From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 9 20:42:35 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B105116A407 for ; Wed, 9 May 2007 20:42:35 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (dsl231-043-140.sea1.dsl.speakeasy.net [216.231.43.140]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 552CE13C483 for ; Wed, 9 May 2007 20:42:35 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by tao.thought.org (8.13.8/8.13.1) with ESMTP id l49KjKhg049595; Wed, 9 May 2007 13:45:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: (from kline@localhost) by tao.thought.org (8.13.8/8.13.1/Submit) id l49KjJwt049594; Wed, 9 May 2007 13:45:19 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline) Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 13:45:18 -0700 From: Gary Kline To: Eduardo Morras Message-ID: <20070509204518.GB49407@thought.org> References: <4635BEF8002F9929@> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4635BEF8002F9929@> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i X-Organization: Thought Unlimited. Public service Unix since 1986. X-Of_Interest: Observing twenty years of service to the Unix community Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Another slightly OT q... X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 09 May 2007 20:42:35 -0000 On Wed, May 09, 2007 at 07:50:02PM +0200, Eduardo Morras wrote: > At 23:22 08/05/2007, you wrote: > > >he died / killed himself / was murdered before his hoax could be uncovered. > > It's easily covered. Check usenet comp.compression faq. It's the "Counting Theorem". For a sequence of n-bits there are 2^n possible files (f.e. there are 256 files of 8 bits). Unfortunately there are only (2^n)-1 possible files lesser than the original (f.e. there are 128 files of 7 bits, 64 of 6, 32 of 5, 16 of 4, 8 of 3, 4 of 2 and 2 of 1 bits, total, 255 files) so using an algorithm you can't compress all n-bits sequences. > > For this case, you can easily check that using this guy algorithm, you can have only 2^8192 movies. Perhaps you think they are a lot, but nearly all are white noise movies. > > There are 1-2 monthly of this claims on comp.compression. Normally they are beginners to Information Theory / Compression but others are simply cheaters. > > >sounds a lot like the perpetuum mobile stories. > > In fact, it is. Information Theory uses entropy concept too and claims like this breaks the 2nd and 3rd principle. > Thanks for these tidbits of insight! I figured there were some laws or principles that told what the upper bound could be. I've always been pretty good at math, but since Life is bounded, I'll take your word for it :-) gary PS: I'll check out the URL's in your last email. They'll probably be overkill, but for reference........ -- Gary Kline kline@thought.org www.thought.org Public Service Unix