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godelskiyesterday at 9:52 PM4 repliesview on HN

People like to make the comparison between zip file compressions, where you can degrade something by continually compressing. Same with using jpeg or mp3. But I like to use the analogy of the game "Telephone" (also called "Chinese Whispers"). I think it also highlights how fraught natural language is and just how quickly it can degrade. I think a lot of people are insufficiently impressed with how good we are at communicating at all.


Replies

sweetjulyyesterday at 9:54 PM

I suggest you find a new DEFLATE library if you're losing data when you compress things with it :)

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ethmarksyesterday at 10:11 PM

ZIP files are lossless. If you compress, unzip, and recompress a ZIP file hundreds of times, it'll still be the exact same data as when you started.

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meindnochyesterday at 10:21 PM

>zip file compressions, where you can degrade something by continually compressing

Reading this on HN... Sic transit gloria mundi!

jibaltoday at 12:57 AM

> People like to make the comparison between zip file compressions, where you can degrade something by continually compressing.

What people have this misunderstanding?