299
submitted 9 months ago by mox@lemmy.sdf.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] HarkMahlberg@kbin.social 48 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Which is still weird.

Alexander Sawchuk, then an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California ... along with a graduate student and the SIPI lab manager, was hurriedly searching the lab for a good image to scan for a colleague's conference paper. ... Just then, somebody happened to walk in with a recent issue of Playboy. The engineers tore away the top third of the centerfold so they could wrap it around the drum of their Muirhead wirephoto scanner...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna

Everything about the story sounds like it was a rush job, a decision made on a whim, after exhausting their existing catalog of test images. And who bring a Playboy mag to their university's computer lab, and advertises their possession? They don't even say who it was, probably to protect them from any embarrassing professional consequences. To me, that's probably the strongest reason to retire it: it's unprofessional.

[-] dankm@lemmy.ca 40 points 9 months ago

And who bring a Playboy mag to their university's computer lab, and advertises their possession?

Probably a random grad student. They were just coming out of the "sexual revolution" of the 60s at that point. It'd be a lot weirder ten years earlier or ten years later.

That a similar thing did happen ten years earlier is the weird part, I think.

[-] million@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Keep in mind that Playboy had a reputation as more than just porn. A lot of really respected authors had work published in Playboy.

I not sure of its culture status when the event in question happened, but it would have been different then say, Penthouse.

this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
299 points (97.2% liked)

Technology

60123 readers
2713 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS