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The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

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

#101

Post by cubefox »

dahart wrote: post #92
cubefox wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bro…

> You’re comparing Playboy to da Vinci and Michelangelo… if you refuse to see the difference between soft-core porn

The Lena image was clearly artistic. If you want to call it, additionally, "soft-core porn", then you would have to do the same with this statue:

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

The article contains some sexual context. And then you have no basis of treating David differently, except if you arbitrarily discriminate against one sex but not the other.

> BTW I’m with you against silly bans, I’m a proponent of free speech.

That's nonsense, you did nothing except defending the arguments about alleged sexism.

> In this case nobody banned anything

Completely false. There are journals which ban it, see Wikipedia article. Additionally there is now an indirect ban due to the campaign succeeding in creating a strong negative association, which makes using the image so costly that it isn't a live possibility anymore: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/give-up-seventy-percen...

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

#102

Post by ttoinou »

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…

Great story thanks for sharing. We come to HN for this :-)

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

#103

Post by redeeman »

dahart wrote: post #92
cubefox wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bro…

> In this case nobody banned anything, the movement is nothing more than a request by a broad group of people

a group so broad that they then refuse to publish perfectly valid scientific research papers, if you do not comply with what is for sure not a ban, but merely a request from organisations holding institutional power.

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

#104

Post by YZF »

jacquesm wrote: post #63
dgacmu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct for access open to the general public. The first commercial ISP in Utah, Xmission, was founded in 1993. Yes, many of us had internet access through the University of Utah before that (Pete Ashdown, the founder, had worked at Evans & Sutherland, which had quite good internet connectivity). But most people did not if they weren't associated with a university. (I helped create the third public ISP in…

I was still fighting local telcos in Canada in 2003 to get filters removed so I could go above 9600 baud.

I moved to Canada in 2002 and my 56k modem worked just fine and I'm pretty sure (though I might be misremembering) cable and ADSL were already around (I think people were amused that I was still using dialup). I'm sure some other parts were behind.

I think I had Internet access around 1984 or so, lived near a university (this was not in the US so must have been some early international connection). Before that we had BITNET (IBM's network) and uucp. My first networking from home experience was with a 300bps modem to an IBM mainframe using a terminal program I wrote myself on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. It was a pretty crappy half-duplex but pretty exciting as a kid.

A trip down memory lane...

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

#105

Post by jacquesm »

YZF wrote: post #104
jacquesm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was still fighting local telcos in Canada in 2003 to get filters removed so I could go above 9600 baud.

I moved to Canada in 2002 and my 56k modem worked just fine and I'm pretty sure (though I might be misremembering) cable and ADSL were already around (I think people were amused that I was still using dialup). I'm sure some other parts were behind. I think I had Internet access around 1984 or so, lived near a university (this was not in the US so must have been some early international connection). Before that we had…

This was St. Josephs Island. As soon as we had a little WiFi based ISP up and running suddenly broadband was available. Wonder why...

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

#106

Post by mswen »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #83
McKayDavis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Skyline High School had a teletype terminal by 1978. I think it connected to the University of Utah, though I am not absolutely certain. But that was a long way below a T1 line...

I recall in the late 70s that my high school also had a teletype terminal and an IBM card reader that connected to a mainframe for the whole school district. As a student I had some awareness that it was unusual. I was also working PT at a Radio Shack at the same time and saw the first arrival of a TRS-80 to our store.

Despite that early exposure to computing technology I went other directions for the next couple decades.

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

#107

Post by xedrac »

riceart wrote: post #49
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…

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 remember having dialup in 1994 through xmission. It was the same year my dad installed Slackware on our basement computer.

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

#108

Post by netdoll »

esafak wrote: post #99
McKayDavis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

5 gigabit symmetric right now, if you're American.

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

#109

Post by esafak »

netdoll wrote: post #108
esafak wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

5 gigabit symmetric right now, if you're American.

The thing is, nobody in the US cares about the network any more; it's been good enough for twenty years. I don't even know how fast mine is. It was very different then. People had modems that pushed 9.6kbps, 14.4kbps, 28.8kbps, 33.6kbps, then 56kbps. Each upgrade was substantial because it was the limiting factor -- I remember each one, as you can see -- and obviously way slower than that mythical T1.

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

#110

Post by Tempest1981 »

esafak wrote: post #109
netdoll wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 gigabit symmetric right now, if you're American.

The thing is, nobody in the US cares about the network any more; it's been good enough for twenty years. I don't even know how fast mine is. It was very different then. People had modems that pushed 9.6kbps, 14.4kbps, 28.8kbps, 33.6kbps, then 56kbps. Each upgrade was substantial because it was the limiting factor -- I remember each one, as you can see -- and obviously way slower than that mythical T1.

> nobody in the US cares about the network any more

Definitely not true if you live in a rural area.

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