LenPEG (2017)
dangermouse.net
dangermouse.net
The field is ripe for disruption by finding the new optimal image to use as the special case
> In 2018, the Nature Research family of journals announced that they would no longer consider articles using the Lenna image.[19] In the same year SPIE, the publishers of Optical Engineering, also announced that they would discourage the use of the Lenna image, and would no longer consider new submissions containing the image "without convincing scientific justification for its use".[20]
How do women in your industry feel about it?
Plus the canonical 1970s-era digitization is low resolution and lacking in detail compared to modern digital photography. Take all three factors together and it's clearly time to move on.
'"We decided we should exploit this," a Playboy rep said told Wired in 1997, "because it is a phenomenon."'
I'm definitely guilty of using the image, I still occasionally use it on my home computer if I'm playing with image processing stuff, but I purposefully do not use it for anything that any other human is likely to see, since I don't want to be the reason to make someone feel unwelcome in the tech space.
I imagine that the image was originally used with a sense of whimsy, with no harm intended, and then it was adopted into the culture of some fields, and given new meaning there within those fields, however we now know (at least when it's pointed out) that it does send some very unwelcoming messages, which affects both the fields and broader society.
I think one of the unwelcoming messages that would be sent by continuing to use the image is: knowing that it's associated with a long history of serious exclusion and unfairness, were we to use the image anyway, that would say we care more about the field's old in-joke, than we care about injustices and about being welcoming to everyone interested in the field.
This seems like one of those situations in which we don't realize something is a problem, but once we realize it (maybe someone has to mention it, and we look into it), then we do what we can to correct it. In the most limited interpretation of the problem, the correction might be as simple as using a different image in our examples, and it's perhaps the very least one can do.
As you say, it's the most limited interpretation of the problem. It's to the level of the master-branch or black-list/white-list controversies. I believe sexists are unwelcoming (to say the least), and sexism breeds a toxic work environment. I'm sure this image has been used by sexists, as has every resource in every field up to this day. I do not believe this image is sexist or unwelcoming nor that changing it will do anything to improve the work environment for women in tech.
I think these requests are overall harmful: They're a rhetorical mirage that does nothing to help the people they claim to stand for while disenfranchising normal people in the process by reframing them as bigots. They are part of a broader pattern of ideologically motivated battlegrounds in (SV) tech and serve only to classify people as allies or enemies. You yourself frame it as dichotomy between people who care about injustices and people who care more about preserving an old joke (clearly assholes if they put a joke over the inclusion of their colleagues). I'd ask you to consider that people who share your beliefs do not have a monopoly on kindness and mercy and the human heart, and to consider furthermore, given the polarization of the American political discourse, whether this is the right way to build a welcoming environment.
I say all this from personal experience, as a minority who's unlucky enough to have the most privileged people on earth fight for him (but not really) one well-meaning frivolity at a time. I say unlucky because in the process every space for us online has been hijacked and paradoxically I have less of a voice than before and meanwhile everything is still pretty shit to be honest.
For now, I'm wondering what the effect would be, if we were all, e.g., still using the Lenna image in things we publish. Would that be discouraging to people, regardless of what nuanced rationale we could in theory give for why we continued to use it?
Also, when inquisitive children read ahead and learn on their own, and come across these articles, would they, e.g., pick up on and be influenced by outmoded, restrictive gender roles?
I have a small sample size but I have been in a conversation with my wife and some of her female friends (who all had whom have CS degrees), and they all agreed they dislike the use of this image.
EDIT: having said this, if an image is making some people uncomfortable, we can use a different one. But in my view this seems just avoidance, a quick way out, which is going to make the original problem worse in the long term, because sexist people will remain sexist, only less discernible, in "stealth mode".
Hasn't this largely gone away in recent years?
It's still the norm in certain industries (e.g. online casinos), but my impression is that the average tech company doesn't want to be seen as the kind of organisation that hires 'booth babes'.
At least you actually asked women about their opinion on this image. Fwiw, I just sent the image to my family group and only got two replies so far which were both just a confused "huh why?". To be fair, both are not in CS or even engineering.
Again I think this is due to cultural differences. The image doesn't contain nudity or suggest anything sexual to us over here. It's a woman with an attractive face. A prime example for the difference in perception is how (gun) violence and nudity are perceived in Europe vs the US in movies or games, it's pretty much reversed.
What did you ask. Was it something like "Do you think it might put girls off computing to know for years the main picture used for image processing was a cropped picture from Playboy" (I don't mind you asking a different question, but I'm curious what you asked).
Yes, the image "as is" is fine, but people in the area know where it comes from, and what it is used for.
In general the Playboy is not considered "dirty porn" here in Germany which at least in part can be credited to the student movement of the late 60s which among many things addressed sexual self determination. So by some, a woman deciding to be featured in the Playboy or even porn was not seen as degrading but rather the opposite.
What might further surprise people from other parts of this planet is that for example at supermarkets and stores, the section featuring magazines has your typical tech, gaming, glamour magazines right next to ones with boobs on the cover for everyone to see. You see this from childhood on, it is not something bad and horrible and you're not taught that these women are desperate and couldn't find any other way to make money to survive.
I'm glad women in your life are happy with this, really. I really don't think this is a problem with naked women being shameful, but I really do think it's not appropriate for children. Do teenage girls buy playboy in Germany? I imagine usually not.
Honestly, we might have to agree to disagree, but I really do think using Playboy as a standard image gives the impression this is "for boys", the same way Playboy itself is generally seen as "for boys".
If this was just about nudity being fine, I am not seeing many naked men in tech.
Not that I'm aware of, neither do I know in general which and how many women consume similar media in general. My impression, and I'm not feeling very confident in suggesting this is correct or representative, is that women in general rather like to talk about sexuality related topics with their friends, or for example check out guys together on Facebook etc and not so much look at nudity in a magazine.
> Honestly, we might have to agree to disagree
I'm totally fine with that. :-) I'm not on a mission here, just trying to explain why I feel this is rather an overreaction, and how my cultural background might play a role here... Yes it came from playboy, but the image on its own barely hints at that. At least I never made the connection and only learned about it from the HN comments a few years ago, I think from an IOCCC entry that used that image in some way.
> If this was just about nudity being fine, I am not seeing many naked men in tech.
I'd be absolutely fine with someone using a cropped face from a Playgirl model as a counter weight. :-)
> it's associated with a long history of serious exclusion and unfairness
I might be thick now, but could you explain the association, and how using it means that we condone this history?
He explained to me the origins, and actually gave me the image file from a flash drive, just to minimize the likelihood of me getting in trouble. While obviously the normal Lenna image itself is fairly innocuous, he was afraid that porn might come up if I were to look up anything in Google images, which probably would not look great on an intern's computer.
In hindsight, maybe it's best to not use images that could risk getting anyone in trouble, not to mention that it probably breeds a "boy's club" atmosphere.
You're better off montecarlo sampling 20 images from instagram using different geolocations.
I'm talking about using an image that that was captured by a device that can have 12-18stops of dynamic range. Something better than film, something better than 70's film rendered in magazine print and scanned in later.
or more succinctly, something that would capture the whole range of a colourspace.
Maybe the better question is, "how long can on-disk compression protect humanity from LenPEG 4?"
I don’t think so? The decompressor needs to have a copy of the image to display if it goes to step 1 of its decompression algorithm.
When LenPEG 3 is done running, it doesn’t consume any space. Perhaps the first measurement is just considered as runtime overhead.
Not everything that counts can be counted.
Contrast Lord Kelvin: “When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.”
And also this doozy writ large in our lives: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”