So the question is, what kind of searchable file numbering system do y’all
use? I use a non-repeatable system which includes the year, month and day
plus roll number as in 130621-24
Is there anything better?
Thinking about searching for images
File naming can be justy as cryptic with names as easily forgotten as
leaving the file numbers as they are from the camera - grouping things
pretty loosely by month or year with subcategories next in the hierarchy
often works well for our human minds , again loosely often works better than
strict naming. Adding relevant information to the metadata which can be
searched by any file searching tool can speed things up, but it's a slow
process to add it in the first place.
Making contact sheets of all the good stuff and sticking them in a file has
always worked well . I let Irfanview do that for me while it's thumbnailing
pics and moving them when I ran one of my BAT's. Humans generally locate
things easier when they can *look* for them rather than having to remember
precisely where they are before they go looking - I'm thinking of my shed at
the moment, I have a rough system for storing things, but it's invariably
easier to open a box and peer in..
http://www.imgseek.net/ is a nice tool I refered to a long time ago -
(windows only afaik) and while content based image searching is still
progressing, it's pretty functional right now if I have a particular picture
in mind and want it found. Heck, this is what computers are supposed to
do.. I tell it to find me something, it goes and does the work. The last
thing I need is to have it behave like an autistic where I have to name
everything just right and remember where I put pics/files/information and
then go find it in the folder structure!
More on vision, memory and 'seeing' - I'd love to have you all go off and
read Peter Watts book 'Blindsight' before reading the following links, but
my chances of that are zip. the reason for the recommendation? Peter
writes science fiction books that sit on the bleeding edge .. they aren't
techno jargon goobledegook books, like all the best science fiction writers
(Alfred Bester) tech is secondary - it's about people. (OK, there's lots
of bleeding edge hard core science in there too, but he doesn't blather on
about fictional ray guns or pretend physics and he reintroduces an old
fictional character in the most remarkable way ) I'm refering to
Blindsight as a lot of the stuff Peter wrote of in 2011 is only just now
being 'discovered' - his writing is dark, unforgiving and paints humans in a
pretty bleak light but by tearing away the layers he reveals stuff about the
way we think .. and what's relevant to this, the way we perceive, see,
think and interpret. he understands that sight has so little to do with
the eye and so much to do with the various brains that inhabit our head.
(yes, we have more than one brain in there folks!)
please, if you have time go read his books. They are not pleasant, they
will torture you, but they are worth it for what you will learn. (if you've
the time, read The Rifters series before blindsight)
so the link - it's a cracked article about optical illusions with the usual
language warning.. with a couple of pretty new discoveries about 'sight'
(and stuff you'd lave learned about 2 years back had you read Blindsight ;)
http://www.cracked.com/article_20432_5-illusions-that-prove-your-sense-reality-full-s232125.html
and page 2:
http://www.cracked.com/article_20432_5-illusions-that-prove-your-sense-reality-full-s232125_p2.html
and since I've given myself a license to blather on about perception again,
here's an interesting article about chickens:
http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/1850570/report-newly-hatched-chickens-much-smarter-than-3-year-old-human-babies
and how day old chickens can recognise FIVE items! heck, we humans can only
manage 4. .. Iif you hurl down items that land unpatterned, we can instantly
recognise 1,2,3 or 4 items. More than that and a normal human brain become
confused - our brains don't manage more than 4 - so wow, 25% better than us
at 1 day old!
Back to file searching. Our brains don't handle 'system' and 'order' as
well as we think they do. contact sheets in folders work nicely though
k's 2c on this icy winters morning in west oz
