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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

#81

Post by westurner »

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…

A nonsecular humanist could take issue with religious imagery, whether the model was fairly paid, and the articles. All NN (Non-Nude) references are suspect.

"A Utah school district has removed the Bible from some schools' shelves" (2023) https://www.npr.org/2023/06/02/1179906120/utah-bible-book-ch...

Persons from Utah, are even there good examples of healthy very-heteronormative marriages in the aforementioned now unmentionable text?

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

#82

Post by riceart »

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

> The internet was still the land of the nerds until the early 2000's

The first dot com boom, sort of the genesis of fortunes that make this site exist was prior to the early 2000s.

The early 2000s was the bust period.

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

#83

Post by AnimalMuppet »

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…

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...

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

#84

Post by dgacmu »

riceart wrote: post #80
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…

> 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). > The commercial Internet really only started taking off in 1993. 1993 is before 1994. I am very much scratc…

It wasn't "way after" in Utah. Xmission turned on in October 1993. They grew a lot in 1994 but most people in the valley still did not have internet access yet. By 1996 the situation was very different - but 94 was still early in the Utah Internet days. The growth in Internet adoption was so rapid during those 3 years that the difference just between 94 and 95 was quite large.

And yes, many faculty, students, and staff at the U had access. But that was like 50,000 people in a metro area of a few million.

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

#85

Post by lordfrito »

jamestimmins wrote: post #32

If you haven't read Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull of Pixar, he (and his ghostwriter) do a great job talking about his work on early animation tech at Utah. Highly recommend.

Another great book that covers the early days of computer graphics work is Droidmaker [1]

For a book that is purportedly about George Lucas and his contributions, it's goes into a great amount of detail about the histories of the computer graphics pioneers were doing before they worked for Lucas.

I didn't realize the group was so small, and so influential. Highly recommended.

[1] https://www.droidmaker.com/

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

#86

Post by riceart »

dgacmu wrote: post #84
riceart wrote: post #80

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). > The commercial Internet really only started taking off in 1993. 1993 is before 1994. I am very much scratc…

It wasn't "way after" in Utah. Xmission turned on in October 1993. They grew a lot in 1994 but most people in the valley still did not have internet access yet. By 1996 the situation was very different - but 94 was still early in the Utah Internet days. The growth in Internet adoption was so rapid during those 3 years that the difference just between 94 and 95 was quite large. And yes, many faculty, students, and sta…

Ok not “way” after - really splitting hairs here. Point still stands public commercial dialup internet was available pretty much everywhere. Call them early adopters or whatever - but the internet already had established communities well before 1994.

> 50,000 people in a metro area of a few million.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree on the interpretation of what “first families”. In the context I read that post it sounded like someone saying they were among literally the first few, not 50k to 100k when anyone with a credit card could order service. First families in my interpretation would be those that probably had access from their parent’s university shell account. This follows with the claim 15 minutes to load a single webpage - but unless you were on a shitty rural phone line running 2400bps it’s not like everyone’s dialup internet access at the time was that limited. Some had to put up with that but the tech in 1994 was not that primitive.

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

#87

Post by George83728 »

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…

> The situation isn’t being shifted

Really? Then what male researchers were hanging posters of Lena in classrooms?

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

#89

Post by dgacmu »

riceart wrote: post #86
dgacmu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't "way after" in Utah. Xmission turned on in October 1993. They grew a lot in 1994 but most people in the valley still did not have internet access yet. By 1996 the situation was very different - but 94 was still early in the Utah Internet days. The growth in Internet adoption was so rapid during those 3 years that the difference just between 94 and 95 was quite large. And yes, many faculty, students, and sta…

Ok not “way” after - really splitting hairs here. Point still stands public commercial dialup internet was available pretty much everywhere. Call them early adopters or whatever - but the internet already had established communities well before 1994. > 50,000 people in a metro area of a few million. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on the interpretation of what “first families”. In the context I read that post it…

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 that you're really just shifted by a year. The GP almost certainly weren't actually one of the first families in the sense of dozens, but they could well have been first among people they knew in their area. 15 minutes is probably hyperbole.

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

#90

Post by riceart »

dgacmu wrote: post #89
riceart wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok not “way” after - really splitting hairs here. Point still stands public commercial dialup internet was available pretty much everywhere. Call them early adopters or whatever - but the internet already had established communities well before 1994. > 50,000 people in a metro area of a few million. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on the interpretation of what “first families”. In the context I read that post it…

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 1994 and eternal September. I’ll grant my wording inadvertently exaggerating the penetration of availability in 1994, just saying the first households were probably getting dialup some years prior.

For me an EE prof managed get me a shell account in 1990 while in middle school. Even in rust belt US many friends just used AOL into 1994 and uptake of dialup ISPs was still slow, but that 1994 cohort was distinct.

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