[Blindmath] Facial recognition -- food for thought

[Michael Whapples]

Now who's wandering from the math?

As you asked how funding and priorities of projects related to math, here's 
a go at answering.

There is only a finite amount of funding out there and there is likely, 
particularly at the current time, more funding sought than there is 
available. Choose your favourite math accessibility project, it probably was 
funded from somewhere, may be a grant or may be a company investing in 
developing a product, either way someone put money forward for it. This is 
where priorities of projects and whether this facial recognition stuff is a 
priority comes in, if its really not a priority yet projects like that get 
funding then they must be showing a good case for getting the funding. If on 
the other hand a math accessibility project you feel is very important does 
not get the funding then it says they did not make a strong enough case. I 
can think of two reasons for such an outcome, either others don't have the 
same priorities as you or the math accessibility projects need to improve 
the evidence they provide to say that their project is worth funding.

Admittedly they may apply to different places (eg. facial recognition may be 
used in non-accessibility fields such as advertising as described at the 
beginning) but there certainly may be some overlap in sources of funding 
(particularly for facial recognition projects which desire to provide blind 
people with information about people they meet) and so math projects compete 
with them.

One could also talk about the math involved in making a decent case for 
funding for a project, all that statistics one can do to prove there is a 
real need.

As an aside: While I feel the artificial sight systems are no substitute for 
what sight actually is, it doesn't mean one cannot be curious about how 
things look. There's many things where I have made choices but may not have 
a personal oppinion (eg. choosing the colour of clothes, I mean only the 
colour where a given item is available in different colours, yet I don't 
know whether I like the colour and whether I feel the colour suits me, I 
only can draw a conclusion from other people's oppinions).

May be colour is the most difficult concept to substitute, however there may 
be value in providing information on other visual concepts. I think the 3D 
projection of objects on to a 2D image which was discussed before is such a 
valued concept. It could help a lot in math related subjects as well (as we 
seem to really have to stick with the math). Some 3D visual concepts can 
creep into astronomy for example.

Michael Whapples

-----Original Message----- 
From: Dasha Radford
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 1:24 AM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Facial recognition -- food for thought

When I'm double prosthetic so that may make some difference personally it 
comes down to I've only got shells left well the nerves are back behind the 
implant but only shelf left so well I'm curious and might like to see 
people's faces I think if I could it would drive me crazy knowing that all I 
see is some kind of strange image imprinted on my brain or described to me 
through some peace of software but everyone is entitled to their own opinion

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 28, 2012, at 20:18, "Amanda Lacy" <lacy925 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I, on the other hand, am totally blind from birth and am too curious about 
> the world around me to share your opinion.
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dasha Radford" <dasha95 at nc.rr.com>
> To: "Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics" 
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 6:59 PM
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Facial recognition -- food for thought
>
>
>> Yes but where did the question of funding or whether or not we wanted to 
>> see people's faces come into the conversation not enough related as best 
>> as I can figure
>> Thanks
>> 0 By the Way many of us who are totally blind and has been so all of our 
>> lives or most of our lives a lot of us could really care less if we saw 
>> people's faces I don't think we did know what to do with the ability if 
>> we have it in fact I think we might find it more than a little bit 
>> annoying
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Mar 28, 2012, at 19:50, Richard Baldwin <baldwin at dickbaldwin.com> 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> What does it have to do with math? See
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdaBoostamong other very complex
>>> mathematical algorithms often used in facial
>>> detection and recognition.
>>>
>>> Dick Baldwin
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 6:25 PM, Dasha Radford <dasha95 at nc.rr.com> 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm light-sensitive and that's quite enough thank you very much I don't
>>>> need to see faces never have really cared to I personally go on what a
>>>> person is on the inside and again will someone please explain what this 
>>>> has
>>>> to do with Matth?
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPhone

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