Lecture 02: Info/History/Photo

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Lecture 02 Info/History/Photo
SIMS 202 Information Organization and Retrieval

• Prof. Ray Larson Prof. Marc Davis
• UC Berkeley SIMS
• Tuesday and Thursday 1030 am - 1200 am
• Fall 2002

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Lecture Outline

• What Is Information?
• History of Information Search and Organization
• Photo Project Introduction

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Lecture Outline

• What Is Information?
• History of Information Search and Organization
• Photo Project Introduction

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What is Information?

• There is no correct definition
• Can involve philosophy, psychology, signal
  processing, physics
• Cookie Monsters definition
• news or facts about something

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What is Information?

• Oxford English Dictionary
• Information
• Informing, telling thing told, knowledge, items
  of knowledge, news
• Knowledge
• Knowing familiarity gained by experience
  persons range of information a theoretical or
  practical understanding of the sum of what is
  known

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Assignment 1 Discussion

• What is information, according to your background
  or area of expertise?

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Types of Information

• Differentiation by form
• Differentiation by content
• Differentiation by quality
• Differentiation by associated information

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Information Properties

• Information can be communicated electronically
• Broadcasting
• Networking
• Information can be easily duplicated and shared
• Problems of ownership
• Problems of control

Adapted from Silicon Dreams by Robert W. Lucky
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Intuitive Notion (Losee 97)

• Information must
• Be something, although the exact nature
  (substance, energy, or abstract concept) is not
  clear
• Be new repetition of previously received
  messages is not informative
• Be true false or counterfactual information is
  mis-information
• Be about something
• This human-centered approach emphasizes meaning
  and use of message

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Information from the Human Perspective

• Levels in cognitive processing
• Perception
• Observation/attention
• Reasoning, assimilating, forming inferences
• Knowledge
• Justified true belief
• Belief
• An idea held based on some support an internally
  accepted statement, result of inductive
  processes combining observed facts with a
  reasoning process

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Information from the Human Perspective

• Does information require a human mind?
• Communication and information transfer among ants
• A tree falls in the forest is there information
  there?
• Existence of quarks

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Meaning vs. Form

• Form of information as the information itself
• Meaning of a signal vs. the signal itself
• What aspects of a document are information?
• Representation (Norman 93)
• Why do we write things down?
• Socrates thought writing would obliterate serious
  thought
• Sounds and gestures fade away
• Artifacts help us to reason
• Anything not present in the representation can be
  ignored
• Things left out of the representation are often
  what we dont know how to represent

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Information

• Consider Borges infinite Library of Babel
• It has all possible data combinations of letters
• Does it therefore contain all possible
  information?
• What about all possible knowledge?
• What about wisdom?
• Is the Internet a prototype Library of Babel?

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Information Theory

• Claude Shannon, 1940s, studying communication
• Ways to measure information
• Communication producing the same message at its
  destination as that seen at its source
• Problem a noisy channel can distort the
  message
• Between transmitter and receiver, the message
  must be encoded
• Semantic aspects are irrelevant

Noise
Message Source
Desti- nation
Receiver
Trans- mitter
Channel
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Information Theory

• Better called Technical Communication Theory
• Communication may be over time and space

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Human Communication Theory?
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The Conduit Metaphor

• Language functions like a conduit, transferring
  thoughts bodily from one person to another
• In writing and speaking, people insert their
  thoughts or feelings in the words
• Words accomplish the transfer by containing the
  thoughts or feelings and conveying them to others
• In listening or reading, people extract the
  thoughts and feelings once again from the words

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Toolmakers Paradigm
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Lecture Outline

• What Is Information?
• History of Information Search and Organization
• Photo Project Introduction

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Origins

• Very early history of content representation
• Sumerian tokens and envelopes
• Alexandria - pinakes
• Indices

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Origins

• Rhetorical mnemonic theory and practice
  (memoria)
• Memory palaces
• An organization and retrieval technology for
  concepts that combines physical and virtual
  places (loci)
• Examples
• Simonides of Ceos
• Ciceros testes

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Origins

• Biblical indexes and concordances
• Hugo de St. Caro 1247 A.D. 500 monks KWOC
• Book indexes (Nuremburg Chronicle)
• Library catalogs
• Journal indexes
• Information explosion following WWII
• Bush and Memex
• Cranfield studies of indexing languages and
  information retrieval
• Development of bibliographic databases
• Index Medicus production and Medlars searching

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Lecture Outline

• What Is Information?
• History of Information Search and Organization
• Photo Project Introduction

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Photo Project Goals

• Develop an ongoing resource for SIMS (an
  annotated photo database) that can be used for
  internal research and teaching, as well for
  external promotional and informational purposes
• Experience the actual process of information
  organization and retrieval (especially as regards
  metadata creation and use)
• Work in small, focused teams performing a variety
  of tasks in image acquisition, cataloging, and
  application design

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Photo Project Requirements

• Create engaging and useful application scenarios
  and photos about life at SIMS
• Create a shared, reusable resource of annotated
  photos
• All photos will be stored in one directory
• Design your metadata
• So that all photos would be accessible from all
  applications
• Not only for the needs of your particular
  application, but also for the reusability of your
  photos and metadata
• Protect peoples privacy
• If you photograph a clearly identifiable person
  or persons and intend to use the photo, make sure
  to get a signed release form

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Photo Project Equipment

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Moores Law
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Moores Law for Cameras
2000
2002
400
Kodak DX4900
Kodak DC40
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SiPix StyleCam Blink
Nintendo GameBoy Camera
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Photography in IS 202

• Photography
• Tutorial

By Kim Chambers
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Introduction

• Each time you take a photo, you make choices,
  either accidentally or deliberately
• Helpful tips for creating interesting photographs
• In class we will be using tiny StyleCam Blink
  digital cameras

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Helpful Tips

• Content
• Framing a subject
• Lighting
• StyleCam Blink Camera

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Content

• Decide how much of a scene to show
• Get closer to the subject
• If your pictures arent good enough,
• youre not close enough
• ROBERT CAPA
• Use the background when it contributes something

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Close to Your Subject
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Too Far Away From Subject
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Background Contributes to Scene
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Framing a Subject

• How does your subject relate to its surroundings?
• Vertical or Horizontal?
• Hold camera
• Vertical for vertical subjects
• Horizontal for horizontal subjects

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Good Use of Vertical Framing
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Bad Use of Capturing Subject
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Lighting

• Natural light (indoors or outdoors) rarely
  strikes a subject evenly
• There is no flash on this camera
• Make sure you have enough light for your subject
• Indoor photography with the StyleCam benefits
  from the use of artificial light sources (e.g.,
  lamps, flashlights)
• Avoid backlighting

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Good Indoor Lighting
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Bad Indoor Lighting
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Indoor Backlighting
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Outdoor Light
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StyleCam Blink Camera

• Upload your photos before replacing or removing
  the battery so you dont lose all your images
• Moving the camera while taking a photo, taking a
  photo of a moving object OR shooting in low light
  BLURRY PHOTOS

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Blurry
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Once Again

• Content
• Get closer to subject
• Framing a subject
• Vertical for vertical
• Horizontal for horizontal
• Lighting
• Make sure you have enough light
• Avoid backlighting your subject
• StyleCam Blink Camera
• Fixed focus
• No flash
• Hold the camera still when taking a photo

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Photo Project Hand Outs

• Photo Project Overview
• Photo Project Groups
• Photo Project Camera Instructions
• Photo Project Release Forms

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Homework (!)

• Read Chapters 1 3 of George Lakoffs Women,
  Fire, and Dangerous Things
• Meet your project group members and take some
  pictures with the StyleCam Blink digital camera
  and upload them
• Please complete the class questionnaire
• Create your SIMS home page and is202 Assignments
  page

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Next Time

• Cognition, Culture, and Categories