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Comment by gambiter | Hacker News Reader

Not sure if you're trolling, but I have a spare minute...

- If I post a picture of a cute kitten, does it mean I look at a cat as an object? That I will only under-appreciate all animals because I liked a photo of one? - If I post a picture of my mother or father, am I objectifying them? - What if I take a picture of a street performer who's doing some awesome thing and post it... am I reducing them to simply an object of attraction?

I just said it didn't affect me one way or another... that it is just an image. If someone thinks this image means I view a woman as an object, they are projecting THEIR OWN ISSUES onto me. That is the ONLY way that it could be offensive, in that they are choosing to be offended by something that 99% of the population think nothing about.

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This isn't just about having a picture. I'm not sure how you got that impression. It's about the context where it comes from and the repeated use of the picture in a scientific context.

If you have a picture of your parents on your desk, that's great and I respect your love for your family. If you keep using a crop of your mother from her Playboy centerfold in the '70s as a test case for your algorithms, and you encourage other scientists to use the same picture, I might be a bit weirded out.

>If you keep using a crop of your mother from her Playboy centerfold in the '70s as a test case for your algorithms, and you encourage other scientists to use the same picture, I might be a bit weirded out.

And who wouldn't be! But that begs the question, is there a son or daughter of Lena Soderberg who is also a researcher or software engineer working in image compression algorithms?

http://www.ee.cityu.edu.hk/~lmpo/lenna/Lenna97.html

It does not "beg" any questions. It is still a question of context. Sexualizing women has nothing to do with image processing research.

>It does not "beg" any questions.

Yes it does. geofft wants to imply that it is somehow equivalent of using a nude of one's own mother, which is absurd.

>Sexualizing women has nothing to do with ...

Tell me why you think this one[1] is okay, as opposed to the Lena image; and what it has to do with whatever it is you do.

[1] http://jeremykun.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/gala-dali.jpg?w...

Sure. This picture was painted by Dali, inspired by a Scientific American article about the minimum number of pixels needed to recognize an image. He was making an artistic statement that has a direct connection to Fourier analysis (and if you read the context article that image came from you might know this). This is a painting whose context is "fine art" (i.e. you can have tasteful nudity). That is a different context from pornography, whose purpose is sexual.

You clearly do not understand how the context of an image matters in interpreting it.

>This picture was painted by Dali, inspired by a Scientific American article about the minimum number of pixels needed to recognize an image. He was making an artistic statement that has a direct connection to Fourier analysis

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah... The Lena image contains a nice mixture of detail, flat regions, shading, and texture that do a good job of testing various image processing algorithms. It is a good test image. It is used by thousands of researchers in the field since image processing was a field.

So, your image isn't "sexualization" because Dali and "fine art" ?

>You clearly do not understand how the context of an image matters in interpreting it.

You cannot articulate a difference between Lena and the Dali that doesn't rely upon subjective opinion.

> So, your image isn't "sexualization" because Dali and "fine art" ?

Yes, there is such a thing as tasteful nudity, and pornography is generally not. This is why our society allows children into art museums but not strip clubs. What is so hard to understand about this? Context is subjective, but there are agreed-upon standards for professionalism. Just because the standard was different fifty years ago does not make it a good idea today. If you can't think of any "traditions" from fifty years ago that professional scientists unanimously agree are wrong today, then you're quite ignorant.

> Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...

Clearly I am the one failing to articulate things.

>Sexualizing women has nothing to do with image processing research.

Good think they don't. Or how are they?

If you keep using a crop of your mother from her Playboy centerfold in the '70s as a test case for your algorithms, and you encourage other scientists to use the same picture, I might be a bit weirded out.

How culturally normative of you.

>It's about the context where it comes

Why? It's the picture and not the context. If it wasn't posted here on HN, it wouldn't have seen it.

>If you have a picture of your parents on your desk, that's great and I respect your love for your family. If you keep using a crop of your mother from her Playboy centerfold in the '70s as a test case for your algorithms, and you encourage other scientists to use the same picture, I might be a bit weirded out.

Do you know on how many portrait photos of your co-workers they wear pants? Do you think it is important they do? Also get weirded out, that's your problem. Do you know how many people get weirded out of you because you browse HN?

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