Path: csiph.com!news.mixmin.net!border2.nntp.ams1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!buffer2.nntp.ams1.giganews.com!nntp.brightview.co.uk!news.brightview.co.uk.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2016 00:04:14 -0500 From: Gareth Owen Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: [sOT] compression 1 GB downto 100 MB References: <98ce3a57-1b36-4430-8050-8e659b5fc4e4@googlegroups.com> <2d2820aa-1540-40ee-99d7-53c5d83c066a@googlegroups.com> <45e68342-2ed9-4877-9e78-4ca0731e9c19@googlegroups.com> <87porhvt5v.fsf@gmail.com> Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2016 06:04:14 +0100 Message-ID: <87a8ik4d9t.fsf@gmail.com> User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:e9uQ/ZlW/93OMsp6nzdKgs9Kz14= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Lines: 23 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-1LsyavTScSmokotQUBwT7xqEXBbWmM3ln7ffu2z9W7sPaQMf5xSl4HLq+ux/pzBVCh7b/nwdfnyd1iT!Qf+cdChiR5oUG3aaEneZeOfhsJjPXiFlRwXfMD4GUVwRBvr/QyWDRkoS5UPQpLrVedjGaA== X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 X-Original-Bytes: 1949 Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:89365 Richard Heathfield writes: > On 16/06/16 20:18, Gareth Owen wrote: >> "Osmium" writes: >> >>> prove it >> >> OK. Suppose you have an algorithm that can reversibly compress any file >> of 1kb to 1023 bytes or fewer. >> >> There are 2^1024 files of size 1kb > > True if kb = kilobits, but less true if kb = kilobytes (as is > suggested by your earlier sentence). Facepalm. Bits, of course. > Try this: There are 256^1024 possible files of size 1024 octets. Of course. *bashes head on table* Still, besides the fact that literally every number was orders of magnitude wrong, the argument was fine. :)