Simply amazing technology

Today I downloaded the current update to Picasa - version 3.5 The amazing new feature that prompted me to download it is the ability to recognize faces. Ever since the download it has been

Site 82 - 16 West

chugging through my pictures looking for faces and it is remarkably good. Evidently it sees similiarities that I can't notice. It doesn't always get the faces right but there is usually a family connection when it does screw up. It had trouble with mother & auntie Anne but other than that when it made a mistake it was usually mixing up sisters or offspring. Its about half done now and so far has found over 24,000 faces. That's not hard to believe when you realize that it looks at absolutely every face in every picture. It even identifies the faces in the pictures on the wall in the background.

You know that technology is becoming ubiquitous when you get frustrated with how slow it is. You know -- your computer is copying a couple dozen photos onto the internet and each photo is maybe half a meg -- you get pissed off because it takes a couple of minutes. Well the same thing is happening with the facial recognition thing - here it is going through literally a lifetime of photo images and I find myself getting impatient because it doesn't go faster.

Jorgito in the Cat-Cave

We're back at 16 West, north of the Saskatoon airport. We got here on the 30th. Marilyn flew back in the evening on the 29th and we spent that night on the Flying J lot. This place closes on the 15th of October so we'll have to get out by them but by then Marilyn will have been back up north and I will know how my latest project is progressing. With any luck the weather won't get too bad between now and then although it is certainly trying its hardest to go to hell. I tried to do some work outside today but finally gave up because it was too wet and too cold.