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What's In A Face?

Ok I have something really cool to show you all today. First, you may want to read my friend Chris Clark's blog (link on the right) for a funny introduction to this process. Basically, this family history website is beta testing a new face recognition software. You upload a picture of yourself and it matches you mathematically with celebrities that look the most like you. Chris made it seem like so much fun that I'm going to shamelessly plagirize his idea and show you my results, and then I suggest you all go try it yourselves. I'm not sure how accurate this program is, I got a few different results on the same pictures in multiple tries, but here's the highlights:


I started with this picture, which you may recognize from my blog profile. It was taken in London and I think its a very flattering picture. The site says the program works best with your face facing directly into the camera, but I thought I'd give this a try anyway.

And here were my results:

Wilhelm Roentgen, 64% A German-born winner of the Nobel Prize in 1901. Ok, I guess thats kind of flattering.... right? I mean, he looks like a polygamist, but at least he was smart.






Clark Gable, 53% Even though I personally never found Mr. Gable to be all that good-looking, he was quite the hot stuff back in his day, apparently. At any rate, this is much better than the Nobel nerd.






Jacques Chirac, 50% Oh no! Say it ain't so! Not the Head Frog himself, la Presidente de la Republique du Freaking France! Ok ok, obviously, I used a bad picture. Because I don't look like Chirac any more than I look like Bush or Blair or any other megalomaniac world leader.





After that, I decided to try another picture:

This is, of course, my old BYU ID photo, taken circa 2002. It is directly towards the camera with little background, which makes it ideal for this kind of analysis, but is, I think, far less flattering than the first picture.

Ironically, here were the results:


David Beckham, 51% The captain of the England football team ("soccer" for all you internationally-challenged) and quite the handsome devil, if I do say so myself - even if he is married to one of the Spice Girls (Posh Spice? Spicy Spice? I can't remember which one). At any rate, this is much much better...





John Updike, 49% Yeah, he's old, but this is a respected American author so, hey, I'm flattered.









Daniel Radcliffe, 49% That's right, folks: the one and only Harry Potter. No wonder my forehead is always hurting!








Keanu Reeves, 47% No surprises here. I've been getting this one for years. In the Philippines they called me "Elder Reeves." He's a good looking guy, but I'd be more flattered if he were a half-way decent actor. Still, he is THE ONE so I'm not complaining.






Alec Baldwin, 45% Another good-looking yet dubiously talented actor. Is this program trying to tell me something? On the other hand, it's waaay better than Jacques Chirac (for crying out loud)....






Out of curiousity, I checked to see what females I looked like. Here's what came up:

Beyonce Knowles, 44% Huh. I really don't know what to say about this one. Never would have guessed in a hundred years. I like to shake my "groove thang" as much as the next guy, but still.... anyway, take the matches you get with a grain of salt, is what I suggest.





Try it out at www.myheritage.com. Let me know how it goes for you.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'm certainly entrigued by this program. I have to say that my favorite "your face look alikes" are Dan Radcliffe and David Beckham... although I still don't quite see some of the similarities... but still. Congrats, you have an almost famous looking face. The one I always get is "that girl from Spider Man" or "an Olsen Twin!" So I might have to do this thing too... hmmm. Just don't give me Kirsten Dunst, please! Sayj
topher clark said…
Your faces are so much better than mine, Matt. I got the same damn faces every time. I'm still bothered by it. Can you tell?

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