Actually patents don''t cost 10''s of thousands of dollars. I filed for a simple patent in the fifth grade for some invention I made. It''s just a couple hundred, so unless you''re substantially broke, you should be able to afford it.

ColdfireV

This was posted by EB:
-- Oh BOY! this is getting much more entertaining

-- You can include me in the theirs no damn way this
-- program will every work section. The only thing this
-- thread has managed to do is identify the truly
-- intellegent people from the galacticly stupid as
-- mentioned in "a few good men".

-- I''m not going to go into explaining as there have been
-- plenty of perfectly good explanations.
-- And just to make clear my position I''ll make my own
-- analogy, theirs a better chance of me winning the
-- lottery perpetually for all eternity than this program
-- working as it has been stated....

I followed this post right from the start and for the record don''t believe his claims, but the above claim has to be one of the most stupid statements I have read. To claim that everyone who agrees with me is "truly intelligent" and those who don''t are "galactically stupid" is extremely arrogant. And to those who keep claiming "mathematical impossibilities" and such: how many times over the course of our history have so called "impossibilities" been proven wrong. It wasn''t so long ago that that it was "galactically stupid" to think that the earth was round

Another stupid claim is that only people with education know what they are talking about. I have a 4 year post secondary education and there is no way I would make that claim. I know many people that have no formal education that do not fit that mold, and many with lots of formal education that do not fit the mold either.

I couldn''t hold back any longer.

Hmm, descending into a flame war as I feared. Flogging a dead horse, (though I suppose in this board''s context, referencing a deleted allocation would be the correct saying) Unfortunately the board seems to be broken so I can''t close it. Please don''t make it so unpleasant that I have to delete the thread, as there are some good points here.

I have no clue whether or not kieren is right. If he is, I''m very impressed. If not, he has the right to be wrong, just like anyone else on this board. It''s okay to joke around, but let''s show at least a little professionalism... I don''t care what age you are, basic respect for others is not something that suddenly happens when you turn 18 (or 45, for some...)

We all know how tough game programming is. Let''s be supportive of each other. If you''re going to criticize, be constructive, don''t just say "you''re wrong!" without backing up your claim so that the person can consider your point of view, because that''s a waste of everyone''s time. Let''s keep the insults to a minimum, because telling someone he or she is an idiot isn''t helpful. This is a community, not a battleground.

Thanks

-fel

I think the reason why most people are still arguing about this is because we _did_ back up our claims with hard scientific facts. It is proven that random data cannot be compressed and it is beyond me why we are still arguing about it.

The best, and I mean absolute best, that kieren_j could do is make a compressor that compressed certain types of data. However, since they''ve argued that it can be applied to already compressed data multiple times and seems to violate certain mathematical truths, can you blame those who argue against it? And as for equating this against the argument for/against a flat earth, you''re looking at it from the wrong perspective. This isn''t like arguing that the earth is ROUND, since that has been proven by both observation and, originally, mathmatically. This is like arguing that through some arcane formula, that you can prove the earth is flat.

Oh yeah, and regardless of personal distaste for the topic, it would be a shame to see it deleted.

Deathy

Anonymous poster, nobody is able to compress random data. That''s not just called an impossibility, it''s a mathematically proven impossibility. There never was a mathematical impossibility which was proven wrong later.

Lack, you don''t have a real argument. There''s no reason why the 16-4-16-4-16-.. compression should work with zip or mp3 files.

felisandria, I''ve got my reasons for saying kieren''s program won''t work and I try to show a bit professionalism. btw, I''m 16.

Visit our homepage: www.rarebyte.de.st

GA

*sigh*

As previously stated, I have no problem with people who are posting constructive criticism containing facts which they believe are relevant. It''s just that scrolling through the posts on my regular checks, I found that the majority of the latest posts have had nothing whatsoever to do with the topic, other than being a verbal volley aimed at the other side. These are the posts I would like to see reduced in number. I would also like to see the people who do have facts to present refraining from including insults, because being wrong about one single issue does not necessarily make a person, overall, an idiot.

In general, I have always been impressed with the knowledge base and attitudes of the people who post on this board, I very much do not want to see this quality reduced. On that note I would like to thank all of the members here who donate the time to help each other out and answer questions, because without you, this board wouldn''t be the terrific resource it is. Thank you all.

12,400 posts and going strong...

-fel

For Christ''s sake, we''re supposed to be scientists here. People are forgetting this: nothing''s wrong with reserving some judgement, but it is overwhelmingly likely that the compression scheme this guy claims he made is a crock.

Either:
1) He''s not all that smart - or gullible - and really believes he made such an algorithm, and he''s missing some fundamental reason why his program, despite the great numbers he''s getting, doesn''t legitimately compress data.
2) He''s completely full of s**t and amazed that he was able to spur such a huge forum all centered around his so-called work.

Furthermore, he was asking how lzip and huffman work. How would he know how to make data susceptible to those secondary compression schemes without knowing them backwards and forwards? I''m not by any stretch of the imagination an expert in compression (apparently neither is our friend Kieren), but I understand the basics and this *seems* like ramblings of a hyper, novice programmer trying to get attention. Why can''t it just be left at that until what''s-his-face shows us something to confirm our suspicions?

-James

ps- btw, I''m 18, big deal

fel (and others),

Yes, I''ve spent a little while on this thread trying to prove to people (as have others) that no compression program can possibly compress any file of a given size, nor can it compress random data. And although certain people have continued to disagree with these claims, and call me jealous and what not, I''d rather not see this thread deleted. Ultimately, I expect that kieren will post some sort of program, only to have everyone point out that it doesn''t work... at which point he will hang his head and move on.

Incidentally, I''ve come up with a technique to sort any type of data whatsoever (large collections of unbounded integers for example) in O(log n) time, and with no extra memory requirements (in place). I''ll be posting a demo soon. Right after I post my program that decrpyts files that have been encrypted with one time pads. I figure they''d both be worth some money, but I know Ridcully, ga, and deathlok will be so jealous of my l33t skillz...

-Brian

PS: The first person that sends me e-mail asking for those demos gets a very special surprise. (:

Let me change one thing I said. Kieren may be quite smart, but he was, at the very least, posting very prematurely. If you''re gonna make such a claim, immediately back it up or you''ll create the anarchy we see above.

*grins* If you could crack one time pads, you''d be god.

But seriously, I''m not jealous. That''s not why I posted before. The fact is that there is mathematical proof that the compression being talked about cannot be done in such a generalized form.

For a comparison, if someone had posted that they had worked out the discrete logarithm problem, I''d be willing to listen with a bit less skepticism. That problem is _thought_ to be impossible, but isn''t proven. It _might_ be able to be done, nobody knows.

Since this one _is_ proven, there would have to be some very strong "proof" given to convince anyone otherwise (anyone who studies compression, anyways). So far we have "code snippets" and some vague theories. Neither of which prove anything.

If kieren_j (or anybody for that matter) comes up with a compression routine that can compress near-random data (mp3s, zips, etc) under lab conditions, I think a lot of us here would be too happy to eat our words, but it isn''t going to happen.

And one more random thought, for all of this great compressing (and I quote "If you didn''t see it first time, I compressed an MP3 file from 5 meg to 16kb."), there has been no discussion on how to actually decompress the files...and, as was stated before, how could that first claim even be made when there was a bug in the program? If the program didn''t work right, the decompression should have surely failed...

Ah well, I guess we''ll see (or not) if a demo is ever released.

Second to last thought, I can''t help but wonder if this program either a) doesn''t decompress or b) requires secondary files to store information on the bit ordering. If b, then the size of those files have to be included, too...because I could "compress" 100 meg files down into 400k if I had another file of unlimited size to record what I did, too.

Last thought, I know that if/when a demo is released, first thing I''ll do is get out my two test computers, attempt to CAR an MP3 file down past 1.44M, copy it onto a floppy and decompress it on the other computer. If/when that works, I''ll be a believer.

Deathy