the Jack (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} buggery) wrote,@ 2007-12-12 21:21:00 |
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"He's not heavy, he's my brother"; or, Worf is a white woman
So earlier this evening, in my travels through the internet, I came across a link to the site MyHeritage.com where, among other (mostly less interesting) things, visitors can generate a collage of celebrities to whom they look most similar.
I tried using photos of myself, but the facial-recognition software at MyHeritage can apparently only recognise faces turned directly into the camera, and I tend to have mostly photos of myself in profile or with something in front of my head. Happily, I also had this photo of my brother wearing the uniform costume I got for him when I went to the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas a few years ago1.
Now, I'd already been underwhelmed by the power of MyHeritage's facial-recognition software; what can I say, I watch Law & Order (all three flavours), Criminal Minds, Dexter and a half-dozen-odd other crime dramas2, and they have led me to believe that facial-recognition software is only slightly less awesome than God.
The program recognised my brother's face. It also recognised the face of the cardboard Lietenant Worf my brother was posed beside... and because Worf was on the left, it ignored the other face, even though the other face was in the centre of the photo and an actual human and stuff.
But I figured, what the hell -- let's see what celebrities Michael Dorn looks like when he's in Worf makeup. The answer was disturbing, and frankly difficult to credit.
Well, okay, as celebrities go, it wasn't *that* far out for Donald Sutherland's craggy visage to be the closest match in MyHeritage's archive of male celebrities, at 64% similarity. But the closest match, at 66%, was Farrah Fawcett?3
I was about to leave the site.
The site offered to create a "morph." My curiosity got the better of me again, and I checked out that feature too. Here's the result.
http://www.myheritagefiles.com/vide
[having a problem with getting embedded video to work; the hyperlink works fine in the meantime]
I showed it to Te, who insisted I show it to Petra.
So, there you have it: If you were traumatised4, I refer you tothete1 and petronelle for redress.
______
1. It was his birthday present. I come from a family of strange and geeky people.
2. The half-dozen-odd others include: Homicide LotS, in all its gorgeously gritty gorgeousness, in reruns on two different stations for DirecTV customers like me and Te; Life -- you need to be watching this show, for it is *awesome*; Saving Grace which I started watching because my mom told me it was awesome, and it is indeed pretty good; Torchwood (shut up, it's my journal and I can pretend TW is a police procedural if I want to); The Wire, when there are new episodes to be had or I feel like re-watching episodes on DVD; Without a Trace, more the reruns than the new ones, familiar and comforting as an old blanket of crime drama.
3. The other celebrities who allegedly resemble Worf include:
62% Helena Christensen (tie)
62% Pierre Laval (tie)
61% Dane Cook
59% Ruud van Nistelrooy
56% L.L. Zamenhof
55% Herbert Spencer
Note the somewhat loose definition of "celebrity" evinced in that list.
4. If you were traumatised by the photo of my brother ...how exactly did you get to this blog, anyway? Hardly shocking fare round here.
So earlier this evening, in my travels through the internet, I came across a link to the site MyHeritage.com where, among other (mostly less interesting) things, visitors can generate a collage of celebrities to whom they look most similar.
I tried using photos of myself, but the facial-recognition software at MyHeritage can apparently only recognise faces turned directly into the camera, and I tend to have mostly photos of myself in profile or with something in front of my head. Happily, I also had this photo of my brother wearing the uniform costume I got for him when I went to the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas a few years ago1.
Now, I'd already been underwhelmed by the power of MyHeritage's facial-recognition software; what can I say, I watch Law & Order (all three flavours), Criminal Minds, Dexter and a half-dozen-odd other crime dramas2, and they have led me to believe that facial-recognition software is only slightly less awesome than God.
The program recognised my brother's face. It also recognised the face of the cardboard Lietenant Worf my brother was posed beside... and because Worf was on the left, it ignored the other face, even though the other face was in the centre of the photo and an actual human and stuff.
But I figured, what the hell -- let's see what celebrities Michael Dorn looks like when he's in Worf makeup. The answer was disturbing, and frankly difficult to credit.
Well, okay, as celebrities go, it wasn't *that* far out for Donald Sutherland's craggy visage to be the closest match in MyHeritage's archive of male celebrities, at 64% similarity. But the closest match, at 66%, was Farrah Fawcett?3
I was about to leave the site.
The site offered to create a "morph." My curiosity got the better of me again, and I checked out that feature too. Here's the result.
http://www.myheritagefiles.com/vide
[having a problem with getting embedded video to work; the hyperlink works fine in the meantime]
I showed it to Te, who insisted I show it to Petra.
Petra: that is upsetting.
me: te says i also have to post it in my journal.
i'm guessing you would advise otherwise?
Petra: That sounds better.
me: ::dies::
Petra: *snorts*
me: so, it's ok for me to inflict it on other people.
Petra: At least then I know everyone else is upset!
me: congratulations!
you win the schadenfreude award!
Petra: mmhm.
So, there you have it: If you were traumatised4, I refer you to
thete1 and petronelle for redress.______
1. It was his birthday present. I come from a family of strange and geeky people.
2. The half-dozen-odd others include: Homicide LotS, in all its gorgeously gritty gorgeousness, in reruns on two different stations for DirecTV customers like me and Te; Life -- you need to be watching this show, for it is *awesome*; Saving Grace which I started watching because my mom told me it was awesome, and it is indeed pretty good; Torchwood (shut up, it's my journal and I can pretend TW is a police procedural if I want to); The Wire, when there are new episodes to be had or I feel like re-watching episodes on DVD; Without a Trace, more the reruns than the new ones, familiar and comforting as an old blanket of crime drama.
3. The other celebrities who allegedly resemble Worf include:
62% Helena Christensen (tie)
62% Pierre Laval (tie)
61% Dane Cook
59% Ruud van Nistelrooy
56% L.L. Zamenhof
55% Herbert Spencer
Note the somewhat loose definition of "celebrity" evinced in that list.
4. If you were traumatised by the photo of my brother ...how exactly did you get to this blog, anyway? Hardly shocking fare round here.