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The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

nytimes.com

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Re: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

#51

Post by sliverstorm »

antonius wrote: post #4

From the article: "No written permission of any kind was ever given by the students." What's the statute of limitations on something like this? I'm guessing since this occurred so long ago, nothing can be done.

My rule of thumb when I wonder that sort of question is 7 years. Nearly all statute of limitations fall at or below that point. By which I would then conclude, no chance could they still be prosecuted.

There are certain violations that will be exempted from the statute of limitations, but a moderate scandal/invasion of privacy isn't going to qualify. Wikipedia lists fraud against the court, international crimes, and heinous crimes, e.g. heinous violence

Re: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

#52

Post by jccc »

etfb wrote: post #47

This deep underlying assumption that nudity = scandal is amusing. I'm Australian, and I thought my culture was pretty similar to the US in a lot of ways, but the puritanical terror of nudity that pervades ever word of the article seems very odd indeed to me.

For the benefit of those who have not read the 1995 article all the way through to the end:

"As I thumbed rapidly through box after box to confirm that the entries described in the Finder's Aid were actually there, I tried to glance at only the faces. It was a decision that paid off, because it was in them that a crucial difference between the men and the women revealed itself. For the most part, the men looked diffident, oblivious. That's not surprising considering that men of that era were accustomed to undressing for draft physicals and athletic-squad weigh-ins.

"But the faces of the women were another story. I was surprised at how many looked deeply unhappy, as if pained at being subjected to this procedure. On the faces of quite a few I saw what looked like grimaces, reflecting pronounced discomfort, perhaps even anger."

Re: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

#53

Post by JoeAltmaier »

yongjik wrote: post #40
stephencanon wrote: post #28

This story comes up every now and then; I have a hard time seeing it as a “scandal”. It’s nothing more than a piece of historical anatomical pseudoscience that happens to tickle the salacious fancies of puritan America with the proximity of “nudity” and the names of recognizable celebrities. Might as well be phrenology otherwise.

Taking nude photos of an entire generation of college freshmen (without proper consent) is not scandalous? Sure, it's not at the level of secret Plutonium injection, but still...

Nonsense. All were essentially volunteers. Nobody held a gun to their head; they just put it on a schedule, and the freshmen lined up to comply.

Its actually amusing; these captains of industry were such sheep when they were young. Makes you wonder when they grew a backbone, if at all.

Re: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

#54

Post by ics »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #53
yongjik wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking nude photos of an entire generation of college freshmen (without proper consent) is not scandalous? Sure, it's not at the level of secret Plutonium injection, but still...

Nonsense. All were essentially volunteers. Nobody held a gun to their head; they just put it on a schedule, and the freshmen lined up to comply. Its actually amusing; these captains of industry were such sheep when they were young. Makes you wonder when they grew a backbone, if at all.

It's hard to reach the top of your game if you're not willing to play.

Re: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

#55

Post by jpatokal »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #53
yongjik wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking nude photos of an entire generation of college freshmen (without proper consent) is not scandalous? Sure, it's not at the level of secret Plutonium injection, but still...

Nonsense. All were essentially volunteers. Nobody held a gun to their head; they just put it on a schedule, and the freshmen lined up to comply. Its actually amusing; these captains of industry were such sheep when they were young. Makes you wonder when they grew a backbone, if at all.

I wonder what happened if you refused and held your ground? Somebody must have during all those years.

Re: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

#56

Post by yetanotherphd »

jccc wrote: post #52
etfb wrote: post #47

This deep underlying assumption that nudity = scandal is amusing. I'm Australian, and I thought my culture was pretty similar to the US in a lot of ways, but the puritanical terror of nudity that pervades ever word of the article seems very odd indeed to me.

For the benefit of those who have not read the 1995 article all the way through to the end: "As I thumbed rapidly through box after box to confirm that the entries described in the Finder's Aid were actually there, I tried to glance at only the faces. It was a decision that paid off, because it was in them that a crucial difference between the men and the women revealed itself. For the most part, the men looked diffi…

That quite well illustrates the unacknowledged privilege of women at that time. The men were so accustomed to being denied privacy, either by cultural norms at the time, or by force by the government, that being forced to undress and be photographed was nothing unusual to them. Women, on the other hand, considered this an affront, because they were not subject to either of these. Thank you for pointing this out.

Re: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

#57

Post by yongjik »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #53
yongjik wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking nude photos of an entire generation of college freshmen (without proper consent) is not scandalous? Sure, it's not at the level of secret Plutonium injection, but still...

Nonsense. All were essentially volunteers. Nobody held a gun to their head; they just put it on a schedule, and the freshmen lined up to comply. Its actually amusing; these captains of industry were such sheep when they were young. Makes you wonder when they grew a backbone, if at all.

Seriously? "Nobody held a gun to their head" is your criterion? For guys and gals fresh out of high school?

Will you also tell me that employees can't sue for unpaid overtime, hazardous work environment, sexual harassment etc. because nobody held a gun and they could always quit? Such sheep, those common workers.

Re: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

#58

Post by gizmo686 »

pak wrote: post #44
rayiner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tsa-completely-remo...

So the machine takes the same picture, but simply pre-processes it into a cartoon image using "Advanced Imaging Technology" (now there's a hilarious non-description) before throwing it up on the monitor? Where do the originals go? Do they ever get audited or offloaded for quality control purposes--how else can they expect to be sure the algorithm works? The news reports on this switch are all over the place in terms…

I have no idea how it is actually implemented, but it seems like it could be implemented in a perfectly acceptable way.

The first step is to define what acceptable is. As I do not understand why nudity is unacceptable in the first place, I will not attempt to do so, and will instead employ the time honored tradition of hand waving.

In the new system, a reasonable implementation would be to discard the original image imidietly. Quality control can be done by putting the machine into debug mode and using consenting individuals as test subjects (or seeing if the cartoon image detects when the target things are present). There is also no guaranteed that the old pictures were ever stored. Although in both cases, I suspect they would store the data, in some form, for at least the short term to assist in a post-hoc analysis if their is a security failure.

Also, I think it was a software update only, the machines are still the same.

Re: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

#59

Post by gizmo686 »

munificent wrote: post #46
hawkharris wrote: post #35

It's interesting how the word "nude" boosts posts to the top of the social hierarchy on HN, Reddit and YouTube, among other sites, even in cases when the content would be otherwise irrelevant or uninteresting to the communities.

> It's interesting how the word "nude" boosts posts to the top We're mammals. Despite our large cerebrums and ability for abstract reasoning, we're still primates. Of course we're drawn to sex, food, and emotion. I think it's more interesting that we're surprised by this. Sure, it's good to try to overcome your bestial nature, but pretending it isn't there at all seems a bit silly.

We seem to be the only mammals that are particularly attracted to nudity. As far as I can tell, no other mammal even notices when one of their species is naked.

Re: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal (1995)

#60

Post by plantain »

vacri wrote: post #36
brador wrote: post #9

I have a vague feeling of reading this on the new york times website years ago, it was a huge article. Looks like this is a reblogging? Yup, from 1995: http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/15/magazine/the-great-ivy-lea...

This is the longest "Repost!" comment that I have yet seen.

Is it a repost if it was before a substantial number of readers were born??
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