This Hacker News discussion revolves around a project featuring USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection paintings, with several recurring themes: appreciation for the artwork and the project, discussions about image access and licensing, and some humorous takes on the project's name.
Appreciation for the Artwork and the Project
A strong sentiment of appreciation for the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection and the project that brought them to light is evident. Users expressed gratitude for the visually appealing nature of the paintings themselves, as well as the effort undertaken to make them accessible.
- "Thank you Parker Higgins, these are quite lovely." - sorokod
- "Nice apples." - smidgeon
- "Thanks for your work. I used one of the pomo pictures in a project a few years back." - ksherlock
- "Echoing the same thanks! I have used as well personally as technique references and in several projects directly." - biker142541
- "incredible, impactful, and authentic read!" - parkerhiggins
- "Glad to see his post on the top of HN." - namanyayg
- "I think I'm going to print a few of these for my office. Thanks thisisparker" - mharrison
The author of the blog post, "thisisparker," also chimed in, expressing happiness with the positive reception:
- "Blog post author here! Always happy to see people looking at and reading about these paintings. Happy to answer any questions or job offers people here may have!" - thisisparker
- "lol thank you other Parker Higgins, always a pleasure to run into you here" - thisisparker
Image Access and Licensing Discussions
A significant portion of the conversation focused on the practicalities of accessing and using the high-resolution images. Users shared resources for downloading the collection and engaged in a detailed discussion about the licensing and attribution requirements, particularly concerning the public domain status of the artworks.
- "If anybody just wants to download the hi-res images, Internet Archive is your friend: https://archive.org/details/usda-pomological-watercolor-coll..." - interroboink
- "You can have fun with 'em since they're public domain (:" - interroboink
This led to a more detailed look at the metadata and licensing:
- "The metadata, such as title, author, etc. seem to be missing. If anyone knows of a collection with all that included, let me know (it's not in the EXIF either, I spot-checked)." - interroboink
- "Here is metadata, which you can correlate to the image files: https://github.com/Wumms/pomological" - interroboink (edited comment)
- "I'm also noticing there is no explicit license on the official page. If it's public domain, attribution is not required. If it is not public domain, they should clarify the license (pretty sure this is indeed public domain)." - biker142541
- "Ambiguity like this is way too common..." - biker142541
- "For another data point, this catalog.data.gov site[1] lists the license as
us-pd(ie public domain in the USA). But then yeah, like you said the attribution demand is invalid." - interroboink - "I wonder how the USDA can demand anything regarding images created well before the copyright cutoff of 1929. I strongly suspect that's boilerplate text with no actual force." - msla
- "Oh definitely no force behind it, but just annoying to see. These kinds of issues don't exactly block usage, but can plant a lot of confusion or hesitation for potential users. I wish agencies proactively embraced 'please go use this awesome stuff' mentality vs gatekeeping by default." - biker142541
One user, biker142541, was inspired by the release to pursue their own projects related to historical art:
- "Oh wow, it's been a decade! I remember this, and was excited to see these released. Nice work!" - biker142541
- "This actually inspired me to go out and start (slowly) cataloging mostly historic 100+ yr old landscapes that were locked behind mostly non-US pay-to-access (cough British museums cough), and write a flurry of emails to institutions encouraging uploading high res versions. I'm contemplating a project to put historic paintings 'on the map', depicting their geographically represented locations (when applicable), giving a window into the past. Maybe I should circle back on this effort to get more paintings released..." - biker142541
- "I would absolutely love to see that project come to fruition." - CodeLikeHell
Humorous Takes on "Pomological"
A recurring point of amusement was the word "Pomological" itself, with some users humorously misreading it, leading to playful exchanges.
- "What on earth is Pornological about these?" - anothernewdude
- "Bad keming joke? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomology" - Cerium
- "Evil Lord Keming strikes again!" - jihadjihad
- "Read this as pornological. Came away disappointed." - dfex
- "you know how 'm' can look like an 'rn' ligature? I swore I was going to be looking at a more acamdemic style of watercolor art in the field of pornology..." - fsckboy
Personal Connections and Inspirations
Beyond the general appreciation, some users shared personal connections to the author or the project's impact on their own programming journeys.
"This was my first ever project in Python, and in many ways, the start of my life as a programmer. The domino effect here is a little mind-boggling for me."
- "I can certainly relate to this. I started scripting for very obtuse reasons, and quickly started seeing things everywhere which I could apply a little code to and improve my life." - esquivalience
- "Became friends with Parker during my time at the Recurse Center. He's even more obsessed (in a good way) and funny in person! Glad to see his post on the top of HN." - namanyayg
- "Thanks to your collection, I had an absolute blast going down a silly rabbit hole of compression." - winstonrc
Website Usability Feedback
One user provided constructive feedback on the website's design, specifically regarding the visibility of links.
- "I was scrolling the page looking for links so I could see them all, until i realized the links were just slightly in bold, rather than a different color and underlined. Would be good to highlight the links a little more on your site." - snug
- "good shout, I think some recent typography changes made the bolding more subtle on mobile. I've pushed an update underlining them and it should be live momentarily!" - thisisparker (responding to the feedback)
- "Ahh yes, much better" - snug (responding to the update)
Recognition of Other Work
The author's tangential achievements were also noted by a fellow commenter.
- "Hey Parker, congratulations on your NYT daily crossword publications! I solve the Daily every day and have been impressed to see your work there a number of times now." - schoen