Skip to main content

LOVE IS ... [censored]

OK, this is a weird one, folks.

I was wandering around Google street view, as you do, and checking the street view of my church.

I could see that is was a relatively new shot as it has our (relatively) new noticeboard on. I zoomed into the noticeboard to get a better look.

I recognised that it had the temporary sign up that said, "LOVE is the doctrine of this church" - but what was weird was that everything but the first three words were blurred out. Take a look:


Everything else is clear enough on the noticeboard. You see "LOVE is the..." but rest of that looks like it's been deliberately edited out like they do with everyone's faces on Google street view.

I can't think for the life of me why anyone would do this. How curious. 

Comments

Scott Wells said…
Google blurs personal information, detected by algorithm -- including bunches of signs. It isn't perfect, but I bet the church phone number would have been blurred has it come in clearer.
9:47 pm
Anonymous said…
Its the license plate detection algorithm. The board like shape and density of the letters triggered it, I'd guess, where the first two lines probably scored a little lower on the heuristic.

There is a face detector too, but I think it is more likely that this is a case of the license-plate detector.
10:44 pm
Rich said…
It's probably an error in the number plate detection algorithm. Something about the words at the bottom of the sign looked like a car number plate to Google and so they blurred it out in an attempt to preserve anonymity.

If you write to them and demonstrate you're the minister they will probably be able to un-blur it.
8:33 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Drop the Free Christian!

Let me preface what I'm going to say by first saying this: I am a Christian. It's taken me a long time to be able to say that, and to know what I mean by that, and I'm very lucky that in the Unitarian church I have been given the space to come to that decision in my own time, on my own terms. But I am a Christian, I'm more Christian now than I have been for years. Now: I want us to drop this "Free Christian" from our title. It's a silly phrase that we need to get rid of. Why? "The General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches" is a long and unwieldy title. It would be much better if we traded under something like "Unitarians in Britain." It gives the impression that there are two separate and distinct groups: "Unitarians" and "Free Christians," this is not the case. It's not that there are Unitarians (who are not Christians) and "Free Christians" who are not Unitarians. There are not two dif...
21 comments
Read more

Clergy-wear during protests

OK, I'm wandering into the territory of Beauty Tips for Ministers here, but a couple of recent conversations have brought up the issue of what clergy should wear for protests. I know a number of Ministers who only wear clerical collars for protests. The logic is that it's important to identify as a Minister when you're supporting something society doesn't expect clergy to. So Ministers will wear a collar at gay prides or pro-choice rallies to make this point. Now I could understand this if it you wore a collar going about your general business, and also did during a protest, but I'm quite uncomfortable with the idea of wearing clerical wear ONLY for protests. The seems to be something worth exploring. I have said before that I'm not in favour of special titles or clothing for religious leadership, mainly because Jesus explicitly said this was a lot of nonsense. Religious leaders should not need these articial crutches. I have no problem with certain liturgical c...
11 comments
Read more

Is humanism theologically tolerant?

OK, well this might be controversial, but I feel the need to say it. Is humanist tolerant? Please note I'm not asking about humanism within society. Clearly humanism certainly believes in tolerance within society and I'm forever glad they are often the only people in the media calling for a separation of church and state. No, what I'm talking about is descriptions of Unitarianism like this and adverts like this , discussed at Peacebang here , which say that humanism is one option, Christianity is another, God is one option among many. The trouble is, humanism, by definition is theologically opposed to theism. This is very different from the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism. These two traditions may be vastly different, but Buddhism, by definition , is not opposed to Christianity, and Christianity, by definition , is not opposed to Buddhism. But humanism is consciously defined in opposition to Christianity and theism. So to say that humanism and theism can bot...
14 comments
Read more