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How Stanford Engineers Created a Fictitious Compression For HBO

Posted by timothy on from the buzzword-bingo dept.

Tekla Perry (3034735) writes Professor Tsachy Weissman and Ph.D student Vinith Misra came up with (almost) believable compression algorithms for HBO's Silicon Valley. Some constraints -- they had to seem plausible, look good when illustrated on a whiteboard, and work with the punchline, "middle out." Next season the engineers may encourage producers to tackle the challenge of local decodability.

2 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why call them "engineers"? by Horshu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wasn't even aware that programmers in Cali could even legally call themselves "engineers". I worked for a company out of college HQed in California, and I was told coming in that we used the term "Programmer/Analyst" because California required "engineers" to have a true engineering degree (with the requisite certifications et al)

  2. Re:Meh by TeknoHog · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Or if you're into math, you invoke the pigeonhole principle.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.