Programmer Humor

When you run out of characters, you simply create another 0 byte file to encode the rest.

Check mate, storage manufacturers.

255, generally, because null termination. ZFS does 1023, the argument not being "people should have long filenames" but "unicode exists", ReiserFS 4032, Reiser4 3976. Not that anyone uses Reiser, any more. Also Linux' PATH_MAX of 4096 still applies. Though that's in the end just a POSIX define, I'm not sure whether that limit is actually enforced by open(2)... man page speaks of ENAMETOOLONG but doesn't give a maximum.

It's not like filesystems couldn't support it it's that FS people consider it pointless. ZFS does, in principle, support gigantic file metadata but using it would break use cases like having a separate vdev for your volume's metadata. What's the point of having (effectively) separate index drives when your data drives are empty.

Ah memories. That was an interesting lesson.

that's awesome! I'm just migrating all my data to πfs. finally mathematics is put to a proper use!

Breakthrough vibes

You can give me any file, and I can create a compression algorithm that reduces it to 1 bit. (*)

That's the kind of manager that also tells you that you just lack creativity and vision if you tell them that it's not possible. They also post regularly on LinkedIn

u can have everthing in a single bit, if the decompressor includes the whole universe

Send him your work: 1 (or 0 ofc)

It's an interesting question, though. How far CAN you compress? At some point you've extracted every information contained and increased the density to a maximum amount - but what is that density?

https://xkcd.com/1381/

How to tell someone you don't know how compression algorithms work, without telling them directly.

Just make a file system that maps each file name to 2 files. The 0 file and the 1 file.

Now with just a filename and 1 bit, you can have any file! The file is just 1 bit. It's the filesystems that needs more than that.

That’s precisely when you bet on it.

Link?

If you have a water bottle and only drink half of it each time, you will also have infinite 💦

Even better! According to no hiding theorem, you can't destroy information. With black holes you maybe possibly could be able to recover the data as it leaks through the Hawking radiation.
Perfect for long term storage

Have a macro that decreases all font size on opening and then increases all again before closing.

Follow me irl for more compression techniques.

per page

I mean, yes. obviously.

If you had 1000 bytes of text on 1 page before, you now have 1byte per page on 1000 pages afterwards

You could always diff the XML before and after to see what's causing it.

Both people sound obnoxious lol

Nice read, thanks!

I was sort of on Mike Goldman (the challenge giver)'s side until I saw the great point made at the end that the entire challenge was akin to a bar room bet; Goldman had always set it up as a kind of scam from the start and was clearly more than happy to take $100 from anyone who fell for it, and so should have taken responsibility when someone managed to meet the wording of his challenge.

The design is very human