Sunday, December 25, 2005

1940 Face Recognition needs some tweaking--I hope

MyHeritage.com has a face recognition site where you can be matched with celebrity photos. It thought my husband looked like Hilary Clinton (when he was in high school, had red curly hair and weighed 120 lbs.) and that in 2003 I looked like the young Britney Spears when I had medium blonde hair. But in a 2004 photo when I had longer brown hair, my celebrity face was Yasser Arafat! If it is measuring face maps for genealogical purposes, it is quite a distance from Arafat to Spears! So I tried a third photo and got Kim Jong Il.

I Googled Mr. Kim and found this out: "Say what you like about Kim Jong Il's appearance -- at least it's distinctive. Absolutely no one in North Korea ever has to ask "Who's that squat little man in the glasses and khaki windbreaker?" Also, there's his signature hairstyle. The dictator artfully conceals his diminutive stature by wearing platform shoes and whipping his hair into stiff peaks. So what if the autocrat feels a little self-conscious about his height? That's understandable -- he's only 5'2". Napoleon was four inches taller. . ."

I tried a fourth photo and got Harry Belafonte. So I sent them some feedback. Four different ethnicities?

HT Daddy's Roses.

3 comments:

Joan said...

I got a pretty wide variety of matches to pictures I uploaded, too. I hope they do the tweaking you advise -- it is a fascinating idea.

Cathy said...

I got Sigourney Weaver. I am flattered. Ms. Weaver would probably not be amused.

Laura said...

Norma, I noticed that you responded to my website, and thanks for that. The post you responded to was about an Irish Brigade who was posted in Iraq looking for some special treats for their soldiers. Last I checked, the military is not a charity organization, nor ever has been. Marks & Spencer was not treating the troops as a charity, it was showing it's disapproval at what they are doing - anotherwords, playing politics. The other stores did not even read the requests, because if they had, they would have seen that it was not some sort of charity asking for a handout. It was their military doing their job in a very difficult and dangerous situation.

Happy New Year.