Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 127 posts

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#91

Post by selimthegrim »

ngngngng wrote: post #26
elliotec wrote: post #18

The University of Utah was also the fourth node of ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet - https://www.lib.utah.edu/digital-scholarship/arpanet/ On a personal note, this is also part of why I exist at all. My father came from England very young, worked his way through agriculture jobs in California, and somehow found himself with a job offer at the u of u as an electron microscopist. Met my mom there. Details are…

There's a rivalry between the NBA fan bases of the Utah Jazz and the Houston Rockets. Commonly this manifests as little jabs Rockets fans will make, mocking Utah for not having internet. Always funny to see this brought up when Utah was one of the first places on the planet to have the "Internet".

The Jazz, like Jim Clark, were another transplant from New Orleans.

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#92

Post by dahart »

cubefox wrote: post #79
dahart wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

David wasn’t made with the intent to be pornographic. Lena’s picture was. Being unaware of the evidence doesn’t mean there isn’t any. There’s plenty of evidence of the mild bias inherent in the use of Lena, if you actually want to find the evidence. Lots of women have mentioned their mild discomfort with seeing it in a professional setting. There’s a documentary about this story called “Losing Lena”.

When someone experiences "mild discomfort" when seeing David (it does display an idealized nude man, which could also be said about the Lena photo, which is far too artistic to be merely called "pornography") then this is still no reason to banish the David photo. If everything gets banned that someone could potentially be mildly offended by, then we would have to ban a hell of a lot of images in research and academi…

You’re comparing Playboy to da Vinci and Michelangelo… if you refuse to see the difference between soft-core porn made with the intent to be sexual and titillating, and art made without any such sexualized intent, then we’re having an unproductive conversation. BTW I’m with you against silly bans, I’m a proponent of free speech. In this case nobody banned anything, the movement is nothing more than a request by a broad group of people who care about cultural bias and understand how hard it is to undo, to stop using a specific pinup image for research because of what it symbolizes (porn and antiquated/misogynistic social attitudes), and people are completely free to ignore that request and keep using Lena if they want. You can keep trying to relitigate this issue if you want, but the ship sailed a while ago, this is just history now, and I was just trying to explain what happened since your comment somewhat, and @johnnyanmac’s comment both made it clear you guys were unaware of the full story.

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#93

Post by dahart »

George83728 wrote: post #87
dahart wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation isn’t being shifted to interfacing with an authority figure for children. That’s what it already was! Maybe not primarily, but don’t miss the very point that research is setting an example and it percolates widely outside of college journals into textbooks, onto the internet, into videos, into work, and into homes. The movement is centered on the simple idea that we need to take the fact that we’re sett…

> The situation isn’t being shifted Really? Then what male researchers were hanging posters of Lena in classrooms?

What do you mean? Lena is one of the single most-used images in computer vision, it’s been on literally hundreds of posters, in papers, textbooks, conferences, online. The Wikipedia article talks about it being used in college and high school classrooms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#94

Post by icedchai »

bluedino wrote: post #78
riceart wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1994 was way way after dialup Internet access was mainstream (both Yahoo and Amazon were founded that year). Any first access in the state would be sometime in the 80s. By 1993 there were already national level dialup ISPs. > that was about as long [15 minutes] as it took to load one webpage with one image. Very hyperbolic. A simple webpage with text would load in seconds on a 28.8k modem. A single image would usuall…

I would say dial up Internet was far from mainstream in 94, even with was widely available. I'd argue it wasn't until 96/97 when "everyone" started using it and membership didn't quite peak with services like AOL until 2001. The internet was still the land of the nerds until the early 2000's

It's difficult to generalize. It definitely depends on your location, and especially population density. Before 1995, it was mostly nerds and early adopters. By 1995, in the north east US, dial up internet had definitely gone mainstream. Local ISPs had ads on the radio. A new one was popping up everyone couple of months. By late 1997, early '98, broadband services (@Home cable modems, DSL) were starting to roll out.

The Netscape IPO, in summer 1995, and also the release of Windows 95, really marks the "mainstream" period. Getting online with Trumpet Winsock and Windows 3.1 was a PITA.

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#95

Post by cubefox »

dahart wrote: post #93
George83728 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The situation isn’t being shifted Really? Then what male researchers were hanging posters of Lena in classrooms?

What do you mean? Lena is one of the single most-used images in computer vision, it’s been on literally hundreds of posters, in papers, textbooks, conferences, online. The Wikipedia article talks about it being used in college and high school classrooms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna

I'm pretty sure it was to 99% used in research papers.

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#96

Post by pfannkuchen »

dahart wrote: post #73
pfannkuchen wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine if female teachers put up Chippendale’s posters in the classroom Isn’t it more like if female researchers used the cropped head-only photo of a Chippendale’s guy in an image processing paper? Shifting it to an “interfacing with an authority figure for children” role is not really fair IMO, as I think that is why most would find it distasteful.

The situation isn’t being shifted to interfacing with an authority figure for children. That’s what it already was! Maybe not primarily, but don’t miss the very point that research is setting an example and it percolates widely outside of college journals into textbooks, onto the internet, into videos, into work, and into homes. The movement is centered on the simple idea that we need to take the fact that we’re sett…

I’m pretty sure the reason why people are against the image being used is that (image processing in this case) used to be a male dominated field, and the use of an arguably contextually misogynistic image could make female researchers in the field uncomfortable and/or less included, etc. I really don’t think setting an example for children has anything to do with it.

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#97

Post by js2 »

riceart wrote: post #90
dgacmu wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50k had access if they wanted it. Most didn't use it. I'm confused why you don't believe me that internet penetration in the salt lake valley was very limited in 1994 - I was there, I ran an internet service provider, and prior to that, I co-ran the largest multi-line BBS in salt lake. I'd been doing dial up for a long time. You may be assuming that your experience in a different location applies to Utah, but I think…

> I'm confused why you don't believe me that internet penetration in the salt lake valley was very limited in 1994 I do believe you. Really have no dispute with any details you’re putting down. I suppose the distinction I’m making is about the cohort of early adopters that had special (usually U access) from those using commercial ISPs or BBSes. That earliest cohort no matter how small it was a good bit earlier than…

My first dialup was to BBS's in the early 80s using a Novation AppleCat[1] and I think I was using The Source[2] around the same time, which eventually got swallowed by CompuServe[3]. To access The Source you dialed in to Telenet[4] first and then connected from there.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novation_CAT#The_Apple-CAT_II

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Source_(online_service)

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telenet

I think my first Internet access was through Prodigy[5]. The Wikipedia says this wouldn't have been till 1994[6], but I remember it being a few years earlier since by 1994 I would have been using AOL.

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service)

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service)#Conve...

My first significant Internet access was at U.F. in 1995. While at U.F. I was also the sole system administrator for a small ISP in Gainesville. Two PCs running Slackware, a Livingston PortMaster with a dozen Hayes modems attached and a T1 for uplink.

My family also piloted something called Viewtron in the early 80s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viewtron

AT&T marketing video for Viewtron:

https://youtu.be/sgYkpk9nJnE

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#98

Post by Keverw »

The U also has one of the top video game development programs too. I decided to go back to college in my late 20s and doing that program now. It used to be part of the film school, then they moved it to the college of engineering but I heard from a progress or in July they are suppose to expand to being their own school at the U, because there’s a lot of overlap with programming, art and business (they use the term “Producer” for project managers). But apparently the program is growing and they want to offer more classes covering the entire spectrum but the people in charge of whatever college they have been apart of have been limiting what they could offer, or so I’m told from a professors Rant.

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#99

Post by esafak »

McKayDavis wrote: post #42
elliotec wrote: post #18

The University of Utah was also the fourth node of ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet - https://www.lib.utah.edu/digital-scholarship/arpanet/ On a personal note, this is also part of why I exist at all. My father came from England very young, worked his way through agriculture jobs in California, and somehow found himself with a job offer at the u of u as an electron microscopist. Met my mom there. Details are…

East High School is the closest public high school to the University of Utah. Because of this proximity the school was fortunate to get a direct T1 (1.5 Mbps) connection in 1992 (93?). The original domain was east.east-slc.edu before it was standardized to east.k12.ut.us circa 1995. After school every day for a few hours the East High CS room would be full of students exploring the new online world: surfing gopher, p…

A high school with a T1 connection was pretty sick! I don't know quite how to translate it into terms younger readers can appreciate.

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#100

Post by dahart »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #96
dahart wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation isn’t being shifted to interfacing with an authority figure for children. That’s what it already was! Maybe not primarily, but don’t miss the very point that research is setting an example and it percolates widely outside of college journals into textbooks, onto the internet, into videos, into work, and into homes. The movement is centered on the simple idea that we need to take the fact that we’re sett…

I’m pretty sure the reason why people are against the image being used is that (image processing in this case) used to be a male dominated field, and the use of an arguably contextually misogynistic image could make female researchers in the field uncomfortable and/or less included, etc. I really don’t think setting an example for children has anything to do with it.

Your summary is accurate, I agree with it, though the question of whether Playboy is “arguably” contextually misogynistic isn’t really even up for debate, it’s a well known fact that lots of women (and men) have repeatedly pointed out for decades. The issue with Lena is more than the potential that it could make female researchers uncomfortable, it actually did, and some of them were kind enough to let people know, and ask politely to consider more carefully what that makes the field of research look like to outsiders, and whether it is truly inclusive for women if we demand the right to keep using a pinup in research and act incredulous if anyone doesn’t like it. That makes us seem immature.

I don’t know what you mean by “children” or what you’re reacting to exactly, since I didn’t make any specific claims about children, but where is the line? Do you consider female high school students or college students to be children? (I’m old enough that I do.) The movement to stop using Lena is about having the entire field of computer vision set a better example all around, for young people and adults, for men and women. There is a particular emphasis on what using Lena in research looks like to high school and college women because we have a history of accidentally excluding women from tech, and high school & college are the times when kids really decide what they want to do, right?

Post reply on HN