I’ve never understood the fascination with selfies.

Maybe it’s because I'm over 50. After surviving the slings and arrows of a half a century on Earth, the minute or two I spend in front of the bathroom mirror each morning is more than enough selfie time for me.

Still, when I heard that Microsoft had an online app that estimates the age of any face on a photo, I was intrigued.

How would the app quantify the cracks, fissures, and crevices of my 56-year-old mug?

The pre-experiment phase, a/k/a playtime

At first, I just goofed around with the app, taking some selfies with my iPad and observing the estimates.

It didn’t take long to notice some whopping variability in the estimates—variability that made me alternately smile or weep:

But I soon tired of my subjective responses to the age estimates—they just caused my face to scrunch up and accelerate the aging process, anyway.

It was time to take a step back and approach the problem more objectively.

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