How I Turned Big Tony into a 'Legitimate Businessman'

by David Shamah The Jerusalem Post, Friday, November 11, 2005

“Pssst. Hey buddy. Yeah, you over there.”

Who, me?

“Yeah, you. Listen up. I got a scheme that's gonna make me and you rich. But I need your help.”

Wait a minute – I know you! You're that guy they call Fat Tony (gulp!).

“Sir, I am offended! I don't make nasty comments about your obviously non-tailored wardrobe, and I will thank you to leave my glandular problems out of it! You can call me Big Tony instead.”

Yes, sir, sorry sir (I had, of course, just noticed the “piece” Fat - I mean Big - Tony was carrying. A .45, it looked like from my side of the table).

“Anyway, I know who you are too. You're that computer guy, right? I read your stuff every week. Very funny. Well, I got a plan here to make us both rich using computers! You wanna be rich, dontcha?

Well, duh.

“Good. Now listen up. I heard about this program called Winmorph. I hear it lets you take an image an morph it – i.e change stuff about it so that it becomes something else. That's what morphing is all about, right? So check out this plan: We scan in a nice, new crispy dollar bill. Then we morph it to become a hundred dollar bill. Then we print out all the morphed hundred dollar bills on a fancy color laser printer on some money type paper stock. Then we starting spreading the morphed hundreds all over town. That's a ten thousand percent markup on every bill! Listen – whatever they're paying you down at that newspaper, fuhgeddaboutit. You come work for me cloning the bills and I'll give you a piece of every hundred. I got some good, high speed computers. You'll be making a grand an hour!”

(Pregnant pause while I consider my options. Unfortunately, running is not one of them because Tony's goons have got the door covered), Gee, Big Tony, I gotta tell you. This sounds highly illegal.

“Well, duh.”

No, no, you misunderstand me – I don't mean to cast aspersions on your chosen profession. But why go for small fry like hundred dollar bills! I figure a guy like you would want to maximize your productivity. Why use a morphing program to change the amounts on money when you can use it in so many more profitable ways?

“Hmm. You mean like a legitimate business? Morphing for fun and profit? You intrigue me, young man. Let's hear it.”

(Noticing how Tony is fingering the pistol in his pocket and just how hot it was in this room, I begin bluffing). Look, the power of morphing is showing people how what “is” can turn into what “could be.” Doctors, for example, use morphing software to show the stages a patient undergoing reconstructive or plastic surgery will pass through as they undergo treatment. Ditto for dentists who are trying to convince reluctant patients to undergo treatment they may be afraid of.

“We don't have no doctors in the family. Get to the point!”

(That gun is going to come out of Tony's pocket any minute now). No, that was just one example! Here's something right up your alley; real estate and construction. Some neighborhoods in this town are just crying out for gentrification, given their proximity to downtown and the good transportation infrastruture. But nobody wants to be first to invest! With Winmorph, you can show a gradual transformation of the current poor conditions to what the neighborhood could look like after it's been rehabilitated. You just take pictures of what the place looks like now as the beginning picture, and insert several transitional photos or architectural renderings of what the neighborhood will look like afterwards. You specify the points on each photo to be morphed, and the program figures out what what the intermediate image should look like. You can have one or many transitional photos (you combines two photos at a time and then string them together into a presentation), and turn the whole thing into an avi (video) file right within Winmorph – or export it to other video programs like Adobe Premiere (plug-in included) for further processing (Winmorph comes bundled with a free video editor called Wax).

(Hey! This is working! He took his hand off the gun!). Or lets say you wanted to get into advertising. The uses for morphing software are endless! You could use Winmorph to advertise a beauty salon or barbershop – showing clients how much better they will look with a new hairdo or cut. Ditto for clothing shops – set up customers with a new wardrobe and show the transition from plain to fancy, using a haute-coutre wardrobe. Kids can even use it to show the difference between their rooms before they cleaned up, and after.

(Oh, oh – he didn't like that one; the hand inched closer to the gun). Then there are the political uses – like before and after photos of places, people and politicians melded into one to make a point (like this one at http://tiira.cedunet.com/~sakke/temp/morph.wmv, illustrating the changeover from the Clinton to Bush administrations in 2000). Winmorph is even great for family get togethers, birthday parties, Bar Mitzah videos – you can have a video of a literal transition of the honoree moving from one stage in life to the next Winmorph has lots of advanced features, and allows transitions from all sorts of shapes you select on your photos for transitions – and you can even set the level of blending and interpolation to achieve special effects.

(Now it was Big Tony's turn to take a pregnant pause – a very pregnant one, as he was apparently trying to assimilate all the information I had given him). “So you're saying we could use this program, for example, to show our business partners what could happen to them if they don't cooperate with us – like a photo of them with their nose in the right place, and a transition to a different state if they're late with their payments.”

(Oy, vey). Well, actually...

“I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I got the message. You're a good kid, trying to help us get into a different line of work. I will bring your ideas up at the next meeting of the board of directors and we'll see where we go with it. Meanwhile, I got another job for you; I want you to teach my kid, Anthony Jr, everything you know about computers. Make sure you do a good job; the kid's a little dense.”

(You mean he's even more dense than you? I didn't think that was possible!) Well, actually....

“Don't worry – I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse.”

Download Winmorph for free from http://www.debugmode.com/winmorph. For Windows 98 systems or better.

Ds@newzgeek.com