Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the take-that,-winzip dept.
n8willis writes: "There's a project called lzip at SourceForge that lets you compress your files down to 0% of their original size. How's it work? The "L" stands for "lossy.""
230 comments
Re:OK folks, it's april first EST...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1
Or about as likely as you actually having sex.
And you are really stupid.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1
Need I say more?
weird
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1
i was lunzipping the 2.4.3 kernel and it gave me the 2.6.0 kernel. what are the chances of that?!
Batten down the hatches and hide the women and children -- April 1st is here again. The Register is already in the spirit. Believe nothing you read until, oh, say, Wednesday, just to be safe.
BTW, I wonder if I could use lzip's license on my next source distribution?
hmm... this makes me wonder if it was a good idea to compress my home directory with this thing...
(peter@mustard)-(/dev/tty1)-(~/lzip)
(Sat Mar 31)-(10:23pm) 13 > strings./lunzip
Goldfinger.
He's the man, the man with the midas touch.
A spider's touch.
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
(peter@mustard)-(/dev/tty1)-(~/lzip)
(Sat Mar 31)-(10:23pm) 14 >
Try this:
[fusion@destroyer lzip]# cat lunzip
Goldfinger.
He's the man, the man with the midas touch.
A spider's touch.
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
lzip is in binary, but I don't know what kind. it could be garbage.
It's a picture of a sock monkey holding a bunch of bananas. Hence the "sock monkey wranglers" credit in the CREDITS file. It's just a JPEG, as far as I can tell.
reminds me of the gtk+ frontend to the unix 'true' prog.
If I devise a way to get back the info that is...er... 'compressed,' could that be a DMCA violation if someone else distributes their movies after being lzip'ped?
Re:allright allright already!
by
madprof
·
· Score: 1
Jesus, then we're all in for a lot of psychotherapy.
The story is pretty musing but I didn't imagine anyone would even begin to believe it was real.
Even if you could readily imagine a use for seriously lossy data compression it's pretty clear such a mad program would be an April Fool.
You may as well have had the software written by Olaf Pilor.
Re:hahah.. love that algorithm name
by
unitron
·
· Score: 2
Has anyone searched Professor Lirpa's work for prior art?
--
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The nice thing about it is that the "lzip" and "lunzip" utilities work on all modern platforms. I've tested them on Linux, Win32, MacOS and a WebTV so far.
That way you can boast to your buddies, ``You might be able to fit half a billion files with bzip on your 80 gig harddrive, but using this k-rad k3wl program I found, *I* can fit almost 80 BILLION files on it." And prove your l33t abilities with a simple ``ls -l | wc -l".
And they will be so humbled by this show of skill that they will give you the root password.
Geoff
-- I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would
be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce
p
...is the lzip file is a jpeg of a monkey holding some bannas.
Defintaly a very funny april fools joke. My favorite part is in the FAQ, especially #11.
-- -magister-
This is SOOO april fools...
by
VValdo
·
· Score: 1
but kinda funny. -------------------
-- -------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Similar work being done in cryptography.
by
Wayfarer
·
· Score: 2
FOR RELEASE: April 01, 2001
Contact: Foonly Bar Baz
Office: 810 McGraw Tower
E-Mail: fbb00@cornell.edu
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA NY USA--Cryptographic 'Holy Grail' discovered!
Researchers at the U. Ezra Hardware Cryptography Facility at Cornell University have created a completely unbreakable means of cryptography that may be used in a wide variety of applications.
"It's all done in hardware," says Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, chief researcher at the facility. "We discovered that it is possible to mass-encrypt any magnetic media through the use of electrically-induced magnetic fields."
Unlike a simple kitchen magnet, the hardware developed by the team can generate encrypted data on the entire surface of a disk at once, speeding up what can be a laborious process on modern desktop computers.
"The idea came to us when Lain started generating Morse code with the bulk eraser and the floppy containing our research data," says Tivrusky. "We tried our darndest to get our data back, even set some grad students loaned from the math department on the problem, but nothing seemed to work. And that's when we realized we had something here."
The U.S. Department of Defense is considering the technology for use as a secret weapon against evil hacker terrorists.
"This is a watershed event in the war against hackers," says a colonel who wishes to remain anonymous. "If we can adapt this to encrypt network transmissions, we could protect our network traffic against rogue Russian teenagers, miscreants in black trenchcoats, and Keanu Reeves."
"Widespread use of this technology has the potential to change the way we use computers," says Tivrusky. "It's a story I'll be able to tell my kids someday."
-W-
"Is it all journey, or is there landfall?"
--
-W-
Is it all journey, or is there landfall?
--Ellison & van Vogt, 'The Human Operators'
Re:Similar work being done in cryptography.
by
Ummite
·
· Score: 1
hahaha man, you should come in Montreal, I would pay you a beer!
I must be gullible,since it took me until section 3 (What do you mean I can't restore my files?) and a quick glance at my calendar to figure what the hell was going on.
You guyz!!!
This is the most obvious.
by
UnkyHerb
·
· Score: 1
When was the last time you've seen an open source project start at version 1.0. That was more obvious that 0%.
-- Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
here's the new source, it's much faster than the original, and the math is much more simple.
#!/bin/sh
rm -f $1
#end
Enjoy. Remember that the syntax is now lzip [filename]. I removed the need for the compression level, and hope to add recursion soon, though that will increase the size of the app.
Actaully, this is probably not the right forum for this, I'll put a page up on sourceforge.
-- "Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
Unisys and Compuserve have just announced that they also hold the patent for lossy compression and will be collecting royalties from all open and closed source implementations.
-- -- Just my $0.02 worth...
Re:On a related note...
by
DanThe1Man
·
· Score: 2
Can they be sued when people loose 99% of their data with this product?
This is great for Open Source, since it circumvents that ingenious patent (see the patent here) on lossless compression of any data (including random data). The patent is brilliant because by applying it recursively you can "shrink any file down to a few bits". Fantastic! (I especially like the Lzip FAQ - if you haven't read it yet check it out!)
Okay, this one got me at first... I actually had to read the FAQ before I realized it... Hey! You try reading Slashdot on the morning of April fools day when you haven't slept in 36 hours! Then you just might have the right to laugh at me as hard as I'm laughing at myself right now...:-)
-- No names have been changed because no one is innocent.
reminds me of sorting algorithm from college
by
gsfprez
·
· Score: 2
We went to a small small school, and so we got the same teacher all the time, and this guy had a total hard on for two things in life.. addition chains and sorting algorithms
well, after writing bubble sort in our 15th language, my friend gracefully went up to the VT101 which was hooked to a BarfoVision, and fired up his new, totally original sorting program..
the bars just kept flying across the screen.. and after about 15 seconds of this (it should have taken not much longer than a hit of the return button) he informed us that bogosort, while not efficient in the execution phase, was very efficient in the coding phase and theoretically would sort any array in n!/150 seconds...
randomizing is a cool way to cut down coding time.
-- guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
And for good measure, my implementation of lunzip:
#!/bin/sh
mv $1 `echo $1 | sed -e 's/.lz$//'
This is really funny =:-)
by
drenehtsral
·
· Score: 1
Too bad it didn't get a foot logo! You should read the FAQ that goes with it. It's geek humor on par with the "Microsoft buys out the Holy Roman Catholic Church" spoof =:-)
On an enebriated saturday night, there's nothing that would have made my day more than this =;-)
"It utilizes a two-pass bit-sieve to first remove all unimportant data from the data set. Lzip implements this quiet effectively by eliminating all of the 0's. It then sorts the remaining bits into increasing order, and begins searching for patterns."
Not only did they revolutionize file compression using high-tech math, they managed to code it such that the executable (on x86 i assume) is a valid jpeg depicting a toy monkey with some bananas. Now *THAT* is art.
1. What is lzip?
Lzip is the most advanced file compression utility ever conceived. It is literally years ahead of gzip (though admittedly gzip was around first), and makes use of mathematical transforms the bzip developers have never even heard of.
So the lzip people know, exactly, the contents of the bzip developers heads? They'll be telepaths then.
2. What makes lzip different from gzip/bzip2?
The second is that the performance is vastly improved.
Tell me it takes longer to MP3 encode than it does to gzip or bzip2. (MP3 being the most used lossy codec, to slashdotters).
We're talking about a constant-time algorithm that can reduce a file down to 0% of its original size. What's not to like?
Contsant time - not linear. In otherwords, give it a large enough file, and it can compress it before it reads it all off the disk.
Compress down to 0% - I reffer the reader to the comp.compression FAQ, point 73. It's impossible.
3. What do you mean I can't restore my files?
On the reassuring side, it is important to note that the compression algorithm used by lzip only discards the unimportant data.
An algotithm that works on generic files, but can identify the important data in them. Guess all the compression research just got made useles then - identfying what parts of the data is important is impossible, only a human can do that [0].
8. What is the Lessiss-Moore algorithm?
It utilizes a two-pass bit-sieve to first remove all unimportant data from the data set. Lzip implements this quiet effectively by eliminating all of the 0's.
Uh-hu. Removes all the 0's. Do I really need to elaborate on that one.
Oh, and thier liscence is the FOOL liscence. Go figure.
[0] In MP3, a human came up with the psychoacoutstic model. The codec just applies that model. --
If someone ran Jon Katz through lzip, would anyone notice?
I believe that would require lbloat, not lzip.
First, let me point out the remarkable progress the new lbloat engine has made since it was demoed exactly one year ago. Read down toward the end of those reviews and you'll see one of the many quirks that have been fixed.
lbloat is great for anyone who needs to create long documents utilizing big words without having any real content to base them on. Students and advertisers are sure to find this "if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit" strategy to be extremely useful.
lbloat is also capable of using its advanced Sensationalizing Technology(tm) to turn any small story into the perfect target for today's media. Witness the story a single geek, relentlessly persecuted by his peers, blossom into a 15,000,000-part "Hellmouth" series. Note how the title instils an instinctive sense of fear, dread, and anticipation in the reader, without needing any of that precious commodity known as content.
lbloat can be using in conjunction with lzip when it becomes necessary to misquote statements by a reliable source in order to further a contrasting viewpoint. Zip that Constitution down to nothing, and then bloat it up to the Communist Manifesto instantly! It's obviously the same document, since all we've done is compressed and decompressed it.
JonKatz is an advanced lbloat beta running on a limited distribution basis. In the meantime, check out WindowsME and Windows98, which take all of the three useful features of Windows95 and double the size and slow it down, all without providing any noticeable new features.
-- --
Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
Re:Introducing Microsoft ActiveLZip
by
SMN
·
· Score: 2
No, no, no, no! You have it all wrong!
If Microsoft were to embrace a technology, they would need to then extend it. Any proper Microsoft satire is meaningless if it lacks the absurdly logical extension.
Try this instead:
Gates also announced that
Microsoft(R) ActiveLZip(R)(TM) would feature enhancements making it far superior to the Open Source Industry's offerings.
"Microsoft(R) ActiveLZip(R)(TM) is capable of creating compressed files significantly larger than the original, thanks to our meticulously designed Gigantitron technology," said Gates, refering to the code name for Microsoft's latest innovation. "Larger file size means files are a negative percent smaller than the original, and everyone knows that a negative size is smaller than the numbers that those "other" guys put out. Their claim of superiority is just another "Linux Myth." As usual, Microsoft's superior products give consumers another huge incentive to upgrade."
Gates also claimed that the new Microsoft(R) ActiveLZip(R)(TM) technology would be imployed in the next version of Windows, which would explain the amazingly small mere 2 gigabytes of memory used by recent beta versions of Microsoft(R) WindowsXP(R)(TM). Gates did not, however, offer an explanation of the seemingly random pairings of letters being used by Microsoft(R)'s Marketing Department to distinguish between the company's many offerings.
-- --
Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
That'd be "All your BYTE are belong to us." Pluralizing "base" was beyond Zero Wing's capabilities. ---- "Here to discuss how the AOL merger will affect consumers is the CEO of AOL."
There was a great MS-DOS program which claimed to be a "compression utility." It would simply save pointers to the sectors upon which the original files existed, the file lengths and random data some 10% of the original size.
"Compressing" your files, erasing the originals and uncompressing again generally worked, as it seemed to have some intelligence about recovering deleted files instead of overwriting.
I found this program when a gullible friend lost most of his girlie porn collection to the thing and was crying for help.:)
Some of you seem to under the impression that the LZIP story is a joke.
I am the original designer of the program and would like to state that it is very very real!
LZIP works by compressing the files and, depending on the users choice of compression ratio, removing material from the lzip archive that may be considered offensive, non-PC, or suspicious in any way.
This makes it brilliant for compressing your MP3 collection down to a ner-zero byte file size, as all the nasty stuff the RIAA don't want you to have is discarded!
For anyone interested, you can download the latest version of LZIp from here:
Of course, you will notice that the filesize of the download is extremely small, due to the fact that it has been compressed with very high compression, and hence some parts have been discarded.;)
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
--
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
I just compressed my huge college Thesis with it. I won't need any back up when its that small! Now I'm just haveing a bit of trouble uncompressing it....
Great. Another "bright idea" from the open source community.
I've spent the past week or so working on getting IBM's WebSphere Advanced server up and running on my custom-compiled Mandrake/LFS system with kernel 2.4.2. Sybase 11.9.2, DB/2 7.1, and several JDKs are all in place, along with Borland's JBuilder Pro.
I've learned the basics of setting up OpenLDAP, downloaded the Kerberos source from MIT and was going to spend the weekend getting a fully functional environment completed.
However, it finally dawned on my thick skull that I'm going about this the wrong way. It's only taken me half the time to get things installed and configured under Linux as it has for NT (which still isn't fully functional.) How is a programmer supposed to make a living with a system that is cleanly structured, modular, and modifiable like Linux is?
As a result, I've decide that enough is enough. I'm going to reformat my hard drives for Win2K and drop this whole Linux thing. It's just too damned easy and I'll never be able to convince a client I'm worth my consulting rates if they ever realize that fact.
Even worse, how can I possibly maintain a steady revenue stream doing patches and fixes for updates when this damned Linux stuff refuses to crash and corrupt itself? The damned open source zealots are going to put all the programmers out of business!
I for one am going to try to convince my current client that we need to drop all the *nix servers and switch everything over to Microsoft. At least that way I know I'll be making some pocket money providing pager support.
-- I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
echo date | lzip | lunzip
by
tomschuring
·
· Score: 2
>echo date | lzip | lunzip
>32 march 2001
I've got a smaller version:
by
Dwonis
·
· Score: 1
Here's the makefile:
install:
ln -s/bin/rm/usr/bin/lzip
ln -s/usr/bin/touch/usr/bin/lunzip
--------
Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
At least wait until it's April 1st! It's still 10pm over here on the west coast!
LZIP Advanced File Compression Utility
Posted by michael on Saturday March 31, @10:10PM
See?
Harumph...
Re:Ultimate Data Compression
by
mike_the_kid
·
· Score: 1
What if you had a compression scheme that removed all the 1's from the data? Then, it would compress very well with conventional methods. After that, you already know that its 1's are removed so you put 1's back in? Hey anyone wanted to give me some VC to start it up?
-- Troll Like a Champion Today
Sounds a bit familiar ...
by
RavinDave
·
· Score: 1
Sounds an awful lot like that great
Squeeze Utility that came on on April 1st, 1998.
There's an easier way.
by
nathanroberts
·
· Score: 1
I compresed this story using lzip before reading, and I just wanted to say that it downloaded in a flash...plus, I didn't have to spend as much time reading the compressed article as I would have the original.
lzip saves the day (or will it be three to seven weeks?) as I'm back on a shared dialup line since we lost our telocity DSL on Friday...thanks Northpoint!
Kudos goes out to the authors of lzip, as well as lzip's counterpart, rm. ---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
--
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
Re:Their licensing agreement is hilarious
by
mach-5
·
· Score: 2
"This license may not be revoked, redistributed, photocopied, or discussed without the express written consent of the parents."
0% must be between 0,0% and 0,5% - but it's still extremely good. Actually, I think I have experienced something like that before - I think it was some kind of Microsoft tool.
Actually, it's quite upsetting
by
DebtAngel
·
· Score: 3
I mean, this story isn't nearly as good as the "Apache on PalmOS" story from last year. Now *that* was a good April Fool's story.
If someone ran Jon Katz through lzip, would anyone notice?
Or...
lzip 1.0 bug found - when I ran a Jon Katz article through lzip and the file size INCREASED. I suspect it has to do with an entire file being composed of worthless bits but I'm not sure.
Or...
The US Government has been using this for months now, witness speeches by the Pres...
You know, April fools jokes only work when you get tricked into believing the story, or at least there is doubt in your mind that it's maybe legitimate, maybe a crock.
This? Well, this is just stupid.
-- Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
/me wasn't prepared. It's too early for god's sake for this kind of software!!!
Tomorrow maybe, but not today (03/31/01)
http://lzip.sourceforge.net/hook.html
-- ------------
Internet?
Is that thing still around?
H.J. Simpson
ah how i love april fools jokes
by
cheeserd00d
·
· Score: 1
check it out - the file lzip is simply a pciture of a monkey and a banana
the contents of lunzip are as follows:
Goldfinger.
He's the man, the man with the midas touch.
A spider's touch.
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
contents of todo file:
TO DO:
------
*Fix problem where all files experience blue-shift when compressed at
level 3.
*Repair satellite.
*Examine possibility of interactive display of file contents as they are
being compressed (may not be suitable for small children)
*Alpha, UltraSPARC, PowerPC platform support.
*.RPM or.DEB packages.
*Volume control.
*Web-based front-end.
*Add support for PostgreSQL.
*Weight-training.
and this type of stuff goes on for all the files
funny thing is, i actually thought it was a real program for a but there
... How many of the other stories today are hoaxes.
replying to myself now...
by
jbridge21
·
· Score: 1
Ahem!
It is still 31 Marz, but the page has April 1 date on it.
Also check out the license agreement, it's probably the most amusing part:
"The Free Object-Oriented License"
(1)
This software may be distributed, in whole or in part, in sickness
or in health, for better or for worse, forsaking all others, for as
long as we both shall live. Upon such occasion as deemed appropriate
by the laws of this state and the Attorney General, or the General
Attorney, or the King of Pop, you will transferred to a correctional
facility until such time as you will be put to death.
(2)
You have the right to an attorney. You have the right to remain
silent. You have to fight for your right to par-tee. This license
may not be revoked, redistributed, photocopied, or discussed without
the express written consent of the parents. All models eighteen years
of age, proof on file. The manager is not responsible for lost baggage.
(3)
This product comes with absolutely NO WARRANTY. It also comes without
meat, for those on a restricted diet. For score and seven years ago,
our forebearers brought FORTH into this great ham a new nation,
founded with liberty, justice, and the American way. Amway is another
story altogether. Carry your paper reciept with you at all times, until
your plastic one arrives in the mail. A thin layer of aluminum foil may
protect against leaks.
(4)
If at first you don't succeed, cry, try again. As my Calculus teacher
in high school used to say, "Alegbra is not magic. Algebra does not
think. Human beings think; and when they do not think, and use algebra,
then they are dangerous" (Book of Quigley, W:454). 2John 3:16. Best
pecan pie in the county, guaranteed. Not redeemable for cash.
(5)
Should the creators of this product fail to uphold their duties as
spelled out in this contract, they shall forfeit the right to their
crown, and the contestant ranked as First Alternate shall be named
creator. Should no first alternate exist, the position will be
determined by a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate. All disputes
will be settled by force.
(6)
Conjuction junction, what's *your* function? Shall I compare thee to a
summer's day? Thou art more than expected. If a train leaves Chicago
for New York at 8:00am, traveling at 60 kph, and another train on a
parallel track leaves New York for Chicago one hour later at 75 kph,
when the two trains meet, which one will be further from Chicago?
Write your entry on the back of 3x5 or larger notecard, and wait for
our call. No, YOU shut up! In Texas, we have a saying:
(6.5)
No eating the rabbits. Did I say no licking the rabbits? No, but it was
implied. If you think I'm kidding just try it, punk. Direct all comments to
Office of the Director General, c/o Tonight Show with Jay Leno, 3000 W
Alameda Blvd, Burbank CA 91523. I wouldn't touch that if I were you. You
must provide a valid telephone number, or you will not receive your ticket.
Does anybody else see a bright, pink light at the back of their eyes?
(7)
In the event that this software should require modification, return your
computer to its original retail outlet. Await further instructions. Meditation
will not help. Should you wish to alter or make any modifications, additions, or
subtractions, or complex polynomial transformations, good luck, Chester.
You're on your own. Ask not, want not. You can't make an omlette without
breakin' a few heads. Some assembly required. A dark color will appear
quickly. For best results, brew two cups at one time. Do not wash between
use. Showing one's teeth to the dominant male will be taken as a sign of
aggression. Once every hour, on the hour, and at other times determined at the
discretion of the lifeguard on duty, we will perform a Buddy Check. When the
whistle is blown, find your buddy and step onto the shore.
(8)
To indicate your agreement with the terms of this license agrement, you may
sign your computer screen. We will wait for you on the other side, brother. Keep the
faith. Be strong, and remember: be yourself, because you have to someone, and
everyone else is already taken. -----
Re:replying to myself now...
by
jbridge21
·
· Score: 1
Ha! They've been caught red-handed!
from http://lzip.sourceforge.net/faq.html
----------
8. What is the Lessiss-Moore algorithm?
The Lessiss-Moore algorithm was invented by Werner von Lessiss and R.T.Moore in the middle of the last Century. I'm sorry; I meant to say the middle of last week. [note to nate:change this].
----------
They might change this, but that's what was on the page as of 23:46 CST. -----
Re:replying to myself now...
by
Johnny+Starrock
·
· Score: 1
wow, it only took you 11 minutes to figure out the immediatly obvious!!
The best part is the monkey-with-banannas picture.
If you download the tarball, and uncompress it, the lzip file is really a JPEG. -----
can't figure something out
by
jbridge21
·
· Score: 1
anybody know how this Bond reference ties in?
Goldfinger.
He's the man, the man with the midas touch.
A spider's touch.
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
-----
allright allright already!
by
jbridge21
·
· Score: 2
The first post was before i had read the link. so don't trash me just because i wasn't totally sure at first.
I am pretty sure this is a joke, as unless the data is somewhat specialized (sound, pictures, moving pictures, to name a few), then it is very difficult to quantify which parts of the data to get rid of when compressing.
You can't just take some random file, drop a few bits here and there, and expect it to be usable on the other side. It works for JPEG, MPEG video, and MPEG audio because they know precisely how human senses work. -----
This is clearly an April Fools joke manifested by someone. Look at the install.sh that comes with it..
#!/bin/sh
echo "calculating dependencies"
echo "creating compression libraries"
echo "loading compression libraries"
echo "#### done(1)."
echo "#### done(2)."
echo "#### done(3)."
echo "#### done(4)."
echo "#### done(5)."
echo "#### done(6)."
echo "#### done(7)."
echo "#### done(8)."
echo "#### done(9)."
echo "linking...done."
echo "installation complete."
And the README date is April 1, 2001
The lunzip is filled with "goldfinger"
and for lzip..
[19]:~/source/lzip# file lzip
lzip: JPEG image data, JFIF standard
I looked at the file, and it's a money with a banana, go see for yourself
HERE Great joke guys, the FAQ was decent on the sourceforge page. Got me.
Re:OK folks, it's april first EST...
by
DaveUIUC
·
· Score: 1
You can trisect an angle.
You need a/ruler/, not just a straightedge, however.
http://www.cs.unb.ca/~alopez-o/math-faq/mathtext/n ode28.html
Get your List-O-Impossible-Things right!;)
Dave
The "lzip" executable is a jpeg. "lunzip" is text
by
Temporal
·
· Score: 2
From the site:
It utilizes a two-pass bit-sieve to first remove all unimportant data from the data set. Lzip implements this quiet effectively by eliminating all of the 0's. It then sorts the remaining bits into increasing order, and begins searching for patterns...
The algorithm could be made faster by eliminating the sorting step. After all, once you remove the zeros, all you have left is ones. Thus, there is nothing to sort. I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't trust my data to anything written by anyone who could miss such an obvious optimization.
pretty weak as far as april fools jokes go, my favorite is the "Linux geeks Riot in Redmond" one from two years ago.
Umm... It's quite buggy...
by
bero-rh
·
· Score: 2
I've just downloaded this thingy - since we're constantly running out of space on our CDs, I thought of lzip-compressing the emacs packages to save space (come on, any change to emacs including an exit(1); right after main() { makes this thing better;) )
Unfortunately, it doesn't work as expected.
I've hacked up a quick fix based on the same lossy algorithm. It's not quite as advanced as lzip (it's just kind of a preprocessor for gzip and bzip2), but it's quite efficient nevertheless...
It's shell code for now, if I have the time I'll optimize it by rewriting it in C.
#!/bin/sh
# lzip preprocessor
# (c) 2001 Red Hat, Inc.
#
# Released under the FO2L license, see
# lzip.sourceforge.net for details
#
if [ -z "$1" -o -n "$2" ]; then
echo "Usage: lzip filename"
exit 1
fi
dd if=/dev/zero of=$1 bs=1 \
count=`stat $1 |head -n2 |tail -n1 \
|cut -d" " -f4
echo "Preprocessing done. You can now gzip or bzip2 the file $1."
-- This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
For those of you having trouble running the exe
by
xant
·
· Score: 2
Try this:
ee lzip --
-- It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Use RDZip:The Reader's Digest Condensation Utility
by
Nova+Express
·
· Score: 1
It compresses my files to 60% of their original size, and you never notice the difference!
-- Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
lzip: noun, 1. a stuffed monkey with banannas. 2. the most amazing license agreement i've ever seen. 3. a powerful utility, second in importance only to fortune.
Maybe they could license the technology to some internet startup for transmitting full motion video in real time. I mean, think about it. You could raise $100 million in an initial round, or $200 million in an IPO. Then you'd be able to offer shares to all the open source developers in a "Friends of the Company" offering.
When things go bad, cuz they always do in the world of internet startups, with all those so called analysts and their crazy buzzwords like "profit" and "realistic business model"-- You get bought out my Micro$oft and they could use the technology in the next generation of DriveSpace!
I was a bit worried that this program would actually do something to someone's files, so I took a look at what it does.
First of all, there is no source code for lzip and I don't like running code that I don't know. So I ran it through strings and found the magic JFIF header. Aha, it's really a jpeg image.
It seems it's not protected by GPL (GNU Public Licence) like most Linux programs, but with The Free Object-Oriented License (FOOL). The licence itself is ridiculous: To indicate your agreement with the terms of this license agrement, you
may
sign your computer screen. We will wait for you on the other side,
brother.
Sorry but I've seen better April 1st pranks in my life..
Even simpler installation instructions
by
kadehje
·
· Score: 1
Don't bother downloading the tarball and running the install script. That's way too complicated. The latest distributions of Linux (and I would imagine most other UNIX flavors) have instant, 100% compression already built in.
To configure it, as root run the command:
ln -s/bin/rm/usr/local/bin/lzip
If your not root, run this after adding . to your path:
ln -s/bin/rm ~/lzip
Volia! Compress away! You can even recursively compress entire trees. Try this as root for amazing disk space savings:
lzip -rf /
I think you'll agree that once you try it, you'll never have to worry about downloading third-party compression tools again.
This isn't exactly an insighftul comment, but that was definitely the funniest thing I read on this "nothing out of the ordinary usually happens on this date anyway" day.
The Lessiss-Moore algorithm was invented by Werner von Lessiss and R.T. Moore in the middle of the last Century. I'm sorry; I meant to say the middle of last week.
It utilizes a two-pass bit-sieve to first remove all unimportant data from the data set. Lzip implements this quiet effectively by eliminating all of the 0's. It then sorts the remaining bits into increasing order, and begins searching for patterns. The number of passes in this search is set to (10-N) in lzip, where N is the numeric command-line argument we've been telling you about.
For every pattern of length (10/N) found in the data set, the algorithm makes a mark in its hash table. By keeping the hash table small, we can reduce memory overhead. Lzip uses a two-entry hash table. Then data in this table is then plotted in three dimensions, and a discrete cosine transform transforms it into frequency and amplitude data. This data is filtered for sounds that are beyond the range of the human ear, and the result is transformed back (via an indiscrete cosine) into the hash table, in random order.
Take each pattern in the original data set, XOR it with the log of it's entry in the new hash table, then shuffle each byte two positions to the left and you're done!
And you can see, there is some very advanced thinking going on here. It is no wonder this algorithm took so long to develop!"
We're uncertain about that at the moment... We know exactly how fast it's moving, but can't figure out where it is!
--Fesh
-- --Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Poor poor script kiddies.
by
pclinger
·
· Score: 1
I can just see it now, some little l33t h4x0r script kiddie with a linux box out there will actually try this program out thinking it's some wonderful tool. "Wh47 7h3 h311?! wh3r3'd my pr0n and h4x0r t00lz g0?!" oops...
-- /. editors made it impossible to link to file:///c:/con/con in my sig. Please just type it in
I'm thinking one could seriously improve the content on slashdot by filtering it through PLACeBO.
Too many zeros around here.
-- Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Just download it and take a look
by
Belgarath52
·
· Score: 1
A number of people have put up the question as to whether this is legitimate. Anyone with any familiarity with the way that file compression works, or with/.'s April Fool's behavior, knows that this isn't.
However, I would point anyone with any questions to the actual file on SourceForge. The "lzip" file contained within is a picture of a sock monkey with a banana. This should be a pretty clear indication, even to somebody who knows absolutely nothing about Linux, file compression, or/., that this is, in fact, a joke.
0 compression nearly works
by
JamesIIGS
·
· Score: 1
Some aliens arrived on earth and studied our culture and science. Before leaving they put a mark on a measuring stick. That number stored all the information.
With thanks to the originator of this idea...
- James - [IMAGE]
Uh, was this done LAST year?
by
Fester213
·
· Score: 1
All of the pages are dated April 1, 2000... was this created as an April fools joke last year, or are the creators just living in the past?
-- Fester
--
-- Fester
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
Re:Their licensing agreement is hilarious
by
roman_mir
·
· Score: 2
I've looked through the files in the tarball, and I can read them all except the lzip file. Can anyone tell me what's in that file? Is it even ASCII?
I really want to know because the rest of the tarball is so funny. And so I reproduce it below for your browsing pleasure.
The TODO file:
Fix problem where all files experience blue-shift when compressed at level 3.
Repair satellite.
Examine possibility of interactive display of file contents as they are being compressed (may not be suitable for small children)
Alpha, UltraSPARC, PowerPC platform support.
.RPM or.DEB packages.
Volume control.
Web-based front-end.
Add support for PostgreSQL.
Weight-training.
And the lunzip file:
Goldfinger.
He's the man, the man with the midas touch.
A spider's touch.
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
Louis Wu
"One of life's hardest lessons is that life's lessons are hard to learn."
printf()s are for wimps. I just read the machine language and find the bugs that way.;)
-- Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
path-integral based fuzzy recovery algorithm
by
Marijn@Utrecht
·
· Score: 1
I became so enthusiastic after having lzip compress my NT partition that I assigned 2 of my PhD students to the task of investigating the possibility to enhance the lunzip algorithm with a random data generation method that I developed when I was an software engineer at Microsoft (R). At that time I used to generate software, but now I am brainstorming about using it for filelunziping. If my contribution is accepted by the lunzip team, this will have effect on the type of licence. It'll probably no longer be shareware and will cost future users a minor fee of 450$ (a small price for state-of-the-art technology)
If this is the best you can do I'm outta here. BTW, I suggest for every 5 moderator points you should allow +1 self-aggrandizement points. I'd use them in a heartbeat on this sad-sack farce of a story.
"Known issues with lzip 1.0:
Attempting to compress the lzip or lunzip programs themselves will trap your system in an infinite loop, and may cause the platter from your hard disks to shoot out of their drive bays at close to the speed of sound. Attempting to uncompress either of the exectuables will suck your computer into a minature black hole, which we believe from our benchmarks (speculatively) exits in an anitmatter universe parallel to our own. If you are interested in exploring this possibilty, please write to us once you get there. "
hah.. if you feel like ignoring the countless number of things that dont make any sense, especially the description of the algorithm.. then download it! lzip is a picture of a stuffed monkey and lunzip is a text file.
Their licensing agreement is hilarious
by
ArcticChicken
·
· Score: 5
What about a port for the Sparc?
by
ceuxy2
·
· Score: 1
This utility looks like it could be extremely useful for administrators of sltudents accounts. Anyone going over their quota will immeadiately have their account lzipp'ed;-) Of course if the system is running on a sparc (as in this case), a port will be needed. Any news in this regard...?
Sorta like the person on Computer Stupidities...
by
ChaosEmerald
·
· Score: 1
This reminds me of the person on Computer Stupidities who was archiving their data using the DOS program "del". To unarchive it they used "undel". This program, in theory, is just as good, right?
--
I am a bad speler. Please ignore speling meestakes in me poast.
We once had a tape backup unit like this
by
the_other_one
·
· Score: 1
This product made beautiful backups.
It backed up the entire network flawlessly every night. Provided you put a tape in the drive.
The only problem it had was that the restore function was disabled unless you bought the upgrade version.
They rejected my application for a Register Tariff 2001 Diamond+ card!
Our Liberian credit-checking agency has rejected your application. Please try again when you are solvent.
And I just found out what an evil company M$ is. I bet I was rejected because M$ bought them out. And worst of all, there TOS says that they can hand out my data to anybody if I use their service. AND I'VE BEEN USING IT FOR OVER A YEAR!
It all boils down to those damned Linux zealots. They keep making jokes about M$ and how bad it is, and it is so insane that it sounds like satire. They should have told me they were serious!
I can't be karma whoring - I've already hit 50!
-- SIG: HUP
"The 'L' Stand for Lossy"?!
by
grape+jelly
·
· Score: 2
I think it should be named rzip. The "r" stands for rm!;-)
Re:steganographic compression techniques
by
Ummite
·
· Score: 1
Easy to say, but since all your porn are probably 38DD, forget any compression, it could explode.
What I want to know is. . .
by
Fantastic+Lad
·
· Score: 1
Is this the result of Slashdot pulling a joke, or was it instead somebody asleep at the switch?
If I was a jokester and got my website reported on Slashdot as actual news, (not that the real 'news' is worth much), I'd probably feel pretty darn perky for about a half hour. --A half hour being the length of time it takes to descend back into the total boredom which makes pranks like this a requirement for those with a creative bent and nowhere to put it.
All in all, I guess this is more responsible than a DOD attack. I'd be more interested in something a little more sophisticated and convincing, though. Lossy storage and infinite size reduction are kind of Sit-com for my taste.
I give whoever is responsible a 4 out of 10. A percentage of Slashdotters would have to have been fooled to gain higher marks.
-Fantastic Lad
Re:What I want to know is. . .
by
MaxQuordlepleen
·
· Score: 1
uh, sadly enough, plenty of people on/. were fooled.
I keep trying to tell myself that they were all just kidding...
You, sir, are a moron. Today is April Fool's Day, and if you weren't such a flaming newbie, you would know that Slashdot posts dumb stuff like this every April Fool's Day.
Hmm. Am I feeling a sense of Deja Vu. . ? The smell of this Anonymous Coward is familiar somehow. . .
Being attacked by an A.C. is rather like being bitten by a duck.
Aw. Don't feel bad. I'm just April Foolin' with your silly little head. (Third World Country, indeed! Tsk, Tsk. You DO need to grow up, don't you? Give it time.)
Fantastic Lad --Right, True and Arrogant 85% of the time! When wrong, will crash and burn with Style! (Inquire for appointments.)
no its real. Its called rm !!
by
Billly+Gates
·
· Score: 1
It has been part of unix for quite some time. Use rm filename and it will make any file 0% of the original size.
this program uses an advanced compression scheme known as "data discharge." Basically, it takes the contents of your file and places them in a special device on your computer, "/dev/null", for later retrievel. since this device is storing the contents of your file, it is not necessary to hold them in your file, and you get a file size of 0.
to uncompress, it copies a suitable amount of data from another device on your computer which is determined to be a uitable amount for your original size. this device, "/dev/zero," will retrieve the contents of your file.
note that you could achieve the same compression results by hand. open the file in any word processor (emacs, for example, although vi and pico all no less acceptable). then, from the first line, press -k together, many times, until you hear a "". that beep is a signla from your computer that you have maximally compressed your file (actually, lzip traps for this event to know when it is done). when you want to uncompress, re-open the file and hold down your "0" key for a little bit, then release the "0" key when you think the file is big enough again.
since this compression scheme is "lossy", having a compression/decompression which isn't EXACTLY the same as the original is OK, as long as it's close enough for the user.
t14m4t
-- 67.5% Slashdot Pure
I guess I need to work on that....:)
I guess the fact that today is April 1st doesn't have anything to do with this;)
Another practical use for lzip
by
Kourino
·
· Score: 1
It's one more thing to do to kernel32.dll ^_^
this is only a slight improvement
by
not!eddy
·
· Score: 1
lzip is pretty good in those cases where it reduces the data to 0 percent of the original, but it is only 1 bit better than the following algorithm which has been around for years.
Count the number of '1' bits in your data. If it is 1 return 1, otherwise call the algorithm recursively on this
number.
It is easy to prove that this algorithm compresses all data sets to a single bit in order log n
recusive calls,
where n is the number bits in the data.
Is lzip this fast?
Lossy compression in Slashdot user comprehension
by
vslashg
·
· Score: 1
No wonder the Slashdot editors stopped following the links of submitted stories. They realized that none of the users do either!
It's only a matter of time before all stories are just controversial headlines, and strange text with random links to AnimeFu!
You mean the unzipper that REALLY works REALLY well, right? That one? Gee, I didn't mean to confuse completely disparte portions of such as lengthy software project...
And in case you haven't noticed, the 'lzip' program is a JPEG of a, well, just look for yourself
Yeah, and people that flame others anonymously are a real benefit to the readers.
I'm sure you've really changed someone's life with your comments. I'll just be that little Johnny Slashdotter is going to think twice about taking part in an open message forum, lest he be flamed by the likes of you.
Thanks, buddy. On one level or another, you've really hepled us all.
And no, I don't care about being moderated down. I've been reading Slashdot for over two years, and have a collective karma rating of zero, so I'm not terribly concerned. I was just taken aback that it was originally (then changed) listed as offtopic. Don't worry, I'm sure this will pick up a Flamebait or Troll label.
-vfs
This has already been done...
by
bziman
·
· Score: 1
They ripped me off -- I've developed numerous lossy compression programs... mostly the result of my not being patient enough to implement LZW correctly. And like the LZip team, I never worked out a successful method of restoring the mangled^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H compressed files.
Happy 4/1/2001,
--brian
Just how good is that compression
by
Auckerman
·
· Score: 1
I decided to fnd out jst hw good the comprssn was, and comprssd this post, thn uncompss it bfore psting. As y cn se yo hardy lose anythg in he cmpressn. Futhermore
It relly nt that bad of comps and everyn shld use it.
Ladies and Gents, before you get your panties all in a wad, please note that this is an APRIL FOOLS joke.
Come on... it is sooooo easy to spot too! If a file were compressed to 0% of its size, you would have no file. Thus, the compression scheme would be lossy.... it would LOSE the entire file! It could also be therefore constant time, since it can just assume each file is lost before doing any work. Come to think of it, this sounds sortta like del (or rm, depending on what OS and/or shell you like)
-------
-- russ
"You want people to think logically? ACK! Turn in your UID, you traitor!"
Well... here is a true story. My mum who is fairly Macintosh (!) literate might find this useful. Here was our conversation, true story!
[Mum] How do I find out how big this file is?
[Me] Select the file and go to the menu and do "Get Info" (Macintosh remember)
[Mum] Ah, so that's the number that tells me how big the file size is
[Mum] If I change the number, does that mean it will make the file smaller?
How about LZip integration into the macintosh file system then?
A whole year since last april fools day...
by
0x00
·
· Score: 1
and this is the funniest thing they could come up with? *yawn*
After long hours of sweat, sex and hard work, I've implemented a SH version of lzip, it seems to be working. I'm having a bit of difficulty making a lunzip though... Use this script with caution!
Slashdot wont let me post the code, so here is a link.
Known bugs:
I am having difficulties compressing files names "help" - don't know why...
--
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
what the hell are you talking about with the april fools! I downloaded it and it works perfectly! of course, having all your information missing after you unzip a document isnt too ideal, but it gets the job done! good job izip, now my hard drive is %100 free!
Nothing new here . . .
by
DeadMeat+(TM)
·
· Score: 3
Another case of open-source programmers stealing ideas from Microsoft. Heck, Windows has been doing this kind of compression to random files on my hard drives for years!
We read this because Slashdot is prone to do this
by
ishrat
·
· Score: 1
We followed the links inspite of smelling rat, mouse, cat and everything else because Slashdot does this on days other than fool's day too. We wanted to be sure they had put this up as a joke and not as a story. We wanted to verify the seriousness of their joke.
And finally we certify that they are seriously joking but it still sucks. Anyways you have a lot of time still, please do a better job. We're all sport.
--
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
I guess everyone has missed LampreySoft
by
a+goldfish+cracker
·
· Score: 1
Re; Sourcecode That explains...
by
einhverfr
·
· Score: 2
Why I keep getting parse errors when I try to compile a Windows version using VC++ 6.0!
Too bad... I was looking forward to backing up all our Windows NT Server machines. On their forum, it claims that you can lzip Windows to 0KB and then lunzip it to just over 30KB because it removes all information that is not useful!
Yeah, I remember making something similiar once
by
nidarus
·
· Score: 1
I wrote a small program that was supposed to do RLE compression, and I ran the Windows logo through it.
It worked! And with an amazing ratio too!
Of course, then I found out that I didn't do any compression (in fact, I commented the compress() function) at all. I just opened the file in ASCII mode.
After I understood what I did, I refined the program by deleting the whole portion that reads from the file.
And this was years ago! HA! Not as original as you thought, eh?
Yet Another Practical Application
by
jchunter
·
· Score: 1
Remember all those PHBs who keep zipping and rezipping and rezipping their files?
Get a Win32 GUI on this thing and toss that to them... I'm sure they'll love it. Compresses their files just as much as they want, and with only ONE step! >:D
--Jo Hunter
--
--Jo Hunter
Smile! It makes them wonder what you're up to.
Introducing Microsoft ActiveLZip
by
Bonker
·
· Score: 5
REDMOND (A.P.)
Founder of Microsoft Corproation, Bill Gates, announced today the release of a new compression engine for use in Microsoft Windows compressed volumes based on the popular Open Source LZip compression format.
"ActiveLZip will enable Windows users to achieve the kind of file compression they've always wanted and needed. Also, we've added several new features to the compression format you won't find in that low-end Open Source crap," Gates Said in an interview.
Gates went on to list the new featuers of ActiveLZip, including MicrosoftShred, a feature designed to encrypt documents before they are compressed, and MicrosoftIPRights, a feature designed to allow music distributors to designate rights on whate files can and cannot be compressed using ActiveLZip.
Initial usage reports from industry critics indicate that ActiveLZip doesn't quite compare to the open source products. Exhaustive testing on the lossy compression algorithm indicates that it is not capable of reproducing the 0% file-reduction size offered by the Open Source application. When questioned about this discrepancy, Microsoft Chairman, Steve Ballmer responded, "Leave me alone, Damnit! I'm trying to make sure that the Sate of New York is paying for all their Windows 2000 licenses".
-- The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Re:Introducing Microsoft ActiveLZip
by
emn-slashdot
·
· Score: 1
When I cracked microsoft's development servers a few months ago, I came across a copy of MicrosoftShred. It was probably the best program they have made. It XORs a file against itself. The data is totally un-encryptable.
I applaud M$ for a job well done.
-EvilMonkeyNinja
a.k.a. Joseph Nicholas Yarbrough
Security Grunt by Day
Programmer by Night
-- -EvilMonkeyNinja
Mild Mannered Host by Day
Wild Hammered Programmer by Night
Didn't micro$oft already do this?
by
__aakpxi9117
·
· Score: 1
I believe Micro$oft already made a compression librart for DOS and Window$ that does this very same thing... It was called drivespace I believe. In fact my hard drive data was reduced to 0% many times I used it.
RIAA settles: NAPSTER to use LZIP
by
fmaxwell
·
· Score: 3
April 1, 2001, Redwood City, CA -- Representatives of the Internet music sharing service Napster announced today that they have reached an agreement with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Under the terms of the agreement, all music files shared via Napster will pass through Napster servers where they will undergo LZIP compression. As part of the agreement, the RIAA and all of its members will drop all pending lawsuits against the music sharing service and will grant Napster licenses to distribute their extensive catalogs of copyrighted music via LZIP compressed files. At today's press conference, Napster founder Shaun Fanning hailed the decision as being "good for the record companies, good for the artists, and good for Napster users -- who will experience much faster downloads while needing far less hard disc storage." Mr. Fanning went on to say that Napster will continue to offer MP3 downloads of music by artists that no one wants to hear and that users should "keep an eye out for the latest single from The Flaming Pit Bulls -- an accordian power trio that skillfully blends punk, country, hip-hop, and new age."
What's the smallest source code possible?
by
Shade,+The
·
· Score: 1
I wonder what's if I can make a smaller lzip program. Well, here goes:
#!/bin/sh
$1/dev/null
21 bytes - not including newlines:)
(note: This program has not been tested)
Now, just for your slashdotters. LZIP SOURCE CODE!
by
Lobsang
·
· Score: 1
In shell:
#!/bin/bash
filename=$1
if [ "$(date '%d%m')" = "0104" ]; then
cat/dev/null >$filename
echo "Lzip operation successfull. File compressed to 0% of the original. Have a nice day"
else
echo "This program only works on april 1st. Sorry. Try again later"
fi
exit 0
I just hope I'm not stepping on somebody's IP with this.:)))
Have I seen something similar?
by
fireboy1919
·
· Score: 1
OH YEAH!! NOW I REMEMBER!
Using Discrete Cosine Transform with Run-length encoding, bit-reduction, and huffman coding?
What is that? Oh yeah! JPEG!
Maybe we better not try to encode a file system as if it was a continuous function. Its not. Its a file system. JPEG, MPEG and MP3 work based upon observations of human beings - we specifically know that we can remove high and low frequencies from a signal without losing anything that we'll notice, in video or audio. Theoretically, once we get rid of this silly artifact problem (via wavelet encoding, probably), we won't notice any loss at all. But we would notice if we try to apply the same techniques to things that aren't discrete approximations of continuous signals. ALL of lossy compression technology is based upon the assumption that what you have to encode is a discrete approximation of a continuous signal.
Of course, I guess you could use this instead of JPEG, but this technique that they're doing is just JPEG...but a little less sophisticated.
-- Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
a quote from their FAQ:
"Lossy compression has benefits that extend well beyond day-to-day file management. Our short list includes: permanent (irretrievable) archiving; "(emphasis mine)
It seems that my internet connection is using this "Lossy" compression method.:\
steganographic compression techniques
by
deran9ed
·
· Score: 3
While tinkering recently with Outguess, I took a simple image about 28k and used a 1k text file to combine it into a new image (steganography owns). Well in certain instances depending on what I decided to embed into the image, the image would drop in size to about 7k some times, and other times it would still drop in size. Only once did it ever go over 28k which was when I embedded about 50k worth of text into the image, which still looked crisp to the naked eye.
Just thought I would share this. At one point I was thinking about making a script to lower the sizing of the many pics I have on my porn section, but I never bothered.
I also noticed there were other tricks to saving space on files but again, never got around to mentioning them, maybe some time I will who knows.
Reverse engineering efforts
by
scottmartinnet
·
· Score: 1
I reverse engineered the binaries, and came up with this valuable data.
Data compression algorithm:
A JPEG of the sock monkey.
Data decompression algorithm:
The full lyrics to the Goldfinger (James Bond) theme song, namely:
Goldfinger.
He's the man, the man with the midas touch.
A spider's touch.
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
...it makes me wonder if non-graphical applications of lossy compression might be worthwhile. I imagine the first time anyone suggested the idea, the response was something like: "lose data *intentionally*??? are you nuts?" But JPEGs are pretty durn popular.
Hmmm, let's see... I could LZIP my Perl code by taking out the comments and insignificant whitespace; that would probably render it every bit as understandable, so no problem there...
HTML pages? Get rid of every tag other than 'H*' and 'P'. Think of the possibilities: we could all go back to using NCSA Mosaic!
.o/.a files could be stripped of symbols. Debuggers are for wimps anyway (personally, I debug with printf()s and lots of coffee).
Mail messages could be stripped of
sigs and anything other than raw readable
text.
...and/. archives could be stripped of idiotic musings like this, of course.
This is an old problem. You can reduce the content of a file to 0% as long as you include the look-up table for the resulting symbol, in a separate file. The original file becomes just a file name, and there is an association between this file and the file containing the look-up table that enables you to rebuild the original data. The compressed file can then be sent over any medium as long as the link to the associted file containing the look-up table is maintained. SO the compressed file contains none of the original data, compression=0%, but it can be un/de/compressed as long as the associated data file is available. !Pat Pending
The topic is lzip, the lossless compression library ("Who really needs to uncompress their data anyway?"). The message was about a use for lzip (image compression)
Pointless, yes. Offtopic, no.
-- Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
You forget about the best part.. the algorithm..
I really like the "in random order part...;)
For every pattern of length (10/N) found in the data set, the algorithm makes a mark in its hash table. By keeping the hash table small, we can reduce memory overhead. Lzip uses a two-entry hash table. Then data in this table is then
plotted in three dimensions, and a discrete cosine transform transforms it into frequency and amplitude data. This data is filtered for sounds that are beyond the range of the human ear, and the result is transformed back (via an indiscrete cosine) into the hash table, in random order.
Take each pattern in the original data set, XOR it with the log of it's entry in the new hash table, then shuffle each byte two positions to the left and you're done! Geggibus "Todays big joke..."
(1)
This software may be distributed, in whole or in part, in sickness or in health, for better or for worse, forsaking all others, for as long as we both shall live. Upon such occasion as deemed appropriate by the laws of this state and the Attorney General, or the General Attorney, or the King of Pop, you will transferred to a correctional facility until such time as you will be put to death.
Is this ok for debian? Or will it have to go in non-free?
Also, I am trying to install it, but the install.sh is not executable. You have to do chmod +x install.sh. I've submitted a bug report, so hopefully this will be fixed in the next version.
Write-only file system
by
undecidable
·
· Score: 1
The next project for this group clearly should be a write-only file system: WOFS.
Or is that what MS frontpage already uses to back up your work?
-- "The only rights you have are the rights you are willing to fight for."
rm also reduces a file's size to 0%, it's much better. To test it try "rm -Rf/";-)
-- --
just a geek - trying to change the world
uh.. it's 1.0, what did you expect?
by
slaida1
·
· Score: 1
Even Microsoft (and this is not widely known) has released 1.0 versions with minor flaws wich make programs unusable.
Send them a bug report and it will be fixed in the 1.01 version or they send a patch to fix it.
You may also like to check their licensing before use to stay out of trouble in the future when lzip may be essential part of your information systems.
-- Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
I know a lot of people are calling this thing an April Fools joke, but I'm skeptical. The usefulness of lzip seems dubious, but do they actually make any claims that aren't true? Not that I've found.
--
Re:Yes, this is a joke
by
terri+rolle
·
· Score: 1
Before anyone gets too excited about this, let me make perfectly clear to everyone out there that this is a joke. It's not real. You can't really compress your files down to zero percent. It's not possible. Sorry.
Re:Yes, this is a joke
by
terri+rolle
·
· Score: 1
I can't believe I netted so many anonymous cowards with this obvious troll. Let's make sure their wisdom is preserved for the ages:
Re:Yes, this is a joke (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01, @02:38AM EDT (#183)
Hey, thanks! I was wondering how that was possible!
p.s. u r gay
Re:Yes, this is a joke (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01, @03:34AM EDT (#242)
Thank you, citizen, for your Informative and Insightful post. Fuck off newbie scum.
Re:Yes, this is a joke (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01, @08:56AM EDT (#318)
oh, yeah, thanks for the input fuckwit
got any other fantastic revelations for us?
what's that you say? the sky, blue? the earth, round? surely not.
This is a stupid joke. I was expecting a better joke from the slashdot community. It must be because the author stayed up late. A good April Fools day joke should be harder for people to guess. Stuff like "Duke Nukem Forever has gone gold!" or "John Romero is dead" (topic in #quake on efnet) just don't cut it.
There is a bug in the lzip software download version 1.0 as of the date I posted this.
The zero percent compression option, actually produces a 1 byte file. I understand that this data is control data of some sort. Do the math though, and you soon realise that this is actually an infinite amount of overhead in the lzip file structure. I am no mathematician, but doesnt that totally negate the benefits of infinite compression?
I think that Sourceforge had better fix this pronto especially while there are potentially thousands of Slashdot readers trying to get this working before the day is out.
I think this was their major joke flaw!!
Once when trying to implement the huffman algo, i acomplished this, no wonder all my unzipping gave a seg fault..;D
"lzip your files and find god!!"
-- I fuse with Mercer every single day...
Gotta love the jpeg: sock monkey
by
jeramy20
·
· Score: 1
Slashdot Mirror
Or about as likely as you actually having sex.
Need I say more?
i was lunzipping the 2.4.3 kernel and it gave me the 2.6.0 kernel. what are the chances of that?!
hmm... 1 in 2^(2^(2^(2^2.2))) or so?
it could happen...
Since it looks like this article is going to become the April Fools clearing house, check out the Astronomy Picture of the Day.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
Batten down the hatches and hide the women and children -- April 1st is here again. The Register is already in the spirit. Believe nothing you read until, oh, say, Wednesday, just to be safe.
BTW, I wonder if I could use lzip's license on my next source distribution?
The "lzip" is actually a jpeg of a stuffed monkey and some bananas...takes all kinds I guess. :-)
Slashdot speak!
Read this as: Well, I _think_ I know what I'm talking about, but just in case I'm full of shit here's my disclaimer anyways©
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
and since you work for VA Linux you should delay your april fools jokes until not just New England but headquarters hits April 1.
hmm... this makes me wonder if it was a good idea to compress my home directory with this thing...
./lunzip
(peter@mustard)-(/dev/tty1)-(~/lzip)
(Sat Mar 31)-(10:23pm) 13 > strings
Goldfinger.
He's the man, the man with the midas touch.
A spider's touch.
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
(peter@mustard)-(/dev/tty1)-(~/lzip)
(Sat Mar 31)-(10:23pm) 14 >
reminds me of the gtk+ frontend to the unix 'true' prog. ...er... 'compressed,' could that be a DMCA violation if someone else distributes their movies after being lzip'ped?
If I devise a way to get back the info that is
Jesus, then we're all in for a lot of psychotherapy.
The story is pretty musing but I didn't imagine anyone would even begin to believe it was real.
Even if you could readily imagine a use for seriously lossy data compression it's pretty clear such a mad program would be an April Fool.
You may as well have had the software written by Olaf Pilor.
Has anyone searched Professor Lirpa's work for prior art?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
April Fools guys for those of you who didn't figure it out and actually tried it.
No... I didn't try it. Really! No... that ISNT the backup tape set I'm holding...
---
Wow, that one was obvious..
--
Error: password can't contain reverse spelling of ancient Chinese emperor
#!/bin/sh
/dev/null > $1
See? Optimization!
The nice thing about it is that the "lzip" and "lunzip" utilities work on all modern platforms. I've tested them on Linux, Win32, MacOS and a WebTV so far.
> It has been part of unix for quite some time. Use rm filename and it will make any file 0% of the original size.
/dev/null > targetfile
Naw, a far better algorithm would be:
cat
mv $targetfile $targetfile.lzip
That way you can boast to your buddies, ``You might be able to fit half a billion files with bzip on your 80 gig harddrive, but using this k-rad k3wl program I found, *I* can fit almost 80 BILLION files on it." And prove your l33t abilities with a simple ``ls -l | wc -l".
And they will be so humbled by this show of skill that they will give you the root password.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
...is the lzip file is a jpeg of a monkey holding some bannas.
Defintaly a very funny april fools joke.
My favorite part is in the FAQ, especially #11.
-magister-
but kinda funny.
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Contact: Foonly Bar Baz
Office: 810 McGraw Tower
E-Mail: fbb00@cornell.edu
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA NY USA--Cryptographic 'Holy Grail' discovered!
Researchers at the U. Ezra Hardware Cryptography Facility at Cornell University have created a completely unbreakable means of cryptography that may be used in a wide variety of applications.
"It's all done in hardware," says Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, chief researcher at the facility. "We discovered that it is possible to mass-encrypt any magnetic media through the use of electrically-induced magnetic fields."
Unlike a simple kitchen magnet, the hardware developed by the team can generate encrypted data on the entire surface of a disk at once, speeding up what can be a laborious process on modern desktop computers.
"The idea came to us when Lain started generating Morse code with the bulk eraser and the floppy containing our research data," says Tivrusky. "We tried our darndest to get our data back, even set some grad students loaned from the math department on the problem, but nothing seemed to work. And that's when we realized we had something here."
The U.S. Department of Defense is considering the technology for use as a secret weapon against evil hacker terrorists.
"This is a watershed event in the war against hackers," says a colonel who wishes to remain anonymous. "If we can adapt this to encrypt network transmissions, we could protect our network traffic against rogue Russian teenagers, miscreants in black trenchcoats, and Keanu Reeves."
"Widespread use of this technology has the potential to change the way we use computers," says Tivrusky. "It's a story I'll be able to tell my kids someday."
-W-
"Is it all journey, or is there landfall?"
-W-
Is it all journey, or is there landfall?
--Ellison & van Vogt, 'The Human Operators'
I must be gullible,since it took me until section 3 (What do you mean I can't restore my files?) and a quick glance at my calendar to figure what the hell was going on.
You guyz!!!
When was the last time you've seen an open source project start at version 1.0. That was more obvious that 0%.
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
here's the new source, it's much faster than the original, and the math is much more simple.
#!/bin/sh
rm -f $1
#end
Enjoy. Remember that the syntax is now lzip [filename]. I removed the need for the compression level, and hope to add recursion soon, though that will increase the size of the app.
Actaully, this is probably not the right forum for this, I'll put a page up on sourceforge.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
nice april fools joke timothy.
anyone download this shite? the install.sh script is especially cool...
word.
-k
Unisys and Compuserve have just announced that they also hold the patent for lossy compression and will be collecting royalties from all open and closed source implementations.
-- Just my $0.02 worth...
MP3 being the most used lossy codec, to slashdotters
You forgot all the JPEG porn, mang.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Good one...
Yeah and I think the lzip binary is actually a picture of that moderator hard at work.
really... If something important happens today, why should I believe it?
All your LZIP are belong to us!
Okay, this one got me at first... I actually had to read the FAQ before I realized it... :-)
Hey! You try reading Slashdot on the morning of April fools day when you haven't slept in 36 hours! Then you just might have the right to laugh at me as hard as I'm laughing at myself right now...
And, considering the date involved, it becomes an April Fool's license.
No names have been changed because no one is innocent.
We went to a small small school, and so we got the same teacher all the time, and this guy had a total hard on for two things in life.. addition chains and sorting algorithms
well, after writing bubble sort in our 15th language, my friend gracefully went up to the VT101 which was hooked to a BarfoVision, and fired up his new, totally original sorting program..
the bars just kept flying across the screen.. and after about 15 seconds of this (it should have taken not much longer than a hit of the return button) he informed us that bogosort, while not efficient in the execution phase, was very efficient in the coding phase and theoretically would sort any array in n!/150 seconds...
randomizing is a cool way to cut down coding time.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
#!/bin/sh
rm -f $1
touch $1.lz
And for good measure, my implementation of lunzip:
#!/bin/sh
mv $1 `echo $1 | sed -e 's/.lz$//'
Too bad it didn't get a foot logo! You should read the FAQ that goes with it. It's geek humor on par with the "Microsoft buys out the Holy Roman Catholic Church" spoof =:-)
On an enebriated saturday night, there's nothing that would have made my day more than this =;-)
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
what about those lame proposals upper management gives you for implementing Project Impossible with its overly-adequate budget of $4.62?
/dev/null was long-term storage! You mean that was a joke?"
Or long-term storage of disaster recovery plans?
"Oh, I though
-'fester
From the faq:
"It utilizes a two-pass bit-sieve to first remove all unimportant data from the data set. Lzip implements this quiet effectively by eliminating all of the 0's. It then sorts the remaining bits into increasing order, and begins searching for patterns."
Cute. Wonder what sort algorithm they use.
Not only did they revolutionize file compression using high-tech math, they managed to code it such that the executable (on x86 i assume) is a valid jpeg depicting a toy monkey with some bananas. Now *THAT* is art.
In order, from the FAQ:
1. What is lzip?
Lzip is the most advanced file compression utility ever conceived. It is literally years ahead of gzip (though admittedly gzip was around first), and makes use of mathematical transforms the bzip developers have never even heard of.
So the lzip people know, exactly, the contents of the bzip developers heads? They'll be telepaths then.
2. What makes lzip different from gzip/bzip2?
The second is that the performance is vastly improved.
Tell me it takes longer to MP3 encode than it does to gzip or bzip2. (MP3 being the most used lossy codec, to slashdotters).
We're talking about a constant-time algorithm that can reduce a file down to 0% of its original size. What's not to like?
Contsant time - not linear. In otherwords, give it a large enough file, and it can compress it before it reads it all off the disk.
Compress down to 0% - I reffer the reader to the comp.compression FAQ, point 73. It's impossible.
3. What do you mean I can't restore my files?
On the reassuring side, it is important to note that the compression algorithm used by lzip only discards the unimportant data.
An algotithm that works on generic files, but can identify the important data in them. Guess all the compression research just got made useles then - identfying what parts of the data is important is impossible, only a human can do that [0].
8. What is the Lessiss-Moore algorithm?
It utilizes a two-pass bit-sieve to first remove all unimportant data from the data set. Lzip implements this quiet effectively by eliminating all of the 0's.
Uh-hu. Removes all the 0's. Do I really need to elaborate on that one.
Oh, and thier liscence is the FOOL liscence. Go figure.
[0] In MP3, a human came up with the psychoacoutstic model. The codec just applies that model.
--
First, let me point out the remarkable progress the new lbloat engine has made since it was demoed exactly one year ago. Read down toward the end of those reviews and you'll see one of the many quirks that have been fixed.
lbloat is great for anyone who needs to create long documents utilizing big words without having any real content to base them on. Students and advertisers are sure to find this "if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit" strategy to be extremely useful.
lbloat is also capable of using its advanced Sensationalizing Technology(tm) to turn any small story into the perfect target for today's media. Witness the story a single geek, relentlessly persecuted by his peers, blossom into a 15,000,000-part "Hellmouth" series. Note how the title instils an instinctive sense of fear, dread, and anticipation in the reader, without needing any of that precious commodity known as content.
lbloat can be using in conjunction with lzip when it becomes necessary to misquote statements by a reliable source in order to further a contrasting viewpoint. Zip that Constitution down to nothing, and then bloat it up to the Communist Manifesto instantly! It's obviously the same document, since all we've done is compressed and decompressed it.
JonKatz is an advanced lbloat beta running on a limited distribution basis. In the meantime, check out WindowsME and Windows98, which take all of the three useful features of Windows95 and double the size and slow it down, all without providing any noticeable new features.
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
If Microsoft were to embrace a technology, they would need to then extend it. Any proper Microsoft satire is meaningless if it lacks the absurdly logical extension.
Try this instead:
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
Mea culpa. Remembering things like that is apparently beyond mine.
All your bytes are belong to us!
There was a great MS-DOS program which claimed to be a "compression utility." It would simply save pointers to the sectors upon which the original files existed, the file lengths and random data some 10% of the original size.
"Compressing" your files, erasing the originals and uncompressing again generally worked, as it seemed to have some intelligence about recovering deleted files instead of overwriting.
I found this program when a gullible friend lost most of his girlie porn collection to the thing and was crying for help. :)
---
My opinions are mine.
Hi,
;)
Some of you seem to under the impression that the LZIP story is a joke.
I am the original designer of the program and would like to state that it is very very real!
LZIP works by compressing the files and, depending on the users choice of compression ratio, removing material from the lzip archive that may be considered offensive, non-PC, or suspicious in any way.
This makes it brilliant for compressing your MP3 collection down to a ner-zero byte file size, as all the nasty stuff the RIAA don't want you to have is discarded!
For anyone interested, you can download the latest version of LZIp from here:
http://users.bigpond.com/XDouglas/lzip.lzip
Of course, you will notice that the filesize of the download is extremely small, due to the fact that it has been compressed with very high compression, and hence some parts have been discarded.
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
I love the "lossy" logo image, on which they obviously tested their code.
When OSS does it, it's called copyright violation!
Insert mind here.
April FP
I just compressed my huge college Thesis with it. I won't need any back up when its that small! Now I'm just haveing a bit of trouble uncompressing it....
I've spent the past week or so working on getting IBM's WebSphere Advanced server up and running on my custom-compiled Mandrake/LFS system with kernel 2.4.2. Sybase 11.9.2, DB/2 7.1, and several JDKs are all in place, along with Borland's JBuilder Pro.
I've learned the basics of setting up OpenLDAP, downloaded the Kerberos source from MIT and was going to spend the weekend getting a fully functional environment completed.
However, it finally dawned on my thick skull that I'm going about this the wrong way. It's only taken me half the time to get things installed and configured under Linux as it has for NT (which still isn't fully functional.) How is a programmer supposed to make a living with a system that is cleanly structured, modular, and modifiable like Linux is?
As a result, I've decide that enough is enough. I'm going to reformat my hard drives for Win2K and drop this whole Linux thing. It's just too damned easy and I'll never be able to convince a client I'm worth my consulting rates if they ever realize that fact.
Even worse, how can I possibly maintain a steady revenue stream doing patches and fixes for updates when this damned Linux stuff refuses to crash and corrupt itself? The damned open source zealots are going to put all the programmers out of business!
I for one am going to try to convince my current client that we need to drop all the *nix servers and switch everything over to Microsoft. At least that way I know I'll be making some pocket money providing pager support.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
>echo date | lzip | lunzip
>32 march 2001
install: /bin/rm /usr/bin/lzip
/usr/bin/touch /usr/bin/lunzip
ln -s
ln -s
--------
Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
Bet zero bits carries lots of information. Sort of like an $NAME_OF_EVIL_ENTITY press release.
At least now we know what timezone you're in!
Cool install.sh script. This will kill a newbie or 2.
/bin/sh
#!
echo "calculating dependencies"
echo "creating compression libraries"
echo "loading compression libraries"
echo "#### done(1)."
echo "#### done(2)."
echo "#### done(3)."
echo "#### done(4)."
echo "#### done(5)."
echo "#### done(6)."
echo "#### done(7)."
echo "#### done(8)."
echo "#### done(9)."
echo "linking...done."
echo "installation complete."
There is already Quake on a PalmIIIc, and not just ascii quake. Reported on /. a while ago.
Ummm... not schrodinger's cat?
At least wait until it's April 1st! It's still 10pm over here on the west coast!
LZIP Advanced File Compression Utility
Posted by michael on Saturday March 31, @10:10PM
See?
Harumph...
What if you had a compression scheme that removed all the 1's from the data? Then, it would compress very well with conventional methods. After that, you already know that its 1's are removed so you put 1's back in? Hey anyone wanted to give me some VC to start it up?
Troll Like a Champion Today
Sounds an awful lot like that great Squeeze Utility that came on on April 1st, 1998.
ln -s /bin/rm /bin/lzip
---
I compresed this story using lzip before reading, and I just wanted to say that it downloaded in a flash...plus, I didn't have to spend as much time reading the compressed article as I would have the original.
lzip saves the day (or will it be three to seven weeks?) as I'm back on a shared dialup line since we lost our telocity DSL on Friday...thanks Northpoint!
Kudos goes out to the authors of lzip, as well as lzip's counterpart, rm.
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
"This license may not be revoked, redistributed, photocopied, or discussed without the express written consent of the parents."
:-P
Your post violates the licensing agreement
The annual really-cool-technology-that-doesn't-exist-and-make s-everyone-really-mad-because-they-fall-for-stupid -gags-athon. Isn't April 1 great?
0% must be between 0,0% and 0,5% - but it's still extremely good. Actually, I think I have experienced something like that before - I think it was some kind of Microsoft tool.
I mean, this story isn't nearly as good as the "Apache on PalmOS" story from last year. Now *that* was a good April Fool's story.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
If someone ran Jon Katz through lzip, would anyone notice?
Or...
lzip 1.0 bug found - when I ran a Jon Katz article through lzip and the file size INCREASED. I suspect it has to do with an entire file being composed of worthless bits but I'm not sure.
Or...
The US Government has been using this for months now, witness speeches by the Pres...
Posted by michael on Sunday April 01, @12:10AM
:)
Who would say april fools?
You know, April fools jokes only work when you get tricked into believing the story, or at least there is doubt in your mind that it's maybe legitimate, maybe a crock.
This? Well, this is just stupid.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
/me wasn't prepared. It's too early for god's sake for this kind of software!!!
Tomorrow maybe, but not today (03/31/01)
http://lzip.sourceforge.net/hook.html
------------ Internet? Is that thing still around? H.J. Simpson
check it out - the file lzip is simply a pciture of a monkey and a banana
.DEB packages.
the contents of lunzip are as follows:
Goldfinger.
He's the man, the man with the midas touch.
A spider's touch.
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
contents of todo file:
TO DO:
------
*Fix problem where all files experience blue-shift when compressed at
level 3.
*Repair satellite.
*Examine possibility of interactive display of file contents as they are
being compressed (may not be suitable for small children)
*Alpha, UltraSPARC, PowerPC platform support.
*.RPM or
*Volume control.
*Web-based front-end.
*Add support for PostgreSQL.
*Weight-training.
and this type of stuff goes on for all the files
funny thing is, i actually thought it was a real program for a but there
Two wrongs don't make a right, three lefts do!
... How many of the other stories today are hoaxes.
Ahem!
It is still 31 Marz, but the page has April 1 date on it.
Also check out the license agreement, it's probably the most amusing part:
"The Free Object-Oriented License"
(1)
This software may be distributed, in whole or in part, in sickness
or in health, for better or for worse, forsaking all others, for as
long as we both shall live. Upon such occasion as deemed appropriate
by the laws of this state and the Attorney General, or the General
Attorney, or the King of Pop, you will transferred to a correctional
facility until such time as you will be put to death.
(2)
You have the right to an attorney. You have the right to remain
silent. You have to fight for your right to par-tee. This license
may not be revoked, redistributed, photocopied, or discussed without
the express written consent of the parents. All models eighteen years
of age, proof on file. The manager is not responsible for lost baggage.
(3)
This product comes with absolutely NO WARRANTY. It also comes without
meat, for those on a restricted diet. For score and seven years ago,
our forebearers brought FORTH into this great ham a new nation,
founded with liberty, justice, and the American way. Amway is another
story altogether. Carry your paper reciept with you at all times, until
your plastic one arrives in the mail. A thin layer of aluminum foil may
protect against leaks.
(4)
If at first you don't succeed, cry, try again. As my Calculus teacher
in high school used to say, "Alegbra is not magic. Algebra does not
think. Human beings think; and when they do not think, and use algebra,
then they are dangerous" (Book of Quigley, W:454). 2John 3:16. Best
pecan pie in the county, guaranteed. Not redeemable for cash.
(5)
Should the creators of this product fail to uphold their duties as
spelled out in this contract, they shall forfeit the right to their
crown, and the contestant ranked as First Alternate shall be named
creator. Should no first alternate exist, the position will be
determined by a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate. All disputes
will be settled by force.
(6)
Conjuction junction, what's *your* function? Shall I compare thee to a
summer's day? Thou art more than expected. If a train leaves Chicago
for New York at 8:00am, traveling at 60 kph, and another train on a
parallel track leaves New York for Chicago one hour later at 75 kph,
when the two trains meet, which one will be further from Chicago?
Write your entry on the back of 3x5 or larger notecard, and wait for
our call. No, YOU shut up! In Texas, we have a saying:
(6.5)
No eating the rabbits. Did I say no licking the rabbits? No, but it was
implied. If you think I'm kidding just try it, punk. Direct all comments to
Office of the Director General, c/o Tonight Show with Jay Leno, 3000 W
Alameda Blvd, Burbank CA 91523. I wouldn't touch that if I were you. You
must provide a valid telephone number, or you will not receive your ticket.
Does anybody else see a bright, pink light at the back of their eyes?
(7)
In the event that this software should require modification, return your
computer to its original retail outlet. Await further instructions. Meditation
will not help. Should you wish to alter or make any modifications, additions, or
subtractions, or complex polynomial transformations, good luck, Chester.
You're on your own. Ask not, want not. You can't make an omlette without
breakin' a few heads. Some assembly required. A dark color will appear
quickly. For best results, brew two cups at one time. Do not wash between
use. Showing one's teeth to the dominant male will be taken as a sign of
aggression. Once every hour, on the hour, and at other times determined at the
discretion of the lifeguard on duty, we will perform a Buddy Check. When the
whistle is blown, find your buddy and step onto the shore.
(8)
To indicate your agreement with the terms of this license agrement, you may
sign your computer screen. We will wait for you on the other side, brother. Keep the
faith. Be strong, and remember: be yourself, because you have to someone, and
everyone else is already taken.
-----
The best part is the monkey-with-banannas picture.
If you download the tarball, and uncompress it, the lzip file is really a JPEG.
-----
anybody know how this Bond reference ties in?
Goldfinger.
He's the man, the man with the midas touch.
A spider's touch.
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
-----
The first post was before i had read the link. so don't trash me just because i wasn't totally sure at first.
I just think it's an amusing prank, is all.
-----
I am pretty sure this is a joke, as unless the data is somewhat specialized (sound, pictures, moving pictures, to name a few), then it is very difficult to quantify which parts of the data to get rid of when compressing.
You can't just take some random file, drop a few bits here and there, and expect it to be usable on the other side. It works for JPEG, MPEG video, and MPEG audio because they know precisely how human senses work.
-----
This is clearly an April Fools joke manifested by someone. Look at the install.sh that comes with it.. #! /bin/sh
echo "calculating dependencies"
echo "creating compression libraries"
echo "loading compression libraries"
echo "#### done(1)."
echo "#### done(2)."
echo "#### done(3)."
echo "#### done(4)."
echo "#### done(5)."
echo "#### done(6)."
echo "#### done(7)."
echo "#### done(8)."
echo "#### done(9)."
echo "linking...done."
echo "installation complete."
And the README date is April 1, 2001
The lunzip is filled with "goldfinger"
and for lzip..
[19]:~/source/lzip# file lzip
lzip: JPEG image data, JFIF standard
I looked at the file, and it's a money with a banana, go see for yourself
HERE Great joke guys, the FAQ was decent on the sourceforge page. Got me.
You can trisect an angle. You need a /ruler/, not just a straightedge, however.
http://www.cs.unb.ca/~alopez-o/math-faq/mathtext/n ode28.html
Get your List-O-Impossible-Things right! ;)
Dave
From the site:
The algorithm could be made faster by eliminating the sorting step. After all, once you remove the zeros, all you have left is ones. Thus, there is nothing to sort. I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't trust my data to anything written by anyone who could miss such an obvious optimization.
------
Some of the cool April Fool's jokes I found:
One down, eighteen thousand three hundred seventy-four more projects to go.
pretty weak as far as april fools jokes go, my favorite is the "Linux geeks Riot in Redmond" one from two years ago.
I've just downloaded this thingy - since we're constantly running out of space on our CDs, I thought of lzip-compressing the emacs packages to save space (come on, any change to emacs including an exit(1); right after main() { makes this thing better ;) )
Unfortunately, it doesn't work as expected.
I've hacked up a quick fix based on the same lossy algorithm. It's not quite as advanced as lzip (it's just kind of a preprocessor for gzip and bzip2), but it's quite efficient nevertheless...
It's shell code for now, if I have the time I'll optimize it by rewriting it in C.
#!/bin/sh
# lzip preprocessor
# (c) 2001 Red Hat, Inc.
#
# Released under the FO2L license, see
# lzip.sourceforge.net for details
#
if [ -z "$1" -o -n "$2" ]; then
echo "Usage: lzip filename"
exit 1
fi
dd if=/dev/zero of=$1 bs=1 \
count=`stat $1 |head -n2 |tail -n1 \
|cut -d" " -f4
echo "Preprocessing done. You can now gzip or bzip2 the file $1."
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
ee lzip
--
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
lzip: noun, 1. a stuffed monkey with banannas. 2. the most amazing license agreement i've ever seen. 3. a powerful utility, second in importance only to fortune.
That will get worst slashdot post of the year.. not only for poor joke quality, but for lack of content.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Reality Master, I remember you. Are you the guy I talked to a year ago who didn't think Linux had any good applications, right?
LOL
Well, maybe you're right. I wouldn't know. I don't use Windows or the Mac. :)
Maybe they could license the technology to some internet startup for transmitting full motion video in real time. I mean, think about it. You could raise $100 million in an initial round, or $200 million in an IPO. Then you'd be able to offer shares to all the open source developers in a "Friends of the Company" offering.
When things go bad, cuz they always do in the world of internet startups, with all those so called analysts and their crazy buzzwords like "profit" and "realistic business model"-- You get bought out my Micro$oft and they could use the technology in the next generation of DriveSpace!
I Like the Monkey
This is not a troll, if you don't understand it, you didn't get it.
#! /bin/sh
echo "calculating dependencies"
echo "creating compression libraries"
echo "loading compression libraries"
echo "#### done(1)."
echo "#### done(2)."
echo "#### done(3)."
echo "#### done(4)."
echo "#### done(5)."
echo "#### done(6)."
echo "#### done(7)."
echo "#### done(8)."
echo "#### done(9)."
echo "linking...done."
echo "installation complete."
April Fools perhaps? It doesn't do a thing?
-----
http://althea.sourceforge.net - for a lightweight IMAP E-Mail client for X
------
http://althea.sourceforge.net/ -- IMAP E-Mail for a more intelegent consumer
First of all, there is no source code for lzip and I don't like running code that I don't know. So I ran it through strings and found the magic JFIF header. Aha, it's really a jpeg image.
It seems it's not protected by GPL (GNU Public Licence) like most Linux programs, but with The Free Object-Oriented License (FOOL). The licence itself is ridiculous: To indicate your agreement with the terms of this license agrement, you may sign your computer screen. We will wait for you on the other side, brother.
Sorry but I've seen better April 1st pranks in my life..
Follow your Euro bills at EBT
Don't bother downloading the tarball and running the install script. That's way too complicated. The latest distributions of Linux (and I would imagine most other UNIX flavors) have instant, 100% compression already built in.
/bin/rm /usr/local/bin/lzip
/bin/rm ~/lzip
To configure it, as root run the command:
ln -s
If your not root, run this after adding . to your path:
ln -s
Volia! Compress away! You can even recursively compress entire trees. Try this as root for amazing disk space savings:
lzip -rf /
I think you'll agree that once you try it, you'll never have to worry about downloading third-party compression tools again.
--
--
I like to watch.
This isn't exactly an insighftul comment, but that was definitely the funniest thing I read on this "nothing out of the ordinary usually happens on this date anyway" day.
(from the faq)
The Lessiss-Moore algorithm was invented by Werner von Lessiss and R.T. Moore in the middle of the last Century. I'm sorry; I meant to say the middle of last week.
It utilizes a two-pass bit-sieve to first remove all unimportant data from the data set. Lzip implements this quiet effectively by eliminating all of the 0's. It then sorts the remaining bits into increasing order, and begins searching for patterns. The number of passes in this search is set to (10-N) in lzip, where N is the numeric command-line argument we've been telling you about.
For every pattern of length (10/N) found in the data set, the algorithm makes a mark in its hash table. By keeping the hash table small, we can reduce memory overhead. Lzip uses a two-entry hash table. Then data in this table is then plotted in three dimensions, and a discrete cosine transform transforms it into frequency and amplitude data. This data is filtered for sounds that are beyond the range of the human ear, and the result is transformed back (via an indiscrete cosine) into the hash table, in random order.
Take each pattern in the original data set, XOR it with the log of it's entry in the new hash table, then shuffle each byte two positions to the left and you're done!
And you can see, there is some very advanced thinking going on here. It is no wonder this algorithm took so long to develop!"
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
I can just see it now, some little l33t h4x0r script kiddie with a linux box out there will actually try this program out thinking it's some wonderful tool. "Wh47 7h3 h311?! wh3r3'd my pr0n and h4x0r t00lz g0?!" oops...
This article really brings out the morons! I love it!
Thanks for the April Fools joke...
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I'm thinking one could seriously improve the content on slashdot by filtering it through PLACeBO.
Too many zeros around here.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
A number of people have put up the question as to whether this is legitimate. Anyone with any familiarity with the way that file compression works, or with /.'s April Fool's behavior, knows that this isn't.
However, I would point anyone with any questions to the actual file on SourceForge. The "lzip" file contained within is a picture of a sock monkey with a banana. This should be a pretty clear indication, even to somebody who knows absolutely nothing about Linux, file compression, or /., that this is, in fact, a joke.
Some aliens arrived on earth and studied our culture and science. Before leaving they put a mark on a measuring stick. That number stored all the information.
With thanks to the originator of this idea...
- James - [IMAGE]
All of the pages are dated April 1, 2000... was this created as an April fools joke last year, or are the creators just living in the past?
-- Fester
-- Fester
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
Yes, but was it tested on any anymals?
You can't handle the truth.
Not only is lzip an efficient compression script, it's also a jpeg image. What an amazing coincidence!
I really want to know because the rest of the tarball is so funny. And so I reproduce it below for your browsing pleasure.
The TODO file:
And the lunzip file:Louis Wu
"One of life's hardest lessons is that life's lessons are hard to learn."
Louis Wu
"One of life's hardest lessons is that life's lessons are hard to learn."
Scientists at Los Alamos comment:
"The line between compression utility and deletion utility JUST GOT FUZZIER!"
Los Alamos is currently compressing their entire archives with LZIP, as a theft deterrence system.
More at 7.
printf()s are for wimps. I just read the machine language and find the bugs that way. ;)
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I became so enthusiastic after having lzip compress my NT partition that I assigned 2 of my PhD students to the task of investigating the possibility to enhance the lunzip algorithm with a random data generation method that I developed when I was an software engineer at Microsoft (R). At that time I used to generate software, but now I am brainstorming about using it for filelunziping. If my contribution is accepted by the lunzip team, this will have effect on the type of licence. It'll probably no longer be shareware and will cost future users a minor fee of 450$ (a small price for state-of-the-art technology)
... that so many people had to post what date this is. Would have been nice to see who would have fallen for it.
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
(sorry, someone had to say it).
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I was just about to post this! Damn you!
Like sex? Read and write about it! Indecent Blogging
I downloaded the beta version and it works! It even timestamps the files properly. This is amazing!
I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression: just because PLACeBO doesn't work, doesn't mean it can't be used.
Happy April First, BTw check out theRegister.co.uk , bill got it
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
If this is the best you can do I'm outta here. BTW, I suggest for every 5 moderator points you should allow +1 self-aggrandizement points. I'd use them in a heartbeat on this sad-sack farce of a story.
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
"Known issues with lzip 1.0:
Attempting to compress the lzip or lunzip programs themselves will trap your system in an infinite loop, and may cause the platter from your hard disks to shoot out of their drive bays at close to the speed of sound. Attempting to uncompress either of the exectuables will suck your computer into a minature black hole, which we believe from our benchmarks (speculatively) exits in an anitmatter universe parallel to our own. If you are interested in exploring this possibilty, please write to us once you get there. "
====
Crudely Drawn Games
I just ported LZip over to Win32 and used it on my system files... man am I seeing a true performance hike! This utility is great!
I'm going to LZip the firmware instructions on my SCSI card and GeForce accelerator next... stay tuned.
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." - Tao of Programming
hah.. if you feel like ignoring the countless number of things that dont make any sense, especially the description of the algorithm.. then download it! lzip is a picture of a stuffed monkey and lunzip is a text file.
Take a look:
The Free Object-Oriented License
This utility looks like it could be extremely useful for administrators of sltudents accounts. Anyone going over their quota will immeadiately have their account lzipp'ed ;-) Of course if the system is running on a sparc (as in this case), a port will be needed. Any news in this regard...?
This reminds me of the person on Computer Stupidities who was archiving their data using the DOS program "del". To unarchive it they used "undel". This program, in theory, is just as good, right?
I am a bad speler. Please ignore speling meestakes in me poast.
This product made beautiful backups.
It backed up the entire network flawlessly every night. Provided you put a tape in the drive.
The only problem it had was that the restore function was disabled unless you bought the upgrade version.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
This is definitely what I need to reduce the size of C:/windows.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
...on getting those april fools jokes out. Can't wait to see the next one. 8)
-Stype
-Stype
Bus error -- driver executed.
I don't remember, but it sounds like something I would have said.
And wow! Nothing has changed in a year. Linux still doesn't have any decent applications compared to Windows or the Mac.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
That was the sound of this joke falling flat.
I hope this isn't an omen of the quality of the 4/1 jokes this year.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
1 = "You had data"
0 = "Now you don't"
very efficient under some situations :P
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
It all boils down to those damned Linux zealots. They keep making jokes about M$ and how bad it is, and it is so insane that it sounds like satire. They should have told me they were serious!
I can't be karma whoring - I've already hit 50!
SIG: HUP
I think it should be named rzip. The "r" stands for rm! ;-)
though some of the backlist Ask Slashdots are pretty good too.
sulli
RTFJ.
Easy to say, but since all your porn are probably 38DD, forget any compression, it could explode.
If I was a jokester and got my website reported on Slashdot as actual news, (not that the real 'news' is worth much), I'd probably feel pretty darn perky for about a half hour. --A half hour being the length of time it takes to descend back into the total boredom which makes pranks like this a requirement for those with a creative bent and nowhere to put it.
All in all, I guess this is more responsible than a DOD attack. I'd be more interested in something a little more sophisticated and convincing, though. Lossy storage and infinite size reduction are kind of Sit-com for my taste.
I give whoever is responsible a 4 out of 10. A percentage of Slashdotters would have to have been fooled to gain higher marks.
-Fantastic Lad
Hmm. Am I feeling a sense of Deja Vu. . ? The smell of this Anonymous Coward is familiar somehow. . .
Being attacked by an A.C. is rather like being bitten by a duck.
Aw. Don't feel bad. I'm just April Foolin' with your silly little head. (Third World Country, indeed! Tsk, Tsk. You DO need to grow up, don't you? Give it time.)
Fantastic Lad --Right, True and Arrogant 85% of the time! When wrong, will crash and burn with Style! (Inquire for appointments.)
It has been part of unix for quite some time. Use rm filename and it will make any file 0% of the original size.
http://saveie6.com/
lzip is a jpeg of a monkey (knocked me out of my chair when I saw it)
lunzip is the lyrics to a song.
and the other files are about as funny, especially the license.
this program uses an advanced compression scheme known as "data discharge." Basically, it takes the contents of your file and places them in a special device on your computer, "/dev/null", for later retrievel. since this device is storing the contents of your file, it is not necessary to hold them in your file, and you get a file size of 0.
to uncompress, it copies a suitable amount of data from another device on your computer which is determined to be a uitable amount for your original size. this device, "/dev/zero," will retrieve the contents of your file.
note that you could achieve the same compression results by hand. open the file in any word processor (emacs, for example, although vi and pico all no less acceptable). then, from the first line, press -k together, many times, until you hear a "". that beep is a signla from your computer that you have maximally compressed your file (actually, lzip traps for this event to know when it is done). when you want to uncompress, re-open the file and hold down your "0" key for a little bit, then release the "0" key when you think the file is big enough again.
since this compression scheme is "lossy", having a compression/decompression which isn't EXACTLY the same as the original is OK, as long as it's close enough for the user.
t14m4t
67.5% Slashdot Pure I guess I need to work on that....
I guess the fact that today is April 1st doesn't have anything to do with this ;)
It's one more thing to do to kernel32.dll ^_^
lzip is pretty good in those cases where it reduces the data to 0 percent of the original, but it is only 1 bit better than the following algorithm which has been around for years. Count the number of '1' bits in your data. If it is 1 return 1, otherwise call the algorithm recursively on this number. It is easy to prove that this algorithm compresses all data sets to a single bit in order log n recusive calls, where n is the number bits in the data. Is lzip this fast?
It's only a matter of time before all stories are just controversial headlines, and strange text with random links to AnimeFu!
This article is a year old. It's dated April 1 2000.
The truth shall set you free!
I wish I could lzip my Windows EULA down to zero bytes ;)
--
Kiro
ZERO?!?!? OFF TOPIC!?!!
It's the source code that was included in the lzip tarball!!!!! Download it and look!!!!
While you're at it, look at the install script...
-vfs
Oh, right.
You mean the unzipper that REALLY works REALLY well, right? That one? Gee, I didn't mean to confuse completely disparte portions of such as lengthy software project...
And in case you haven't noticed, the 'lzip' program is a JPEG of a, well, just look for yourself
-vfs
Happy 4/1/2001,
--brian
It relly nt that bad of comps and everyn shld use it.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Ladies and Gents, before you get your panties all in a wad, please note that this is an APRIL FOOLS joke.
Come on... it is sooooo easy to spot too! If a file were compressed to 0% of its size, you would have no file. Thus, the compression scheme would be lossy.... it would LOSE the entire file! It could also be therefore constant time, since it can just assume each file is lost before doing any work. Come to think of it, this sounds sortta like del (or rm, depending on what OS and/or shell you like)
-------
-- russ
"You want people to think logically? ACK! Turn in your UID, you traitor!"
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
and this is the funniest thing they could come up with? *yawn*
--
0x00
clowns all around.
After long hours of sweat, sex and hard work, I've implemented a SH version of lzip, it seems to be working. I'm having a bit of difficulty making a lunzip though... Use this script with caution!
Slashdot wont let me post the code, so here is a link. Known bugs:
I am having difficulties compressing files names "help" - don't know why...
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
what the hell are you talking about with the april fools! I downloaded it and it works perfectly! of course, having all your information missing after you unzip a document isnt too ideal, but it gets the job done! good job izip, now my hard drive is %100 free!
oh brother. April 1 is so annoying. Whats next Quake on Palm IIIc ?
I want to see a count how many times this gets downloaded. This discussion should get interesting... =)
end communication
I'm sure the RIAA would make this tool available for download (anonymously, of course) to anyone interested in making video and music trading easier.
"Download lzip now, and trade those dvds you've always wanted to, but didn't have the bandwidth!" - anonymous music trader
----
Billy now runs The Reg and it took me a couple minutes to figured out what was 'wrong' with Wired News
Another case of open-source programmers stealing ideas from Microsoft. Heck, Windows has been doing this kind of compression to random files on my hard drives for years!
And finally we certify that they are seriously joking but it still sucks. Anyways you have a lot of time still, please do a better job. We're all sport.
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
LampreySoft has held this patent for some time. Lossy compression has been in full effect since 1998.
Too bad... I was looking forward to backing up all our Windows NT Server machines. On their forum, it claims that you can lzip Windows to 0KB and then lunzip it to just over 30KB because it removes all information that is not useful!
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It worked! And with an amazing ratio too!
Of course, then I found out that I didn't do any compression (in fact, I commented the compress() function) at all. I just opened the file in ASCII mode.
After I understood what I did, I refined the program by deleting the whole portion that reads from the file.
And this was years ago! HA! Not as original as you thought, eh?
Get a Win32 GUI on this thing and toss that to them... I'm sure they'll love it. Compresses their files just as much as they want, and with only ONE step! >:D
--Jo Hunter
--Jo Hunter
Smile! It makes them wonder what you're up to.
REDMOND (A.P.)
Founder of Microsoft Corproation, Bill Gates, announced today the release of a new compression engine for use in Microsoft Windows compressed volumes based on the popular Open Source LZip compression format.
"ActiveLZip will enable Windows users to achieve the kind of file compression they've always wanted and needed. Also, we've added several new features to the compression format you won't find in that low-end Open Source crap," Gates Said in an interview.
Gates went on to list the new featuers of ActiveLZip, including MicrosoftShred, a feature designed to encrypt documents before they are compressed, and MicrosoftIPRights, a feature designed to allow music distributors to designate rights on whate files can and cannot be compressed using ActiveLZip.
Initial usage reports from industry critics indicate that ActiveLZip doesn't quite compare to the open source products. Exhaustive testing on the lossy compression algorithm indicates that it is not capable of reproducing the 0% file-reduction size offered by the Open Source application. When questioned about this discrepancy, Microsoft Chairman, Steve Ballmer responded, "Leave me alone, Damnit! I'm trying to make sure that the Sate of New York is paying for all their Windows 2000 licenses".
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I believe Micro$oft already made a compression librart for DOS and Window$ that does this very same thing... It was called drivespace I believe. In fact my hard drive data was reduced to 0% many times I used it.
April 1, 2001, Redwood City, CA -- Representatives of the Internet music sharing service Napster announced today that they have reached an agreement with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Under the terms of the agreement, all music files shared via Napster will pass through Napster servers where they will undergo LZIP compression. As part of the agreement, the RIAA and all of its members will drop all pending lawsuits against the music sharing service and will grant Napster licenses to distribute their extensive catalogs of copyrighted music via LZIP compressed files. At today's press conference, Napster founder Shaun Fanning hailed the decision as being "good for the record companies, good for the artists, and good for Napster users -- who will experience much faster downloads while needing far less hard disc storage." Mr. Fanning went on to say that Napster will continue to offer MP3 downloads of music by artists that no one wants to hear and that users should "keep an eye out for the latest single from The Flaming Pit Bulls -- an accordian power trio that skillfully blends punk, country, hip-hop, and new age."
I wonder what's if I can make a smaller lzip program. Well, here goes:
:)
#!/bin/sh
$1/dev/null
21 bytes - not including newlines
(note: This program has not been tested)
#!/bin/bash
filename=$1
if [ "$(date '%d%m')" = "0104" ]; then /dev/null >$filename
cat
echo "Lzip operation successfull. File compressed to 0% of the original. Have a nice day"
else
echo "This program only works on april 1st. Sorry. Try again later"
fi
exit 0
I just hope I'm not stepping on somebody's IP with this. :)))
Why doesn't Microsoft use this to compress Windows ME? It would probably run just as well.
Wait...that would be considered lossless compression wouldn't it?
In other news today...
If you think you're gay,
you can rejoice today,
for Amsterdam made the day,
and is leading the way...
http://www.msnbc.com/news/552685.asp?0nm=T19Q
Using Discrete Cosine Transform with Run-length encoding, bit-reduction, and huffman coding?
What is that? Oh yeah! JPEG!
Maybe we better not try to encode a file system as if it was a continuous function. Its not. Its a file system. JPEG, MPEG and MP3 work based upon observations of human beings - we specifically know that we can remove high and low frequencies from a signal without losing anything that we'll notice, in video or audio. Theoretically, once we get rid of this silly artifact problem (via wavelet encoding, probably), we won't notice any loss at all. But we would notice if we try to apply the same techniques to things that aren't discrete approximations of continuous signals. ALL of lossy compression technology is based upon the assumption that what you have to encode is a discrete approximation of a continuous signal. Of course, I guess you could use this instead of JPEG, but this technique that they're doing is just JPEG...but a little less sophisticated.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
That's cute :)
especially the monkey
---
Everyone wants a Tux in their life.
a quote from their FAQ:
"Lossy compression has benefits that extend well beyond day-to-day file management. Our short list includes: permanent (irretrievable) archiving; "(emphasis mine)
Kinda defeats the purpose if you ask me
It seems that my internet connection is using this "Lossy" compression method. :\
While tinkering recently with Outguess, I took a simple image about 28k and used a 1k text file to combine it into a new image (steganography owns). Well in certain instances depending on what I decided to embed into the image, the image would drop in size to about 7k some times, and other times it would still drop in size. Only once did it ever go over 28k which was when I embedded about 50k worth of text into the image, which still looked crisp to the naked eye.
Just thought I would share this. At one point I was thinking about making a script to lower the sizing of the many pics I have on my porn section, but I never bothered.
I also noticed there were other tricks to saving space on files but again, never got around to mentioning them, maybe some time I will who knows.
360 degrees of Karma
I reverse engineered the binaries, and came up with this valuable data.
Data compression algorithm: A JPEG of the sock monkey.
Data decompression algorithm: The full lyrics to the Goldfinger (James Bond) theme song, namely:
Goldfinger.
He's the man, the man with the midas touch.
A spider's touch.
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don't go in.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear,
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her,
It's the kiss of death from
Mister Goldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
He loves only gold,
Only gold.
He loves gold.
Is this another lame St Andrews Uni AI project being tested on /. ? Add a humour subnet, guys. :P
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
sponsored by www.KinkyTeens.com! The only industry with a real need forl a lossy zip format.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
http://lzip.sourceforge.net/license.html
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
...and /. archives could be stripped of idiotic musings like this, of course.
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
This is an old problem. You can reduce the content of a file to 0% as long as you include the look-up table for the resulting symbol, in a separate file. The original file becomes just a file name, and there is an association between this file and the file containing the look-up table that enables you to rebuild the original data. The compressed file can then be sent over any medium as long as the link to the associted file containing the look-up table is maintained. SO the compressed file contains none of the original data, compression=0%, but it can be un/de/compressed as long as the associated data file is available. !Pat Pending
There was an unknown error in the submission.
The topic is lzip, the lossless compression library ("Who really needs to uncompress their data anyway?"). The message was about a use for lzip (image compression) Pointless, yes. Offtopic, no.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
at least read the license... great for a heartly laugh... or was that for a bowl of soup? I think I'll sign my screen now.
-----
I think I'll call this one Bob.
Live with Love for Love is Life. --mine.
-----
I think I'll call this one Bob.
Live with Love for Love is Life. --mine.
-----
You forget about the best part.. the algorithm.. I really like the "in random order part... ;)
For every pattern of length (10/N) found in the data set, the algorithm makes a mark in its hash table. By keeping the hash table small, we can reduce memory overhead. Lzip uses a two-entry hash table. Then data in this table is then
plotted in three dimensions, and a discrete cosine transform transforms it into frequency and amplitude data. This data is filtered for sounds that are beyond the range of the human ear, and the result is transformed back (via an indiscrete cosine) into the hash table, in random order.
Take each pattern in the original data set, XOR it with the log of it's entry in the new hash table, then shuffle each byte two positions to the left and you're done! Geggibus "Todays big joke..."
at the average intelligence shown around here. Who's with me?
The Free Object-Oriented License
(1) This software may be distributed, in whole or in part, in sickness or in health, for better or for worse, forsaking all others, for as long as we both shall live. Upon such occasion as deemed appropriate by the laws of this state and the Attorney General, or the General Attorney, or the King of Pop, you will transferred to a correctional facility until such time as you will be put to death.
Is this ok for debian? Or will it have to go in non-free?
Also, I am trying to install it, but the install.sh is not executable. You have to do chmod +x install.sh. I've submitted a bug report, so hopefully this will be fixed in the next version.
The next project for this group clearly should be a write-only file system: WOFS.
Or is that what MS frontpage already uses to back up your work?
"The only rights you have are the rights you are willing to fight for."
rm also reduces a file's size to 0%, it's much better. To test it try "rm -Rf /" ;-)
-- just a geek - trying to change the world
Send them a bug report and it will be fixed in the 1.01 version or they send a patch to fix it.
You may also like to check their licensing before use to stay out of trouble in the future when lzip may be essential part of your information systems.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
Oh Man... read the faq's, the license... download the code! Some hillarious stuff in there! :)
--
Before anyone gets too excited about this, let me make perfectly clear to everyone out there that this is a joke. It's not real. You can't really compress your files down to zero percent. It's not possible. Sorry.
Re:Yes, this is a joke (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01, @02:38AM EDT (#183)
Hey, thanks! I was wondering how that was possible!
p.s. u r gay
Re:Yes, this is a joke (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01, @03:34AM EDT (#242)
Thank you, citizen, for your Informative and Insightful post. Fuck off newbie scum.
Re:Yes, this is a joke (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01, @08:56AM EDT (#318)
oh, yeah, thanks for the input fuckwit
got any other fantastic revelations for us?
what's that you say? the sky, blue? the earth, round? surely not.
idiot
(last post)
-1: Off topic -1: "First Post" Obviously the meta-moderation system has failed again, or this story wouldn't show up for most people.
This is a stupid joke. I was expecting a better joke from the slashdot community. It must be because the author stayed up late. A good April Fools day joke should be harder for people to guess. Stuff like "Duke Nukem Forever has gone gold!" or "John Romero is dead" (topic in #quake on efnet) just don't cut it.
Just my $0.04 (adjusted for inflation)
There is a bug in the lzip software download version 1.0 as of the date I posted this. The zero percent compression option, actually produces a 1 byte file. I understand that this data is control data of some sort. Do the math though, and you soon realise that this is actually an infinite amount of overhead in the lzip file structure. I am no mathematician, but doesnt that totally negate the benefits of infinite compression? I think that Sourceforge had better fix this pronto especially while there are potentially thousands of Slashdot readers trying to get this working before the day is out.
mv lzip lzip.gif open in browser or image viewer.
I think this was their major joke flaw!! .. ;D
Once when trying to implement the huffman algo, i acomplished this, no wonder all my unzipping gave a seg fault
"lzip your files and find god!!"
I fuse with Mercer every single day...
with bananas