code: def image_data(verbose=False):
    
    # This is a principled use of the `global` statement; don't lint me.
    global _IMAGE_DATA  # pylint: disable=global-statement
    if _IMAGE_DATA is None:
      if verbose:
        logger.info("--- Downloading image.")
      with contextlib.closing(urllib.request.urlopen(IMAGE_URL)) as infile:
        _IMAGE_DATA = infile.read()
    return _IMAGE_DATA
docs: Get the raw encoded image data, downloading it if necessary.