[kevinpet]

They're not porn, people pointing it out aren't whining about nothing. You are misusing a word in a way which completely changes the interpretation. Calling something "porn" generally implies nudity, if not actual sex, or at the very least, revealing lingerie. The pictures appear to be of women in bikinis. At least one of them seems to be posing next to a car as you would find at an auto show.

If someone posted an article with screen shots of actual porn, it would be distracting to the point that you would assume he had psychological problems.

The term you're looking for is "swimsuit models", "pin-up models", or "booth babes".

None of these are the "Lena" image. That image is defensible in an image compression context because it's standardized. It's unfortunate that a cropped photo out of Playboy became the standard for image compression, but someone could agree that it's an unfortunate choice, but continue to use it because it is relatively standard. Similarly, others may find its content distracting and unprofessional and use a different image.

And if you want to make a point and try to move people in the direction of realizing that using scantily clad women as a decorative touch is unacceptable in a professional context, you would do well to not exaggerate this and equate it with porn. By calling this "porn" you lump yourself in with the caricature of straw man feminists equating inappropriate remarks with rape.

[heterogenic]

And your reason for posting this pedantic diatribe hours after the original post was corrected to "objectified female bodies" is... What? To revel in a pedantic takedown of a straw man?

[sqrt17]

To be really straightforward with it: your post calls for censorship, both self-censorship and the institutional kind. It is your burden to point out why you think using zhis material in illustrations of a technical claim deserves censorship, and if you overstep the line of what is reasonable, you deserve as much criticism as the person you would want to censor. To be sure, persons (not bodies) can be objectified ... as a means for attaining power, money, sex, whatever. As one person pointed out, the actual contents of the pictures didn't matter to most HN readers, it could have contained gay-specific material and still have the exact effect ("whoa, splitting into three b/w channels"). Was there any objectification involved in the student using these photos to illustrate this point to us? I guess not. Should we be sad that this guy didn't have any pictures of food or sunny beaches that looked recognizable in black and white? Probably yes, even though calling for public ostracism and censorship would be way over the line.

[heterogenic]

So... Tearing down a straw man then.

You could've just said "yes".

(The operative part of that reply was "hours after it was amended". Your rant, and 90% of the other replies on this thread, added nothing at all to the conversation besides typical red pill douche-baggery.)

[anonbanker]

I'm posting a day late into the thread to say that all of your posts on this thread have been very counter-productive, glib, and mean-spirited. Please don't accuse other HN'ers you've never met of being douchebags. You ruin the conversation by doing so. This is not reddit, or 4chan, so please don't treat HN as if it were.

I'm frankly shocked that dang hasn't been here to state this for me.