So imagine the opportunity to tickle the foot of a random person…would you take it?

Well if you’re into that kind of thing, than we have the app for you!

Inneract is an iPhone app that lets you share any activity with a complete stranger. Just think of something to do, send our your location, and see who responds! It’s that simple.

This fun, new app was invented by UCLA graduate student Lauren McCarthy. Something that started out as just a thesis project has become a mega hit. She never would have guessed that thousands of iPhone users would be interested in hanging out with random people.

Lauren stated that she hopes the program will

get people to step back from normal patterns of behavior and to re-imagine the way they express themselves or act with others in the world

One random activity could start a social revolution. Who knew?

Ephesians 5:25-27 (NIV)

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansingher by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Reflection:

At weddings, the time when the bride and groom share their vows is so special because it is a declaration of how they will orient their lives to love and serve one another.  And many times, this Ephesians passage will serve as the framework for the vows, because it reminds us of how much God loves us and sees us.  There has been no greater expression of love than what Christ did for us on the cross, giving himself up for us and making us holy and blameless.  It’s in this reality, that we know how precious we are to him.

Response:

Let’s thank God for his incredible love for us.  Let’s pray for our churches that we would be caught up in this love and that our hearts would overflow in worship unto him.

Image courtesy of the Washington Post

When was the last time the combination of clothes and sports caused an international incident? (not including that little “costume malfunction” at the Super Bowl )

Step aside, Janet Jackson, Iranian women soccer players are now center stage.

The ruling body for international soccer, FIFA has banned the Iranian women’s team from playing because of their uniforms.

They were disqualified right before the team was set to play an Olympic qualifying game against Jordan. Jordan was given a forfeit victory, eliminating the Iranian women’s team from playing in the 2012 Olympics.

The reason cited for the disqualification is that the women’s uniform – including a track suit and a head scarf, covering the full body as required of women in Iran – violate FIFA dress code.

In 2007, FIFA banned headscarves for “safety reasons.”

And the FIFA rules for the 2012 Olympics state that

Players and officials shall not display political, religious, commercial or personal messages or slogans in any language or form on their playing or team kits.

However, the Iranian soccer team reports that upon the announcement of the 2012 Olympic policy designed scarves that would adhere to the new rules.

FIFA officials disagree though, saying that the team was informed before the match that their uniform was not within the dress code.

The team plans to lodge a protest of the ruling, and the Iranian president has condemned the decision saying,

Theses are the dictators and colonialists who want to impose their lifestyle on others. We will deal with those who carried out this ugly job. We follow definite rights of our girls.

The FIFA vice president, Prince Ali of Jordan, has indicated that the Federation may review the issue to try and find a compromise, explaining that,

This is an important issue that I will raise with the Asian Football Confederation and with the International Federation of Association Football. We will work together to find a solution that respects the rules of the game and the culture at the same time.

It is not certain an accommodation will be reached in this thorny issue. The Iranian women’s chances of competing at the 2012 Olympics are almost certainly dashed.

It seems the only thing worse than mixing religion with politics is mixing religion, politics AND sports.

Photo courtesy of forbes.com

When was the last time you drove through Alamogordo, N.M.?

Where is Alamogordo, you may ask? It is smack in the middle of a big fight.

The above billboard, showing New Mexico man Greg Fultz holding the outline of a baby, graces a main street of booming Alamogordo.

Mr Fultz’s is clearly quite upset with his ex-girlfriend, claiming she terminated the pregnancy of a child they conceived together.

His ex, in turn has brought Fultz to court on charges of harassment and invasion of privacy.

According to the Huffington Post, Fultz’s attorney, Todd Holmes, defended the billboard, stating,

“As distasteful and offensive as the sign may be to some, for over 200 years in this country the First Amendment protects distasteful and offensive speech.”

The message of the billboard has also been called into question. Friends of the ex-girlfriend have claimed she suffered a miscarriage, not an abortion.

But for Ellen Jensen, the lawyer of Fultz’s ex-girlfriend, the question of abortion or miscarriage is irrelevant, but the invasion of privacy and the emotional distress caused by the billboard are unacceptable,

“Nobody is stopping him from talking about father’s rights. … but a person can’t invade someone’s private life.”

Supposed this happened to you… would you mind having your personal business plastered over a giant billboard in your hometown?

MS Thesis Defense

Face Recognition using Gabor Jets for Images of Mass Disaster Victims

Kavita Dabke

11:00am Friday, 10 June 2011, ITE 325B

Mass disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, landslides, blizzards and other natural calamities affect a large number of people in a short time duration. After such emergencies occur, people affected need medical aid and are admitted into hospitals. In such conditions, it becomes difficult to locate one's family members and friends. Hospitals and medical centers take triage pictures of people getting admitted for their records. The content of these images could be very disturbing for some people to see. Such pictures cannot be posted on notification walls or internet websites for people to identify their missing family members or friends. This thesis addresses this problem by developing methods for searching triage image databases using query images provided by friends or family of missing people. The dataset for this thesis consists of mug shot images of people affected by calamity. These are also called the triage images. The test dataset consist of clean or regular mug shot images of people.

To automate the process of locating missing people, our thesis has a goal of developing a face recognition system based on Gabor Jets to match a clean image to the existing triage images. Here, a clean image means a mug shot image of a person where all features such as eyebrows, eyes, nose, lips, skin, ears, etc. are seen. The system aims at pulling up the exact match from the triage dataset into the top N matches filtered out based on a similarity measure. Face recognition has been studied for clean images, where all features are visible. We have developed a system to work on the domain of triage images by experimenting with existing Gabor Jets-based similarity measures and modifying the algorithm to best fit our needs.