[HN Gopher] Photos Always Pointing at the Pointer (2012)
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Photos Always Pointing at the Pointer (2012)
Author : Gedxx
Score : 398 points
Date : 2022-07-12 13:27 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pointerpointer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (pointerpointer.com)
| readingnews wrote:
| This could be a serious time sink for someone. After just a few
| moments I was like "wait, I am going to sit here and keep moving
| this mouse... must leave".
|
| Seriously though, I wonder where it pulls the images from...
| seems like a lot of parties and drinking.
| quenix wrote:
| It looks like it "cheats" sometimes.
|
| It reuses pictures by zooming and moving the entire picture
| around until the point position and cursor position match.
| epalm wrote:
| Sounds like a feature, not a bug.
| atum47 wrote:
| This is hilarious
| goatcode wrote:
| I wonder what is the worst picture in its source. I managed to
| find a bird being flipped in one (as the pointing finger). How
| deep does this rabbit hole go?
| p5v wrote:
| Ehh, the good old college party years :)
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| I'd never seen this. So cool!
|
| After an image loads, you can resize your browser text (Ctrl + /
| Ctrl -) to instantly reveal a different image with each resize
| event. By sweeping through very small and very large zoom levels,
| you can make peoples' fingers trace out a diagonal line from top-
| left to bottom-right as the registered point moves with the
| underlying voronoi canvas as it scales up and down.
|
| Side note: how hard would it be to reduce the time delay between
| identifying a point and displaying an image? Could this be made
| realtime by preloading all images? The flicker would be terrible
| but I'd want to try it at least briefly.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> how hard would it be to reduce the time delay between
| identifying a point and displaying an image_
|
| Easy, I expect. I assumed there were two reasons for the delay:
|
| * Simply a transfer delay, though even for images not seen
| before I'm only seeing between 20ms and 80ms in total for that
| each time (though it does seem to request each twice).
|
| * Debouncing, to avoid requesting many images needlessly while
| a user moves the mouse around the page.
|
| * For show, to make it look like it is doing something more
| clever that requires noticeable processing time!
|
| All but the transfer delay can be removed easily as I think
| they are put in deliberately, and the transfer+render delay is
| short enough not matter for what you describe wanting to try.
| ksala_ wrote:
| As for the other comment, there is an artificial 2s delay
| between image loads. It might be to reduce the load on the
| server, or just to make it seems like it's doing more work than
| it is.
|
| A very hacky way to remove it (I'm sure there are better ways!)
| is to redefine the setTimeout function to just ignore the delay
| and call the function directly. Open the console and type
| setTimeout = (x => x())
|
| On a fast connection with this loading it's almost immediate -
| it's pretty cool to just drag your cursor across the screen.
|
| But yes, the flicker is pretty bad. This is not handled very
| well (as expected), it would be nice if it tried to "stick" to
| one image for a few ms instead of flickering between the same
| two while moving.
| SilasX wrote:
| There were too many NSFW/L photos with no warning. For me, 2/3
| before I gave up.
| neogodless wrote:
| Are you talking about people who appear inebriated? Because
| that's all I saw. Nothing truly NSFW. Just went back for
| another dozen. No inappropriate skin showing, no illegal
| activities (unless, of course, there are underage people
| drinking, but it's hard to tell that for sure.)
| SilasX wrote:
| Male lifting up his shirt, which, while not obscene, is also
| not SFW. Another picture had a bloody finger.
|
| I don't know why people seem to be so incredulous/outraged at
| my observation. Is it that hard to believe such pictures made
| it into the set? Am I supposed to be supporting the team
| here?
| furyofantares wrote:
| Although your description doesn't sound like anything I'd
| expect most people to call NSFW/L, if it is for you then
| yeah I don't think you should browse it from work. FWIW I
| think you also got real unlucky on the ratio, I did quite a
| few and didn't come across any blood and only one male
| nipple
| dspillett wrote:
| _> I don 't know why people seem to be so
| incredulous/outraged_
|
| I think you are overreacting to a reaction that barely
| exists there. It looks like one person has responded (at
| the time I'm writing this) and while they didn't agree with
| your assessment, they stated so quite calmly rather than in
| a manner I would call outrage. Unless you have been
| inundated by personal messages that I can't see?
|
| There was a lass in a bikini, but even that is safe for my
| work. If your work is pretty strict about images of these
| natures, I would suggest refraining from browsing non-work-
| related sites at all until you are at home or at least on a
| device that is not using the corporate network.
|
| [edit: having had a scan through the images (someone posted
| a link to where they are all visible) there are a couple of
| people flipping the bird too, those might get a reaction if
| the bikini does]
|
| HN itself is pretty much SFW (aside from some comments, but
| they get downvoted to oblivion or otherwise hidden pretty
| quickly) but IIRC makes no guarantee that anything linked
| from it will be likewise.
| SilasX wrote:
| I wasn't looking at it from work, I don't have an office
| job right now (see profile).
|
| Perhaps you just weren't aware that neither of those
| things are prerequisites to warning others about the high
| probability of seeing such images? You're allowed to care
| about SFW/L beyond work contexts, and it's helpful to
| alert others who might care.
|
| It feels like an attempt at invalidation when you expect
| someone to _not even be able to warn others about
| content_ simply because _some_ people might not care
| about whether it's in that category. Hence why it comes
| across to me as outrage: you have to feel pretty strongly
| to oppose a mere warning.
|
| It's kind of funny how common trigger warnings are, but
| when I mention the possibility of an image set being
| surprisingly unfiltered and having frequent NSFW/L
| content, I have to rehash the entire concept.
|
| Also, I would say your work is unusually lax if you see
| nothing wrong with pulling up bikini images there.
| (Similarly unusual deficit of empathy, while we're at
| it.)
| dspillett wrote:
| I did not object at all to you raising what you feel is a
| valid warning. Nor, as far as I see did the other poster,
| they simply disagreed politely.
|
| My comment about you overreacting wasn't about the
| definition of what is/n't safe for work/life, but that
| you referred to one polite disagreement as "people being
| outraged".
|
| _> Also, I would say your work is unusually lax if you
| see nothing wrong with pulling up bikini images there._
|
| Deliberately pulling up such images, perhaps for the
| purposes of ogling them, would be inappropriate.
| Happening upon them while taking a break and looking as
| at random site would not, any more than there would be an
| issue with such an image coming up as you browse a
| newspaper that happens to have an image of that sort
| illustrating an article about the current heatwave, or
| some holiday offer, or a beech fashion event. Sensible
| rules have room for context.
|
| _> (Similarly unusual deficit of empathy, while we're at
| it.)_
|
| I find your comment on empathy ironic, given the rest of
| this bit of thread!
| SilasX wrote:
| >I did not object at all to you raising what you feel is
| a valid warning. Nor, as far as I see did the other
| poster, they simply disagreed politely.
|
| If you're saying that people are wrong to not want a
| massive bloody finger or a drunken flashing photo on
| their screen, then yes, you are objecting to the warning,
| and you are showing an empathy deficit. Sorry, where was
| the irony you claimed to see? Because as far as I can
| tell, I have empathy for people who don't want those
| images on their screen, while you don't.
|
| Generally speaking, I imagine there's a high threshold
| for objecting to a mere warning (the point about triggers
| you ignored), so I assumed if anyone were actually
| disputing that this merited a warning, they believed the
| wrongness of my comment met that threshold. But sure, I
| was wrong to assume anyone thinks that far ahead or tries
| to be consistent.
| Akronymus wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32070771 Maybe check out
| the image I got?
| mauriciolange wrote:
| Good point!
| nalinidash wrote:
| Oh...here is an exception https://imgur.com/a/In4MtJY
| sbarre wrote:
| I got that image earlier. You're getting a crop on mobile but
| there's a guy out of frame on the left who is pointing across
| the image.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Yup. Some apparent misses are because the images are zoomed,
| so they can be shifted and reused with different coordinates.
| Unfortunately some images end up with the pointing finger out
| of frame.
| toyg wrote:
| This would be useful if only I could save the resulting image
| somehow, and reuse it in my presentations / memes.
| bbbbbenji wrote:
| Well, it's not wrong: https://i.ibb.co/8sydp6V/Screenshot-
| from-2022-07-12-16-23-59...
| ImJasonH wrote:
| Some people would call this pointless, but I obviously disagree.
| [deleted]
| pkdpic wrote:
| Yeah those people are the worst. This project rules.
| bestouff wrote:
| I see your point.
| toyg wrote:
| It's very clear what direction this conversation has taken.
| EGreg wrote:
| I had some pointed criticism of this thread but I'll keep
| it to myself. I'll limit myself to asking: are the photos
| themselves simply cropped? In that case there doesn't have
| to be that many photos.
| mypastself wrote:
| It's almost clear to me, but I can't quite put my finger on
| it...
| pointlessthrwy wrote:
| nedpat wrote:
| This thread seems to be pointing towards reddit
| zw123456 wrote:
| You guys are so sharp...
| rlt wrote:
| Back to Reddit, all of you.
| john-doe wrote:
| Made by Studio Puckey: https://puckey.studio/projects/pointer-
| pointer
| nsxwolf wrote:
| This is the greatest use of machine learning I've ever seen.
| woudsma wrote:
| No ML, just JS and voronoi!
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z2ZXW2HBLPM
| apetresc wrote:
| How do Voronoi diagrams help you figure out the trajectory of
| a finger in a photo?
| mynegation wrote:
| They do not, at least in this implementation they do not.
| If you watch the video, pointing finger position is
| actually preset in the data (by human analysis most
| likely). Voronoi (it is pronounced with "oy" not "ay" btw)
| is only used for proximity matching.
| ta988 wrote:
| The voronoi is just used to map the x,y coordinates to tiles
| that then map to images. Doesn't say how the images were
| selected and the finger coordinates mapped in the first place
| to generate that map.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| I assume it is done manually?
| naillo wrote:
| It's funny how many cool things could be created with
| just a few hours of manual labelling labor.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| Reminds me of a recent HN comment about the difference
| between mechanical and mathematical magic tricks.
|
| "A magician I know talks about the three kinds of magic:
| sleight of hand, mechanical, and mathematical. The first
| requires a lot of skill and practice (e.g., palming
| coins, manipulating cards). The second requires a lot of
| preparation and engineering (e.g., sawing a person in
| half, floating person illusions). The third relies on the
| nature of reality (e.g., dividing sets of cards in a
| known pattern that forces a result, or manipulating
| numbers that force an unexpected result)."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31924453
| olalonde wrote:
| I could be wrong but when this was created, pre-2012, it
| would have been quite hard to get a computer to annotate
| those pictures accurately. 2012 was the year that kick-
| started the deep learning revolution[0], which greatly
| simplified the realization of such tasks.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning#Deep_learni
| ng_re...
| onionisafruit wrote:
| This is where the magic happens: https://pointerpointer.com/new-
| positions.json
| melony wrote:
| Train neural net and generate it dynamically!
| jonnypotty wrote:
| Why do I find this so funny? Good work. Thanks.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I noticed they are all white people. Does the algorithm have
| trouble with other skin tones?
|
| That is actually a serious question, and it has nothing to do
| with the personal bias or motivations of the author.
|
| I was once shown an algorithm for removing red-eye from photos,
| and noticed that every example they showed, was of drunk white
| Irish people (usually with light eyes). Turned, out, the library
| didn't do so well, for other skin tones.
|
| _[EDITED TO ADD] I actually enjoyed the heck out of it. Many of
| the comments, below, explain why it seems that way. Also, it may
| just be "the luck of the draw." I suspect that most images are
| from a common demographic, because that was who the photographers
| that supplied the images, came from. The tech, itself, seems to
| be quite basic, and is a fun idea._
| onionisafruit wrote:
| You're observation is generally correct. Here's an exception
| that proves the rule: https://pointerpointer.com/images/678.jpg
| yakubin wrote:
| FWIW I got 30%+ Asians. The rest was White.
| latchkey wrote:
| Shrug, the first image that came up for me was people with dark
| skin.
| bayindirh wrote:
| I got asian and black people too. Not all of them white.
| ravedave5 wrote:
| I had several people with darker skin tones.
| zweifuss wrote:
| Me too.
| mellosouls wrote:
| Snap!
| mellosouls wrote:
| Me too.
| xtracto wrote:
| Strange, I did get photos with black people in the first tries.
| jer0me wrote:
| My guess is that the location of fingers were manually
| identified so it's more an issue of where the photos are
| sourced from.
| Klathmon wrote:
| IIRC this wasn't made by an algorithm, the pointing locations
| were mapped by hand and the list of images is fixed.
|
| So I think in this case it _is_ because of personal bias of the
| author (regardless of how unintended it might be)
| fullmoon wrote:
| Since "Implicit bias" could not have been proven to actually
| exist your charge is a direct personal one based on nothing
| concrete at all.
| pkdpic wrote:
| I really love this project but that is a super on point
| observation. I should have noticed that. And I think the answer
| to your question is probably obviously yes. Like I know what
| I'm talking about...
|
| Also very curious on the source for these images. They seem
| like scraped Facebook photos from a very specific time range.
| Maybe early 2000s?
|
| Anyway whatever this is its art and I love it and it should be
| at the MoMA.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I agree. It is super fun. Kudos!
| mynegation wrote:
| I watched the video mentioned in another comment just to figure
| out exactly that question. From my understanding Voronoi
| diagrams are not used to find finger position, it is most
| likely preset, probably by human.
| laumars wrote:
| There are other skin tones but you're right it's mostly white
| people. However it's worth baring in mind that this is an old
| site. Wayback machine has it at 2012. I'm sure I've read an
| explanation that said each image was manually curated and then
| the angle of the pointing manually plotted. So I wouldn't say
| there's any algorithm bias beyond whatever images the author
| had access to at that point (no pun intended) in time.
| archibaldJ wrote:
| oh wow this cracks me up in ways unbeknownst to me, almost in the
| same fashion as the first time I experienced the surreality of VR
| ping pong. There is something strange about human reactivity (and
| interactive humourous side-effects) that we need to research more
| on.
| Akronymus wrote:
| That was fun.
|
| Until there randomly was a finger seemingly with a crush injury
| along with a large pin shoved into it lengthwise.
|
| WHY wasn't that vetted out?
|
| This one, specifically https://i.imgur.com/JimNuUL.png (Showing
| the injury/pin, so dont click if you dont wanna see it)
| positus wrote:
| Delightful!
| andrew_ wrote:
| These are all photos that look like they were taken with
| disposable cameras in the early 2000s. First thought was "why do
| all of these look like they were taken at my college parties?"
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Half of the people look drunk. Which makes sense. Being this is
| selected for photos of people pointing at random places!
| sbarre wrote:
| Yeah someone got their hands on a Myspace image crawl..
| pchristensen wrote:
| Apparently this site goes back to at least 2012, so the pics
| would have to be older than that:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4095237
| toyg wrote:
| Probably fishing from the golden age of Facebook sharing.
| AustinDev wrote:
| Seriously I think I saw someone I hung out with in RVA in the
| late 2000's
| tablespoon wrote:
| > These are all photos that look like they were taken with
| disposable cameras in the early 2000s. First thought was "why
| do all of these look like they were taken at my college
| parties?"
|
| You're probably not too far off.
|
| This is apparently all the photos it uses: https://gist.github.
| com/Q726kbXuN/6937cf84ac6debcb2027cdba13.... I eyeballed it for
| a bit and all those that had timestamps were from 2004-2006. I
| also saw a Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign sign in the background of
| one.
| vladf wrote:
| Didn't work for me: https://ibb.co/56rr18X
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| If you're like me and just want to see all of the images:
|
| https://gist.github.com/Q726kbXuN/6937cf84ac6debcb2027cdba13...
| deepspace wrote:
| The guy in the 13th photo just looks _wrong_ somehow, like a
| CGI person down in the uncanny valley.
| shrimpx wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that's a wax figure or a painted wood
| sculpture.
| deepspace wrote:
| Yes, on closer inspection, you are right. The camera threw
| me off.
| kebman wrote:
| Ok I get the point!1
| felipelalli wrote:
| What is the point?
| dannyphantom wrote:
| I remember this from StumbleUpon :)
|
| Something that I did as a teenager and just tried again is take a
| sticky note, cut a small square in it and place it on your
| screen, you can "refind" pictures so it's not all random.
| Probably obvious to those more knowledgeable than I but
| nonetheless amusing.
| speps wrote:
| HN thread from 2012 (67 comments):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4095237
|
| HN thread from 2020 (68 comments):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25372356
| jwilk wrote:
| 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8583179 (31
| comments)
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Why Voronoi? Why not circle-line collision, the line being from
| the start of the finger to approximate end space. The lines can
| be done manually, maybe drawn in with an app.
| shreyshnaccount wrote:
| I saw this site YEARSSS ago, brings back memories of bunking
| class to play games xD
|
| really cool!
| egorfine wrote:
| I'd like to point out
| zanethomas wrote:
| what's the point?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| At some point I might get the point up to a point at least,
| IDK what point I'm trying to make but I'd like to point out
| the point.
| flerchin wrote:
| Wonderful! Good work.
| unwind wrote:
| Meta: title lacks "at", right?
| egorfine wrote:
| Good point!
| Gedxx wrote:
| Solved! Thank you.
| dev_amiga wrote:
| Disappointing.
| dzonga wrote:
| wow!!
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(page generated 2022-07-12 23:02 UTC)