Info 200 Midterm Notes

Info as thing

only way we can interact with info--books, websites, speech, images, etc.

What's another factor that changes human behavior?

power of emotion

BIG IDEA #4

Emotion mediates the impact of information on knowledge

Info is a powerful driver of...

nearly every aspect of society

What's the cloud?

(1) Store data on a company's computers instead of your computer, (2) Use services that transmit data to and from company computers Before the "cloud", data was typically stored on a computer and all software that manipulated that data ran on that computer.

Privacy context

Desire to keep some info private can be used as a weapon against someone

How does emotion influence decisions?

Emotions influence how deeply we process information, our interpretation of information, and activate goals, which then determine information to which we attend

Six critiques about data (not algorithms)

(1) redefines knowledge, (2) has questionable accuracy, (3) more isn't always better, (4) it loses context, (5) unethical to acquire sometimes, (6) creates new digital divides

Other issues besides with big data:

(1) small data, (2) how algorithms use data sets of any size, (3) data vs. info, (4) misuse of statistics, (5) info overload

Things info does:

(1) teaches, (2) standardizes, (3) encrypts, (4) regulates, (5) explains, (6) inspires, (7) identifies, (8) archives, (9) connects, (10) diagnoses

Experts of information...

(1) understand the power of information and (2) can ensure organizations use that power ethically

New vs. Old Info Tech?

Even when we invent new information technology, the old ones (mostly) persist. We haven't stopped speaking, writing, taking pictures, printing, or recording. We do more of it than ever!

Computers follow instructions

Every program that executes on a computer is a list of instructions. The computer executes these instructions quickly and reliably, but it has no idea what it's doing or why. Programming languages make it easier to write high-level instructions, which are then translated into machine instructions.

Ex: US Library of Congress--not just technology, but like other info systems

- it's a building - it's a software - has 3,000+ employees - $600 million budget - Petabytes of data - Its policies, procedures, an processes curate knowledge

Brooke's formula: ΔI + (S) = (S + ΔS)

A change of information combined with a knowledge state leads to a new knowledge state that includes the result of integrating the new information. [Information causes learning]

Sherry Turkle book, Alone Together

Demonstrated that engaging the infinite amount of info on the web is now easier than engaging with people

Medium of digital photography and video

A grid of very tiny electronic photodetectors, capturing visual moments, but in digital form. Fast, high fidelity, but much noisier than film photography. Allow for instant viewing via digital screens. Video requires massive storage.

What was Bush's Memex?

A personal library with infinite information. Was a vision for a device that gives you access to any knowledge you might want with simple queries and gestures

The internet is...

A set of computers that are networked, allowing them to transmit information to each other. In the abstract, networks are a set of nodes connected by edges. Getting information from one node to another requires traversing the network.

Medium of HTML

Digitally encoded characters, plus markup for presentation. The basis of most of the content on the web. Much harder to author than plain text, but machine readable, easy to copy and manipulate, and efficient to distribute via the internet.

Are algorithms source of all magic and power?

Algorithms are a necessary but insufficient part of making modern information systems work. Without algorithms, and computers to execute them quickly, we'd still have information systems, they'd just be slower, have less information, and be harder to access.

BIG IDEA #8: What is an info system?

An information system is a process that organizes people, technology, and data to allow people to create, store, manipulate, distribute, and access information

Why a process and not a technology?

An internet router is an information technology that moves packets from one node on the Internet to another. W/o packets, or other routers, or people maintaining those routers, or electricity to power those routers, or the internet protocol specification, the router is useless for storing or retrieving information

Buckley's critique of info as thing:

Any imaginable thing can be information in the right context, making the word meaningless. Information is thing+context; without knowing the context, you can't know the information.

BIG IDEA #11

Any information system is good for some tasks and bad for others

Medium of print

Ink on paper, words perceived by sight, including books, newspapers, magazines. Socrates, the Greek philosopher, never wrote, because he believed words were incomplete representations of knowledge: "Their trust in writing... will discourage the use of their own memory within them...

Missing context can do harm

If the person using information is not careful, or is malicious, it can ruin lives, lead to falsehoods, and ultimate shift humanity in directions that have no basis in reality

What drives technology, info or algorithms?

Info

BIG IDEA #6

Context changes the meaning of data

How is data transmitted across edges?

Info converted to a packet--series of bits that contain information such: the computer that sent the packet, the computer to receive the packet, the data being transmitted, data for checking if data was lost

Temporal context

Information can be valid at a particular time--but that validity can decay as the context of the world changes, or the context of info is lost

If Simon's theory is true...

Information is (at least a partial) basis for our decisions and actions

BIG IDEA #1

Information is data + context

Medium of digital computers

CPUs, digital memory, displays, keyboards, mice, and touchscreens First envisioned by Charles Babbage in 1800's as elaborate mechanical calculators, then something entirely new by Vannevar Bush in As We May Think.

Pros of info

Can shape behavior for the better, empower people to do good, clarify, democratize, streamline decisions

Cons of info

Can shape behavior for the worse, empower people to do bad, confuse, divide, paralyze deciders

BIG IDEA #3

Changes in information cause changes in knowledge

Medium of the internet

Connected digital computers, spanning the globe, transmitting information from and to anywhere that is connected.

Tech + Info

Information requires media to be transmitted, stored, retrieved, etc. Information technologies define new media that change how we communicate and transmit information. (Digital computers are our most sophisticated form of information technology, but not the only form)

Info System Qualities

Information systems have many different qualities that determine their fitness to a particular kind of task. Knowing what qualities a system has can help you choose the right system.

BIG IDEA #9

Information systems span all of human history and all media, not just computers

Medium of handwriting

Ink on paper by hand, perceived by sight. Hard to learn, hard to read, and requires a writing device and a writing surface, but can be used almost any time, anywhere with the right tools.

Truth

Few things online make any guarantees about truth, accuracy, correctness, or currency. For these, you need a librarian or a domain expert who can help you find valid information. Sometimes, searching the internet is like sifting through the garbage for a meal.

Info System Timeliness

How current the information is with respect to the world. ex: tweets are timely if you want to hear about what happened today. If you're trying to learn what happened a long time ago, newspaper archives are useful

Info System Accuracy

How true the information is with respect to some notion of correctness. ex: predicting future of climate change, science journals are best source not blogs about conspiracy theories. If you're trying to learn about what people believe about it, then you look at the blogs

Medium of speech

Human speech is a form of information technology. We generate sound waves with our voices, which transmit through air, which cause vibration in our ears. It's hard to persist and retrieve, and inaccessible to people who are deaf.

Ex: The more time teens spend on screens, the more likely they are able to be depressed--is this likely?

Significantly more likely, but did it cause it?

How does a packet identify a (more) computers?

It uses internet protocol version 6 addresses. Example: 2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:ff00:0042:8329 A sequence of eight 16-bit numbers, allowing for (2^16)^8=2^128=3.4x10^38 computers That's 1 trillion trillion trillion, about half the number of atoms in the universe, so that should be enough.

Reading: What did Malady miss while unplugged?

Learning--he liked following his curiosity

Examples of info systems

Libraries, newspapers, telegraph networks --> telephone networks --> broadcast and cable TV, mobile phones, internet

Medium of film photography and video

Light on film, capturing visual moments, began black and white, but eventually supported color. With the right tools, simple to capture a moment in history. Somewhat easy to copy, difficult to distribute.

Measurement Context

Measurement can bias meaning

Self-knowledge

Mental health therapy can help people with a wide range of challenges in life. The Internet can help you find a therapist, or can help you decide if you would benefit from one. However, good therapy requires knowing you as an individual, and the content on the web simply doesn't know you.

Medium of phones

More human speech, but through an analog or digital recording of speech, transmitted via electricity, through a network of telephone lines and switching stations to connect them, formerly human operated, now computer-controlled. Tethered to a cable, but high bandwidth and reliable.

BIG IDEA #7

More information sometimes does harm

Library of Alexandria flaws:

No backups, hard to access geographically, hard to access if you weren't a scholar, its index made documents hard to retrieve

BIG IDEA #12

Not all technology is digital, not not all technology is information technology

What instructions can computers follow?

Not many--add/sub, mult/div, read + write to memory, jump to another instruction conditionally or unconditionally Through the wonders of logic, mathematics, and human intelligence, we've found ways of translating high-level instructions into these basic instructions.

Library of Alexandria

One of the largest ancient information systems, gathering documents from all over the world. Got most of its books from stealing from ships. Every time a ship came to port, they searched it for books, took them to the library, copied them, and decided whether to confiscate or return them

Medium of visual art

Paint, ink, graphite, wax, crayon, etc. Difficult to learn to create, hard to replicate, but always aesthetically unique.

Translators

People who understand both people and technology

Identity context

Race, ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, age, gender presentation, disability, etc., are forms of context about you. Can be basis of fining, firing, jailing, deporting, rejecting, killing

How does the packet actually get to its destination?

Routers get it there. They're the edge in that connects nodes in a network. (You probably have one in your home.) It takes packets from a computer, figures out their destination IP address, uses data about the fastest route to that address, and then sends the data along that route.

Methods of acquiring books for Library of Alexandria aren't different from today's methods on the internet

Search engines scrape information from content on websites, "stealing" it from its authors; people write content on Wikipedia altruistically, without being paid; Google acquires single copies of books and digitizes them for its search index.

Attention economics

Too much information creates the need to efficiently market and obtain our attention

Use context

Some info can be used to do harm. Without knowing who will use the information and how, one cannot prevent the information from doing harm.

Motivational Context

Some people deceive and people respond to these information attacks by occasionally committing violence. If one doesn't know the motives of someone authoring content, one might misinterpret their truth

Personal information

The Internet doesn't have any of this information. You have to you use your family information system to retrieve that.

"Technology"

The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry Reminder: not just the most recent inventions

Info System Learnability

The ease with which someone can learn to use an information system to obtain information. Ex: using smartphone to look for restaurants in foreign country is probably most learnable vs asking a stranger. But, if you aren't comfortable with a smartphone, asking might be easier to learn

BIG IDEA #10

The internet is billions of computers connected by light storing billions of packets of bits maintained by millions of people

Info System Relevance

The likelihood an information system will resolve an information need. Ex: looking for most popular music review website, ask google not teenager on street. But, looking for most popular band in your town, reverse is true

Info System Availability

The odds that when you access an information system, it is ready to use. Ex: getting directions, google maps are most likely available vs. from a stranger. But, if you're in a deserted area, reverse is true

Different types of routers

The router in your house probably sends all of its data to your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Your ISP then has a big powerful router that tries to find the shortest path between it and your packet's destination.

What is modern version of Library of Alexandria?

US Library of Congress, largest library in the world. 450 languages, much digitized, includes archives from internet, anyone can visit in person or online, lots of backups (and fireproof)

Addiction

Things that offer the existence of info without revealing its content gives a dopamine rush that is addictive

How does a packet identify a computer?

Uses internet protocol (IP) addresses An IP version 4 address looks like this: 216.3.128.12 It's a sequence of four numbers, each between 0 and 255--allows for 256 x 256 x 256 x 256 = 4.3 billion different computers to be addressed.

Medium of VOIP

Voice over internet protocol, transmitting speech via digital packets through internet routers instead of analog electrical signals or sound waves. Includes Skype audio, VOIP phones, etc. Higher latency, less reliable than analog lines, but available everywhere.

Medium of Video Chat

Voice over internet protocol, transmitting speech via digital packets through internet routers instead of analog electrical signals or sound waves. Includes Skype, VOIP phones, etc. Even higher latency, but with rich non-verbal cues, allowing multi-channel signaling in conversations.

Information + emotions

WE are info processors but what we process is mediated by our emotions. Info is conditionally powerful, because it requires rational thought to be processed accurately and acted upon accordingly. Must find strategies to overcome emotional bias

Reasonable to prefer recent inventions

We are excited about them, they are often our greatest source of economic opportunity, often have new capabilities. But, doesn't mean they're superior along every dimension

Human beings are info processors:

We have sensors, gathering information about the world, building models in our minds of what exists and how to interact with it--use to reason, judge, problem solve, plan, and decide

Sometimes emotions lead to bad decisions

We ignore evidence, because emotions result in us not attending to information. We favor the status quo, because fear disrupts information processing

Information overload (aka analysis paralysis)

When you know too much about an issue, it can be difficult to decide what to do about it

Provenance context

Where did the info come from? Who created it? What were their motives in creating it? Do they have the expertise to create accurate information?

Do all computers use these standards?

Yes, every computer and router on the planet has software to communicate using these protocols. The name of these protocols are TCP and IP—the transmission control protocol (TCP) determines how bits of information are reliably sent and the internet protocol (IP) defines how those bits should be structured and what information they should contain. Every internet-connected device must use these protocols to be connected to the internet.

Innovation

You can't search the web for new ideas, just old ones. If you're looking for new perspectives, you can get inspired by things people have written, but you'll still have to produce those new perspectives.

Info changes beliefs

can, if you're open to change

Info reveals opportunities

can, if you're paying attention

Info...

changes perspectives, can connect people to resources, can connect people to community, is the basis of communication

Expert knowledge

You need a researcher, a political analyst, or other experts, since the answers may not exist, or may not be captured as data

What happens if an internet backbone cable is broken?

Your packet might be lost. How does the internet know? It uses a checksum. Router takes the sum of all of the 16-bit values in the packet, converts them to binary, then flips all the 1's to 0's, 0's to 1's. Adding this number to the sum of all the values in the packet should be 0. If it's not, data was corrupted and the packet should be resent.

Internet backbones

Your packet will probably follow an internet backbone to reach its destination. Most of these are owned by private companies and consistent of thousands of miles of fiber optic cable underground or under the ocean.

BIG IDEA #5

data is not necessarily accurate, ethical, helpful, or fair

Designing Technology

deciding what software should do (not just how), so that it improves lives, organizations, and society, rather than just having more functionality

Context

information ABOUT information, that allows for accurate interpretation of the meaning of info

BIG IDEA #2

information is difference that makes a difference in the world

Info as difference

information" may be succinctly defined as any difference which makes a difference in some later event. Ex: pen vs pin--difference in vowel makes difference in meaning

Analyzing Technology

understanding and communicating its failings and flaws, so we can identify ways to improve it

Choice Overload (aka paradox of choice)

when there are too many roughly equivalent options, decisions become overwhelming, leading to indecision