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posted by martyb on Thursday September 28 2017, @11:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the godfather-of-the-sexual-revolution dept.

Hugh Hefner, Playboy Magazine Founder and Star of Girls Next Door, Dies at 91

"Hugh M. Hefner, the American icon who in 1953 introduced the world to Playboy magazine and built the company into one of the most recognizable American global brands in history, peacefully passed away today [September 27] from natural causes at his home, The Playboy Mansion, surrounded by loved ones," a rep for the Playboy Enterprises founder said in a statement to PEOPLE.

[...] "My father lived an exceptional and impactful life as a media and cultural pioneer and a leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time in advocating free speech, civil rights and sexual freedom. He defined a lifestyle and ethos that lie at the heart of the Playboy brand, one of the most recognizable and enduring in history. He will be greatly missed by many, including his wife Crystal, my sister Christie and my brothers David and Marston, and all of us at Playboy Enterprises," said Cooper Hefner, his son and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.

By putting up his furniture as collateral for a loan and borrowing the rest from family and friends, Mr. Hefner published the very first issue of Playboy in December of 1953, which featured a nude Marilyn Monroe.

The same year, Hefner launched media and lifestyle company Playboy Enterprises, Inc., on which he served as a board member until the time of his death.

[...] The magazine became known for its articles as well as the beautiful women that graced its pages, with Hefner asking some of the world's greatest and most progress literary figures to write for him including, Hunter S. Thompson, John Updike, Ian Fleming, Joseph Heller, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Margaret Atwood, Jack Kerouac and Kurt Vonnegut.

Also at The New York Times, NPR, BBC (obituary), The Guardian, and Reuters.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by martyb on Thursday September 28 2017, @03:27PM (12 children)

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 28 2017, @03:27PM (#574386) Journal

    And, thanks to the timely arrival of an issue of Playboy, practitioners and followers of image processing techniques all over were introduced to: Lena Söderberg [wikipedia.org].

    More specifically see Wikipedia - Lenna [wikipedia.org] and the May/June 2001 issue of IEEE Professional Communication Society (pdf) [cmu.edu].

    A reduced-resolution and cropped version of the image is available on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].

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  • (Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @03:52PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @03:52PM (#574396)
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by shortscreen on Thursday September 28 2017, @07:47PM (1 child)

      by shortscreen (2252) on Thursday September 28 2017, @07:47PM (#574508) Journal

      Tell me about it, AC. There is a lot of evidence. I've personally collected quite a few pieces of evidence over the years. Pretty soon I'll have to replace my hard disk again because it's so full of evidence.

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @08:04PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @08:04PM (#574512)

        I made sure to link the high resolution evidence so you can see the misogyny in the greatest detail possible.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @09:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @09:22PM (#574537)

      archived here [archive.org]

  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:23PM (7 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:23PM (#574448) Journal

    Yes. That is, in fact, an excellent example. It was vaguely erotic, enough to be enticing to men. Therefore when given a choice between several plausible image processing targets, men chose that. If women had been doing the choosing it might have been a picture of ... I don't know the favorites at the time, so I'll say Elvis Presley. In neither case is the choice reprehensible. It's a choice that inspires attention, and is therefore a good choice. It's a choice that engages significant image recognition software built into the human brain, and is therefore better than something more neutral, like a complex polyhedron, or even a tree. It's true that it focuses more in distinguishing between shades of brown than most other colors, but that's one of the important areas to cover.

    People who object to that image have severe psychological issues, and need help. Unfortunately, not only do they not usually realize that they need help, there isn't any good help available. A few years of awareness meditation would probably do them a lot of good, but that requires that they initially acknowledge the need. A good co-counseling group would probably help, but finding a such a group depends on reference. And, again, it requires that they be aware that they need help.

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    • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @07:07PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @07:07PM (#574493)

      Hmm, somehow I doubt you would have reacted with the maturity you are expecting if it was a mostly naked dude with a bit of his dong hanging out. Using a nude photo in a professional magazine is inappropriate.

      It can be hard to comprehend a totally unfamiliar perspective, and it is much too easy to apply our personal view as the most reasonable and sound. What causes so many problems these days are individuals like yourself that refuse to acknowledge that others can be hurt by things you find innocuous. This doesn't mean you have to bend over backwards, but telling people to seek therapy because they didn't like a nude picture in a professional magazine? Time to turn off Rick and Morty, your moral compass be broken bruh.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @07:10PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @07:10PM (#574495)

        Oh wait, that is my bad, they used a very cropped version apparently and I'll agree with you on it not being that big of a deal. Still not very professional, but not close to the original image.

    • (Score: 2) by tfried on Friday September 29 2017, @05:06AM (4 children)

      by tfried (5534) on Friday September 29 2017, @05:06AM (#574674)

      People who object to that image have severe psychological issues, and need help.

      I suggest you do tone it down a bit. Look, realizing that "the" standard example in image processing is a crop from a soft-porn image is absolutely worthy of a face-palm. See, it's not like they OCR'ed a sample of the high quality texts everybody is reading the Playboy for.

      Now that embarrassing fact does have to be put into perspective, by realizing that
      - The guys who scanned the image had no idea how significant their pick would become later on.
      - They also described it as more or less of an accident later, showing they were rather embarrassed themselves.
      - Most people who used the image from there on - and made it a de-facto standard by doing so - were probably not aware of, and had no reason to ask about the image's origin. The image itself - as it is cropped - is rather harmless, indeed.

      Of course those who (used to) rally against the Lena image would probably assume a different story, like "the IEEE were looking for a new standard image, held a workshop, and this was the one that a group of experts agreed on." From that assumption, some outrage is absolutely called for. But of course, not checking your facts before you start a rebellion is just another face-palm moment...

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday September 29 2017, @06:09AM (3 children)

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 29 2017, @06:09AM (#574695) Journal

        Did you follow the link to see what the picture looked like? It's a lady in a hat looking back over her shoulder. True, the shoulder is bare, which is necessary to get a good range of tanned skin tones. Rounded surfaces handle light differently than surfaces that abruptly change direction, as clothing usually does. It's not more than *extremely* mildly erotic. And then less so than many women you can see on the street. She does have smooth skin and a nicely symmetrical face, which not everyone has, but this is as rare among men as it is among women. Perhaps someone with a skin disease would have been a better challenge for video processing, but IIRC at the time even handling a smooth gradation was quite a challenge.

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        • (Score: 2) by tfried on Friday September 29 2017, @07:12AM (2 children)

          by tfried (5534) on Friday September 29 2017, @07:12AM (#574704)

          Did you read my post?

          It's the origin of the image (which is a crop of a clearly soft-pornographic image, taken from a clearly soft-pornographic magazine) which is embarrassing, at the very least. It would be absolutely reasonable to be upset about it, if there was the slightest suspicion that the pick was intentional.

          If you need a neutral sample of text, you don't pick a section from "Mein Kampf" or the "Communist Manifest", not even cropped and garbled. If you need a neutral image of a car, you don't take the one JFK was assasinated in. If you need a neutral audio-sample of a dialog, you don't take it from a porn-movie, even if the sample itself is harmless. If you need a neutral sample of a white substance for color-matching, you take MgO or wheat flour, not cocaine, even if it might serve the purpose just fine.

          • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday September 29 2017, @04:04PM (1 child)

            by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 29 2017, @04:04PM (#574881) Journal

            What the hell does the origin of something self contained matter? That strikes me as wholly irrelevant, so much so that while I read it in your post I couldn't believe that was your point.

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            • (Score: 2) by tfried on Friday September 29 2017, @07:57PM

              by tfried (5534) on Friday September 29 2017, @07:57PM (#575024)

              What the hell does the origin of something self contained matter?

              A lot, if the choice of origin was intentional. Not at all, if the choice of origin was not.

              In the case at hand, the choice of origin was not intentional, but that does need explaining, because it's not like the image is one-of-a-kind WRT to its purpose, and the origin is what it is.