife got a cat which lived with them. There, he saw that cats were cute and interesting beings.

But how will he find cats as portrayed in anime? Junji Ito rates them on this video by Crunchyroll.

(Video Credit: Crunchyroll Extras/ YouTube)