Ah! I see, you are truly “old school” and you likely missed quite a few recent memos, I’ll summarize them for you:
In newthought there is no bound for GETTING ALONG you have to “get along” on everything and forever.
K A J HARVEYsays:
Is this the new “Normal”? statistically speaking. I advocate the opposite route. All future test images should avoid leaving out the original content and use the full Lena image.
Jsays:
> To many women, the use of the Lena picture is offending.
How many is “many”? You’ll always find a non-zero number of people offended by something, but is this an actually significant number of people?
BasDPsays:
I think we should stop whining and getting offended by anything and everything. This is getting ridiculous. I miss the old days, before being ‘PC’ was a thing, and when we didn’t have to think about if something we find completely normal offends some minority.
David Andersensays:
Bas, that’s very easy position to take when you’re in a position of power. In fact, it’s a position that says “I wish I could remain in this privileged spot and not ever be challenged in it.” But you should probably be aware that that’s exactly what you’re saying. I don’t think we have the right to do so — in fact, being in a position of power (think about it — you’re a tech lead, that’s a management position, and the concepts should be familiar), we have an obligation to be the ones who are *more* concerned with preserving the rights of the minority. Because we do have the power.
Power without morality … well, you can look at the current state of politics in the US. Let’s not be that person. 🙂
We have always been concerned about offending. You don’t go to the local church and yell “people who believe in God are stupid”. I mean… you might… if you have a point to make, but not just for fun. That’d be a stupid trick to pull. Why is it stupid? Because offending people has a cost. You have to balance this cost with what you expect to gain.
Actually, what you do is popping out with AK-47 and kill them all.
No. Don’t do this.
jldsays:
The damn point is that a lot of the “offended” people are not genuinely offended, they are just trying to score points in a political struggle, give them an inch they will claim for a mile.
Of course, you may not be interested or feel involved in either side of this struggle but we are exactly in the same situation as in the famous Niemöller quote, dark days ahead if this nonsense is not stopped.
Jacksays:
If you are a man, you can’t use pictures of attractive women, in any context at all, as that would be “objectifying” women.
You are however, free to use pictures of men (especially in uniform, as in “a plumber”, “a soldier”, “a policeman”, etc) since it is very clear that you are presenting their individual personalities and personhood in those cases.
Janesays:
Yes. Discourage the use of Lena. It isn’t about being offended but putting the women in the group at higher risk of an unpleasant encounter with a male who might feel emboldened to harass in the school or work environment. Pretend your mother or sweet little sister (who doesn’t care to see pictures of men in uniform) is in the group/class
simpliciosays:
I’m a guy (and don’t have any particular problem with porn in general) and while I wouldn’t say I find using the picture “offensive” exactly, it’s always struck me as kind of ooky. Certainly it doesn’t do much to help CS’s rep of being a boys club. So I’m glad to see it go.
(plus, while the last paragraph isn’t exactly clear, I read R. Matthew’s piece seems more or less in favor of getting rid of the image. at least its use as a default goto example for image processing papers, which I think is what most people have a problem with).
People need to be offended, it’s good for them, as it reminds them that their values, beliefs and priorities are not necessarly shared and accepted and other ways to think exist.
The freedom of speech is the freedom to offend, it’s not democracy anymore if auto-censorship prevails for the sake of protecting annoying cry-babies’s ears.
Stop being so canadian.
Francis Lalondesays:
That people should fight for the freedom to offend, absolutely. But freedom to offend does not mean that offense should be free. A good offense should be calculated and delivered with precision, lest it just raises the moral noise floor.
As such, I think a CS course is poor vector for attacks on political correctness as weak as “using a pretty girl’s picture”. You will likely shock no one because the internet (miss) but help turn away potential students by reinforcing stereotypes (miss, again).
…Unless you’re “that guy” who’s on a mission to show the world how free he his, then sure, indulge yourself – and let us judge your performance.
I just use a picture of Brad Pitt in addition of Lena. 🙂
Or sometine I use a picture from Woody Allen’s movie “Sleepers”. In that scene, coming from the past, Woody is asked to explain some 20th century objects. One of them is … the Lena photography.
You can find the scene here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59sN0iNeON4
In France, I never heard of anyone being offended by the Lena picture, women or men.
In France, I have never heard of anyone offended. People contest or disagree, they don’t get offended.
Marc Reynoldssays:
I’ll paraphrase something I said on Twitter: It sucks as a test image so I don’t get why anyone would want to use it anyway.
Marc Reynoldssays:
I think people are confused about what’s offensive. I can only speak for myself but this isn’t about being prudish or shameful about sexuality. It about supposed professionals telling pee-pee/poo-poo jokes. It’s embarrassing to listen to. Like viz of 3D (or slices) of distributions that look like “cock-n-balls”. If you want to mix things up and be offensive with a test image then try something like a gay fisting image by some great photographer, but it’d be nice if has some merit for content.
Keep the Lena picture as good reference. Simply, well-formed women most human folk find beautiful.
This comes of long path. Always had side interests in Art and Psychology. From photography sites in the early social web, found an asymmetry. Women find the female form beautiful more often than the male form. Take this as matching asymmetries.
We are of nature bound to find a well-formed female beautiful.
That is our nature.
When I go to practice drawing at a local artist’s studio, the models are most often female. The artists in attendance are at least equal between male and female genders. Yet the sessions with a male model are less well attended.
Our notions of beauty are bound to the female form.
Michaelsays:
“That particular issue had a piece of prostitution.” A piece *on* prostitution seems much more likely, unless it was an exceedingly avant garde magazine.
Alisays:
This is the epitome of the type of bullcrap PC culture can throw at you. I didn’t even know Lena was naked until 2-3 years ago. Who looks at that picture and gets offended? You need a roadmap to explain why it is offensive. Not only Lena should stay, I would seriously question all credibility of a person who argues against Lena. These fruitless and absurd discussions make people take a stance against an otherwise very credible issue in the tech sphere.
I skimmed through comments a bit and couldn’t stop rolling my eyes. From a woman that does not appear to be naked, people moved the discussion into gender equality and prostitution. In real corporate world, if you skew any issue (and here I’m specifically talking about technical debates, not social issues) this much, you’ll be asked to leave as you are distracting from the relevant topic.
I’m a woman and that picture evoked no reaction in me until the computer vision course I was taking explained where the picture originally came from.
Now when I see this picture my mind immediately goes to the phrase “men’s magazine” and I feel distinctly uncomfortable and have to focus hard to concentrate on the technical topic.
I can only present my subjective opinion and hope that evokes some empathy in the presenter. I don’t see it as an issue of political correctness but more of an issue of avoiding unnecessary discomfort to your fellow human beings.
As the author points out if there are alternatives, we should move on. I see no benefit in continuing to use the image in a public setting if it only elicits bad reactions in some people.
Jokersays:
I think someone was raised blue pilled. leave this honorable field and join feminism as full time profession for love of God !!
Emre ATAKLIsays:
Yes, the usage of that image should be discouraged. It does not fit the science. (especially, since coming from such a …)
krytycznasays:
Thank you for providing link to the royalty free kodak images. I was looking for an alternative after hearing Lena story.
“Getting along is a statistical concept.”
Ah! I see, you are truly “old school” and you likely missed quite a few recent memos, I’ll summarize them for you:
In newthought there is no bound for GETTING ALONG you have to “get along” on everything and forever.
Is this the new “Normal”? statistically speaking. I advocate the opposite route. All future test images should avoid leaving out the original content and use the full Lena image.
> To many women, the use of the Lena picture is offending.
How many is “many”? You’ll always find a non-zero number of people offended by something, but is this an actually significant number of people?
I think we should stop whining and getting offended by anything and everything. This is getting ridiculous. I miss the old days, before being ‘PC’ was a thing, and when we didn’t have to think about if something we find completely normal offends some minority.
Bas, that’s very easy position to take when you’re in a position of power. In fact, it’s a position that says “I wish I could remain in this privileged spot and not ever be challenged in it.” But you should probably be aware that that’s exactly what you’re saying. I don’t think we have the right to do so — in fact, being in a position of power (think about it — you’re a tech lead, that’s a management position, and the concepts should be familiar), we have an obligation to be the ones who are *more* concerned with preserving the rights of the minority. Because we do have the power.
Power without morality … well, you can look at the current state of politics in the US. Let’s not be that person. 🙂
We have always been concerned about offending. You don’t go to the local church and yell “people who believe in God are stupid”. I mean… you might… if you have a point to make, but not just for fun. That’d be a stupid trick to pull. Why is it stupid? Because offending people has a cost. You have to balance this cost with what you expect to gain.
Ok. So what do we gain by using Lena?
Nothing that I can see. What is the damn point?
Indeed, you don’t. Actually, what you do is popping out with AK-47 and kill them all. It’s 2017, not a Voltaire’s book.
Actually, what you do is popping out with AK-47 and kill them all.
No. Don’t do this.
The damn point is that a lot of the “offended” people are not genuinely offended, they are just trying to score points in a political struggle, give them an inch they will claim for a mile.
Of course, you may not be interested or feel involved in either side of this struggle but we are exactly in the same situation as in the famous Niemöller quote, dark days ahead if this nonsense is not stopped.
If you are a man, you can’t use pictures of attractive women, in any context at all, as that would be “objectifying” women.
You are however, free to use pictures of men (especially in uniform, as in “a plumber”, “a soldier”, “a policeman”, etc) since it is very clear that you are presenting their individual personalities and personhood in those cases.
Yes. Discourage the use of Lena. It isn’t about being offended but putting the women in the group at higher risk of an unpleasant encounter with a male who might feel emboldened to harass in the school or work environment. Pretend your mother or sweet little sister (who doesn’t care to see pictures of men in uniform) is in the group/class
I’m a guy (and don’t have any particular problem with porn in general) and while I wouldn’t say I find using the picture “offensive” exactly, it’s always struck me as kind of ooky. Certainly it doesn’t do much to help CS’s rep of being a boys club. So I’m glad to see it go.
(plus, while the last paragraph isn’t exactly clear, I read R. Matthew’s piece seems more or less in favor of getting rid of the image. at least its use as a default goto example for image processing papers, which I think is what most people have a problem with).
People need to be offended, it’s good for them, as it reminds them that their values, beliefs and priorities are not necessarly shared and accepted and other ways to think exist.
The freedom of speech is the freedom to offend, it’s not democracy anymore if auto-censorship prevails for the sake of protecting annoying cry-babies’s ears.
Stop being so canadian.
That people should fight for the freedom to offend, absolutely. But freedom to offend does not mean that offense should be free. A good offense should be calculated and delivered with precision, lest it just raises the moral noise floor.
As such, I think a CS course is poor vector for attacks on political correctness as weak as “using a pretty girl’s picture”. You will likely shock no one because the internet (miss) but help turn away potential students by reinforcing stereotypes (miss, again).
…Unless you’re “that guy” who’s on a mission to show the world how free he his, then sure, indulge yourself – and let us judge your performance.
I just use a picture of Brad Pitt in addition of Lena. 🙂
Or sometine I use a picture from Woody Allen’s movie “Sleepers”. In that scene, coming from the past, Woody is asked to explain some 20th century objects. One of them is … the Lena photography.
You can find the scene here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59sN0iNeON4
In France, I never heard of anyone being offended by the Lena picture, women or men.
In France, I have never heard of anyone offended. People contest or disagree, they don’t get offended.
I’ll paraphrase something I said on Twitter: It sucks as a test image so I don’t get why anyone would want to use it anyway.
I think people are confused about what’s offensive. I can only speak for myself but this isn’t about being prudish or shameful about sexuality. It about supposed professionals telling pee-pee/poo-poo jokes. It’s embarrassing to listen to. Like viz of 3D (or slices) of distributions that look like “cock-n-balls”. If you want to mix things up and be offensive with a test image then try something like a gay fisting image by some great photographer, but it’d be nice if has some merit for content.
Keep the Lena picture as good reference. Simply, well-formed women most human folk find beautiful.
This comes of long path. Always had side interests in Art and Psychology. From photography sites in the early social web, found an asymmetry. Women find the female form beautiful more often than the male form. Take this as matching asymmetries.
Human intelligence is (at present) the evolutionary equivalent of peacock feathers. There is a book:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evolution_of_Human_Nature
We are of nature bound to find a well-formed female beautiful.
That is our nature.
When I go to practice drawing at a local artist’s studio, the models are most often female. The artists in attendance are at least equal between male and female genders. Yet the sessions with a male model are less well attended.
Our notions of beauty are bound to the female form.
“That particular issue had a piece of prostitution.” A piece *on* prostitution seems much more likely, unless it was an exceedingly avant garde magazine.
This is the epitome of the type of bullcrap PC culture can throw at you. I didn’t even know Lena was naked until 2-3 years ago. Who looks at that picture and gets offended? You need a roadmap to explain why it is offensive. Not only Lena should stay, I would seriously question all credibility of a person who argues against Lena. These fruitless and absurd discussions make people take a stance against an otherwise very credible issue in the tech sphere.
I skimmed through comments a bit and couldn’t stop rolling my eyes. From a woman that does not appear to be naked, people moved the discussion into gender equality and prostitution. In real corporate world, if you skew any issue (and here I’m specifically talking about technical debates, not social issues) this much, you’ll be asked to leave as you are distracting from the relevant topic.
I’m a woman and that picture evoked no reaction in me until the computer vision course I was taking explained where the picture originally came from.
Now when I see this picture my mind immediately goes to the phrase “men’s magazine” and I feel distinctly uncomfortable and have to focus hard to concentrate on the technical topic.
I can only present my subjective opinion and hope that evokes some empathy in the presenter. I don’t see it as an issue of political correctness but more of an issue of avoiding unnecessary discomfort to your fellow human beings.
As the author points out if there are alternatives, we should move on. I see no benefit in continuing to use the image in a public setting if it only elicits bad reactions in some people.
I think someone was raised blue pilled. leave this honorable field and join feminism as full time profession for love of God !!
Yes, the usage of that image should be discouraged. It does not fit the science. (especially, since coming from such a …)
Thank you for providing link to the royalty free kodak images. I was looking for an alternative after hearing Lena story.