Tuesday 30 May 2006

Dancing with Quasimodo

I know I said I wouldn't mention 'Dancing with the Stars.' Okay, I lied.

In commenting on Gen XY's ACT on Campus lookalikes over at DPF's -- you know Clint Heine is Paul Giamatti; Helen Simpson is some bint from some TV show -- Brian S. unkindly suggested that Rodney Hide looked like Quasimodo. How unkind, I thought. How terribly unfair, I thought. Perhaps I could make some contribution along those lines myself, I thought.

So I have. Do you think Krystle looks like Esmerelda? "Any chance of a dance, love?"

(Click on the pic to enlarge.)

LINKS: SPOT THE DIFFERENCE #18: ACT on Campus - Generation XY
ACT on Campus lookalikes - Kiwiblog (DPF)

TAGS: Politics-ACT, Humour

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Bernard Darnton said"
[ My Heritage celebrity face recognition tool ]

I wondered how accurate that face recognition tool is? I am well versed in mathematical algorithm for image data mining and classification, which is similar to face recognition, (in fact it is a sub-category) of face recognition. Image classification algorithm is trained on a huge dataset of images. When it memorises the pattern of the images (features which has been extracted) during learning time, then given a new image, it then try to match from its memory the extracted features that is similar to the newly arrived image's pattern. These technologies are still in its infancy, but I am sure that the future looks promising for their applications, from automated cancer detections of X-rays and MRI medical imaging to autonomous guided vehicles (completely computerised driving vehicle with no humans). Our own success story is a company from Onehunga named "Compac Sort", which manufacture sorting equipment for automatic fruit packaging (apples, tomatoes, potatoes, etc,...). I saw the presentation of their technology by 2 engineers from Compac Sort to the Australian-New Zealand Industrial Mathematics annual conference in 2005 held at Massey, Albany. Amazing technology. There are 8 lanes of moving columns of fruits, with digital cameras positioned 1 meter apart alongside each lane that scan the fruits continuously. The software has been trained to recognise certain fruits of different grades, by colour and texture. They are then sorted to different cartoons ready for shipment. The technology sorts fruits faster than humans, and the only sad story were human sorters made redundant by fruit processing plants as the computer vision systems done the job much faster and better. The CRI (Crown Research Institutes) stepped in and helped out in the initial development of the computer vision software systems for Compac Sort. Now Compac is increasing their volume of sales to North America. I am sure that when Compac is going to list in the local stock exchange, I believe that they will receive the same buzz as our own NZ success as Rakon, since developing computer vision systems is very complex and a cutting edge technology.