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Windows brings out the Rorschach test in everyone (2003)

devblogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Windows brings out the Rorschach test in everyone (2003)

#71
post #27

years ago my father got a decomissioned, wiped clean notebook from work and asked me to set it up for him. i didn't want to shell out a hundred bucks for windows, so i suggested trying linux (ubuntu) and he agreed. "intrepid ibex" was installed without issues. a few weeks later i asked him if everything was ok and how he liked it, and he had no complaints, except one: he didn't like the edgy skull on the desktop wall…

One of the earlier releases (when they would send you free CD's) got flack for people in their underwear https://www.zdnet.com/article/canonical-turns-20-shaping-the...

I'll see your CD cover with three people in their underwear, plus a hologram of the top half of a possibly naked baby on the Microsoft Windows box, and raise you the top half of several naked SGI "Skinny Hackers" in a projected texture map illustration of an ACM publication:

"Fast Shadows and Lighting Effects Using Texture Mapping", by Mark Segal, Carl Korobkin, Rolf van Widenfelt, Jim Foran, Paul Haeberli, Silicon Graphics Computer Systems. Computer Graphics, 26,2, July 1992, Page 252, Figure 3: Simulating a Slide Projector:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34129571

"Yes, we have a dress code. You have to dress." – Scott McNealy

On the other hand, down the road at SGI there was a practice called "Skinnyhacking"!

https://rdtk.net/internet/how-do-you-check-a-computer-s-comp...

>Snowsinger. November 21, 2020 at 07:48.

>A truly excellent review of the history of Silicon Graphics. I worked in the Australian Sales office as their 1st engineer in the Asia Pacific region. Was trained in MtView the 1st week the MtView campus opened. The 1st system I worked on was the IRIS 1000 and subsequently all the products from then on till I left in mid-2009 when the Australian Engineering division was shut. A great company with great people who just wanted to engineer the best Graphics experience on the planet until we lost focus and vision of what we did well. Brings to Mind the Skinny Hackers, the Rocktain event, PCP monitoring, CXFS (Clustered File Systems), Failsafe, Diskless boot, Voxel vision, and so many other engineering wins. A great company, great people, & the drive to make a better computing world. Thank you for the memories and documenting the history of a company that did make some huge breakthroughs in Computer Graphics & Computing architecture. Just go ask NVIDIA, Cray and now HP!! Also a shout out to Jim Clark & his team for the vision and determination to bring the Graphics Engine to world, the heart of the IRIS workstation and subsequent graphics systems.

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.sgi.misc/c/X50cCoYrU20/...

>Tom Davis, Mar 22, 1993, 6:06:21 PM, comp.sys.sgi.misc

>In article , ol...@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:

|> In j...@bu-pub.bu.edu (Jason Heirtzler) writes:

|> | Okay, I gotta know. Whom does the phrase "The Skinny Hackers" refer to?

|> A small group of (fairly skinny ;) ) folks who are also great hackers/developers and mostly long time SGI employees. Among other fruits of their group hackerdom was the original showcase.

>Being skinny didn't have anything to do with it. Although Showcase was the best known product of the skinnyhackers, the first product was an image of them made from a photo of all three sitting naked at computer terminals, busily hacking. On top of the photo was the international "no" symbol (red circle with a line across it), and underneath, the words "No Skinnyhacking".

>Note: Skinnyhacking is a dangerous activity, and should only be performed by professionals. Do NOT attempt it at home.

>If you're interested, you can see the image in the most recent (1992) SIGGRAPH proceedings, in distored form on the back cover, and in non-distored form on page 252.

>I can't imagine that anyone would want a copy of this image, but I have one in SGI format. (Actually, the secret goal is to have this image overtake the mandrill in popularity.)

|> I won't speak further to protect their secret identities ;)

>I will! It was me! Tom Davis! The bald guy in the front! Oh, and the other two are Rocky Rhodes and Scott Carr. Ann Sydeman joined the group a short time later, but unfortunately missed the initial photo session (although there was a subsequent video ...). Paul Haeberli was the photographer.

[Fortunately I found a pdf of the paper with the image:]

"Fast Shadows and Lighting Effects Using Texture Mapping", by Mark Segal, Carl Korobkin, Rolf van Widenfelt, Jim Foran, Paul Haeberli, Silicon Graphics Computer Systems. Computer Graphics, 26,2, July 1992, Page 252, Figure 3: Simulating a Slide Projector:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/133994.134071

Re: Windows brings out the Rorschach test in everyone (2003)

#72
post #15

The same government should sue all new mothers: how dare they deliver babies into this world completely naked !!!

If God meant for people to be naked, we'd all be born that way.

By the same logic:

If God didn't mean for people to cannibalize each other, we wouldn't be made of meat.

Flanders and Swan: The Reluctant Cannibal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEvh8qY-QRo

Seriously though, I love babies!

...I just can't eat a whole one...

(Although a little dressing does improve the taste.)

Re: Windows brings out the Rorschach test in everyone (2003)

#73
post #14

Red Moon Desert is now my wallpaper for the rest of the week. Looking at it from a distance indeed may raise some brows.

Someone has to accept that they're looking at the flattest pair of cheeks ever to interpret that as an ass.

Sir Mix-a-Lot tried to warn us, but we didn't listen!

Re: Windows brings out the Rorschach test in everyone (2003)

#75
post #53

I was watching YouTube the other day and it was talking about Nirvana's Nevermind album, showed the album cover but with a square censoring part of it. In these cases it really is the censor themselves who is debauched. Reminds me of the classic story where Samuel Johnson left out some rude words from his dictionary. He was congratulated for having left them out, to which he is said to have quipped "I congratulate yo…

It might sound silly to censor an album cover, but on the other hand why risk Google locking your whole account due to some automated check from which you have no recourse? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/22/google-cs...

YouTubers need to unionise. People need to maintain control of their own computing.

Re: Windows brings out the Rorschach test in everyone (2003)

#76
post #65

The wallpaper in question: https://windowswallpaper.miraheze.org/wiki/Red_moon_desert I suppose it looks like buttocks?

The only people who might plausibly think that were probably also jerking it to late night scrambled skin-e-max in the 90’s when it was basically just hard R.

I’ve seen that background hundreds of times, and it never even occurred to me.

Re: Windows brings out the Rorschach test in everyone (2003)

#77
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refuse to believe that at this point the AI companies are not doing that deliberately.

You can just as well say the logos look like flowers, suns, plasma balls, retinas. If you choose to only see anuses on all of them, that's really on you.

squints not sure if a joke or not….

Re: Windows brings out the Rorschach test in everyone (2003)

#78
post #27

years ago my father got a decomissioned, wiped clean notebook from work and asked me to set it up for him. i didn't want to shell out a hundred bucks for windows, so i suggested trying linux (ubuntu) and he agreed. "intrepid ibex" was installed without issues. a few weeks later i asked him if everything was ok and how he liked it, and he had no complaints, except one: he didn't like the edgy skull on the desktop wall…

At least you didn't install BSD! https://halfblog.net/2011/12/04/daemon-worship/ >I just got a call from the owner of a hotel for which we provide hotspot service. She says that a guest spotted the “Powered by FreeBSD” logo at the bottom of the login page, and was offended; the guest was convinced that either we or the hotel management “worshipped the Devil” and refused to stay at the hotel unless the logo was remove…

Reminds me of this classic: https://web.archive.org/web/20010803131841/http://www.lemis....

> ``Pardon us, ma'am. Mind if we ask you a question?''

> Well, people keep telling me that Texans are real friendly, so I nodded.

> ``Are you a Satanist?''

> Well, at least they didn't ask me if I liked to party.

> ``Uh, no, I can't say that I am.''

> ``Gee, ma'am. Are you sure about that?'' they asked.

> I put on my biggest, brightest Dallas Cowboys cheerleader smile and said, ``No, I'm positive. The closest I've ever come to Satanism is watching Geraldo.''

> ``Hmmm. Interesting. See, we was just wondering why it is you have the lord of darkness on your chest there.''

And it continues…

Re: Windows brings out the Rorschach test in everyone (2003)

#80
post #5

Another example: [0] Have to say this never would have occurred to me. There are also examples of US people being offended by scenes considered harmless in other cultures, ie the Totoro bathtub scene [1], search for "family bathing scene". I guess if this hologram offended people, there must be some nice stories about Nirvana's Nevermind (1991). [0] https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-butt... [1]…

Though now it's long buried in internet folklore graveyard, there once was a popular shock image (and an associated website) called "goatse". (If you never heard of it, you better NOT google it).

For awhile, people had been spotting goatse in several logos.

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