Comparisons to celebrities: probably a bad idea no matter what.

First I saw it at Feministe, and then at Pandagon, so I had to try the face recognition program that matches one's face to the faces of celebrities. I used the picture of me in the sidebar. Here's what I discovered.

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Eva Peron. OK, I'm not entirely comfortable with this, but the people loved her, so I could do worse.

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Mary-Kate Olsen. I think this counts as doing worse. Is Mary-Kate the one with the eating disorder and/or drug problem? In principle, I would have no objection to being an evil twin, but I'd prefer to be one who held less fascination for the people in the supermarket checkout line.

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Harvey Keitel. Oh, that's not good at all.

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Ni hao! Kannichi Wa! It would be interesting to do a poll on how many science bloggers and those who read them resemble the fakes represented by Hollywood, political or sports celebrities versus scientist scholar celebrities. What's the entire list look like, it's probably biased toward Anglos and Africans, maybe some Hispanics? Any from Yellow River country? I know there are scientists on it, a colleague of mine hit Lord Kelvin. MOTYR

By Mouth of the Y… (not verified) on 01 Jul 2006 #permalink

I thought you looked familiar!

By CaptainMike (not verified) on 01 Jul 2006 #permalink

I used the picture from my blog profile and got, in this order: Tony Danza, Forest Whitaker, Kajol (who's that?), Catherine Deneuve, Lindsay Lohan, Jackie Kennedy, Larry King, Minnie Driver, Gheorghe Hagi (?) and Kevin Mitnick (?) !!!

I haven't done this thing in a while so I forget who I look like, but I think one of the top ones was Tia Leoni.

Have you noticed that the "face recognition software" seems to find a close match with whoever is looking in the right direction? If your picture is a straight-on headshot, those are your matches; if it's a three-quarter right view, those are your matches; etc. Maybe not so accurate... if fun.

Coturnix. Like I predicted, not a scholar or scientist in the bunch, you need to work on your brow lines, contemplative, reflective, and scholarly academic look instead of mimicking all the glamor queens and kings. I assume Darwin is in the bank in addition to Lord Kelvin. Who else do you think? Sagan, Hawking, Feynman, Aristotle, Newton, Berzelius, Linneaus, Einstein? Dr. FreeRide, I think you and Eva Peron look a lot like Marie Curie, but she may not be in the bank. MOTYR

By Mouth of the Y… (not verified) on 01 Jul 2006 #permalink

The picture of me with a beard full of snow after one too many face plants: Ben Harper, Barry Manilow, Kris Kristofferson. The picture of me with the land-locked salmon: Bogart, Princess Diana (?!?!) and Jack Kerouac. I can only take this to mean that I should fish more and ski less.

By Uncle Fishy (not verified) on 01 Jul 2006 #permalink

The three faces you matched are at a similar 3/4 angle to the camera, nose pointed to the right. Maybe that was more important than any facial features. If you try again with a picture where you are faced straight at the camera, it could be an interesting experiment!

Hey RPM, if I were only a month behind in the three-dimensional world, it would be a big improvement!