I'm sure City Hall would have/is having a field day drooling over the possibilities of this site. They seem to love combining computers with faces, so maybe now they can do it in the privacy of their own offices without bugging us in the airport. Yes, Flash Face is exactly what it sounds like — Flash technology used to build a human face. You choose everything from head and jaw shape to spacing of eyes, hair, mustaches, everything. And you can resize it to whatever whim floats across your mind.
I'm assuming this is the same technology that law enforcement agencies use to build composites of suspects, at least to a lesser degree. To my untrained eye it's fine-tuned down to the letter — every nuance of the human face can be re-created into eerily accurate doppelgangers. Providing, of course, you have the time and patience. After futzing with the thing for a few minutes, it's only natural to want to try to re-create your own face, although I did so with only mixed results. But then again I'm really ugly, so it might have looked just like me.
Unfortunately, the save and print options only make it a matter of time before some unruly rabble-rouser uses the site for evil. I mean, is it really all that funny to make a composite of your buddy, put it on a fake wanted poster with the accusation of being a sodomizing goat kidnapper and distribute it in his neighborhood? But I would never recommend doing that. Especially not to the guy who owes me money. Nope, the thought would never occur to me …
—Patrick J. Graney
This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2002.