The Art (s and Crafts) and Science of Facial Recognition

Woo-hoo! It's almost Halloween, one of my favorite holidays.  Per a long-time, long-distance tradition with my mother, my first move was to sit "the family" down to watch Tim Burton's strange and inspiring The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Disney (Touchstone), 1993

I've found no better way to get in the goblins, ghosts, and ghouls mood than watching this movie.  To my horror, it was Drew's first time to watch it all the way through; he nevertheless found a noble way of commemorating its important place in our newly married tradition.

Disney.com

 

Impressive, no?

And Drew's not the only skilled at recognizing and rendering graphics across disparate media. 

(How's that for a segue!)  According to this article in LiveScience, Tel Aviv university is using computer software "based on facial recognition technology" to recognize-- and importantly, reunite-- "hundreds of thousands of fragments from medieval religious scrolls that are scattered across the globe" (Pappas).  Evidently, the program can distinguish handwriting, spacing, and even peculiar properties of the pages themselves.  

This new software isn't just for people who love old and dusty esoterica for ancientness' sake.  The Cairo Genizah (storage room for Jewish holy texts), for instance, "contains merchant's lists, divorce documents, and even personal letters" which will give scholars "a firsthand look at hundreds of years of history in the Middle East."  Indeed, scholars are even trying to use this technology to study the Dead Sea Scrolls, shown above.  For those interested, here is a LiveScience article about the Dead Sea Scrolls' digitization.

Well, that's all for now.  Until next time, stay ever-watchful; there's no telling what you might piece together.

"The pen is mightier..."

Having three dogs is awesome.  Their sweet faces, tail-wags, and "kisses" make us feel immediately adored.  But there are less emotionally satisfying scenes than, say, a dog greeting you eagerly at the door. Take this, for instance:
This is Tabitha, our youngest, by a new ink stain on our sitting room carpet.  You can see the wet-vac in the far right corner of the photo.  Yes, ladies and gents, the photo was taken after the cleanup.

Incidentally, the ink somehow hitched a ride on one of their toys and made a similar, though slightly less noticeable, stain in our TV room.

Even a house of professional students can underestimate the power a pen can wield.

Speaking Typing of pens, now to the academic segment of my post.  I've completely fallen in love with Twitter-- for scholarly purposes, of course.  Other than my friends, my favorite groups/sites to follow are Medievalists, Al-Jazeera English, Gawker, Huffington Post, and Slate.  I posted yesterday about the A-J's compilation of international responses to G/Qaddafi's death, which I hope you found interesting, challenging, and revealing.

That I saw it on Twitter and reposted to a blog speaks to my next posted article from A-J, "Mass media, or public media?"  Its blurb reads, "The way communication is organised is developing as public societies encourage deliberations between equals."  WAIT! Don't give up! This is a really, really cool article, despite the brutally bumpy start.  Below is a slicker snippet describing the difference between public and mass societies.

In a public society the archetype of communication is a conversation between equals where 'virtually as many people express opinions as receive them' and 'communications are so organised that there is a chance immediately and effectively to answer any opinion expressed in public'. A public, as opposed to a mass, can translate its opinions into effective action. It can change policy as its opinions change. In a mass society, on the other hand, the most characteristic form of communication is a broadcast that delivers one unanswerable voice to millions of quiet and attentive listeners. There is little or no scope for individuals to answer back to the messages they receive. There is certainly no way that the inhabitants of a mass society can translate their opinions into politically effective action.

Certainly, we can see what's at stake here.  The article goes on to suggest that shortcomings in the media over the recent years have inspired "politically motivated publics" to assemble online and in person, having recognized that mainstream media's coverage "doesn't make sense, that the machinery of representative politics is broken, and that these two are aspects of the same problem."   


Here is the rest of the article. Enjoy!
Until soon, my fellow media participants.  Keep your pens on the ready-- and away from pets.

Holy rhetorical analysis, Batman!

IF ONLY I had time in my rhetoric of news unit to cover this! I might just print it out for them anyway. Below is a link to responses across the globe to Gaddafi's death. Wildly, wildly fascinating insight.

Gaddafi's death: World reaction - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Let's do this thing

I'm determined to make this blog work.  Here we go again.

The semester has begun, and I'm on UNC, but not Duke, fall break.  At least I have Friday off!

Some non-academic highlights of the semester:
trying to get involved with Second Chance Pet Adoptions
helping pups get adopted through Middle Mutts (love-out to Nicole Fisk!)
chatting with Brianna about dresses
an amazing weekend in the mountains with Emily, etc.
planning a trip to DC (now postponed until December)
celebrating Tabitha's first birthday with best sister-in-law of ALL time and Drew
started allergy shots-- in a year my eyes might not be puffy all the time!

Teaching this semester has been rough, not least because my class starts at 8am.  And we all know how much of a morning person I'm not.  But I've also tried a lot of new things which have proven less productive than I'd hoped, like my visual analysis of comic books unit.

William Morrow Paperbacks, 1994

I had expected the rhetoric of news unit, which we're in the middle of right now, to be better than it is, but it's an improvement for sure.  Also, we've had our first round of conferences and I always feel like I have a little better grasp on things once I speak to everyone face-to-face.
Sadly, some of my students have had some serious issues, whether personal or physical, and that's been hard to keep track of.  Nevertheless, they are all great, great kids who are tolerating this class admirably.

M Nagle, New York Times

I've really enjoyed my 17th century class at UNC, which is a total shock.  We started with Donne, who usually drives me crazy.  But somehow he was different this time, and that is no doubt due to Dr Barbour's teaching. Un-freakin-believable, this guy.  I could listen (and watch-- his lectures are highly dramatic) to him talk about anything.  He's electric. Even our meetings are awesome.  He is the most thoroughly engaged, inspiring professor I've ever had, and has done more than accommodate me in a class that's so many centuries ahead of my own interests.  I'm totally, totally stoked that he'll be on my minor committee!

The Duke class is challenging, which I love.  Dr Aers leaves it all to us-- here's a recommended reading list, do what you will-- and there's a lot to be said for that kind of self-starting scholarship.  The seminar has warmed up a bit, though it's still a bit awkward at times.  The biggest perk so far is that my new hero, Michael Cornett, gave a presentation on ALL the English (or Latin, written in England) confessions.  I emailed him to follow up and the man replied by sending me his entire nearly 900-page dissertation.  At this point in my career, every book I want to buy is close to $300, so getting his unpublished but invaluable research over my computer rocked my life.  He just sent me this damn thing, and then recommended a seminar paper topic!  Here's the real closer, though.  He scanned a 16th century confession manuscript that follows quite closely an 8th century confessional prayer by Alcuin.  He sent me the images and I'm transcribing it now.

Speaking of book accessibility, I received my Kindle (and its burnt-orange cover) and am loving it!
More details on what I'm reading, how I'm cleaning up a massive, massive pen leak (courtesy of Tabitha) on two carpets, and how we're spending the weekend to come.