Interesting.
Not clear from Geoffrey Rockwell's blog entry and the story if ii is only part of the published image that has become accepted as the prefered image for testing compression. Geoffrey points to copyright considerations. I wonder if "quoting" part of a published images counts as fair use. The other point he raises about the initial purpose of the published image made me think of Benjamin's statements in his piece commonly translated at "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (not that it is applicable in the case at hand to subsitute ~titilation~ for ~barbarism~ but perhaps the opening image of the chess playing automaton as an analogy for the way history is constructed might be worth dewelling upon in this little bit of cultural history and border crossing (from the centre fold to the test bed)). Just wondering how Benjamin's phrases about the "anonymous toil of their contemporaries" and "the efforts of the great minds and talents" can connect with the case at hand.