[TML] New 3d computer simulation design

[shadow at shadowgard.com]

On 3 Dec 2007 at 5:01, Patrik Holmstrom wrote:

> On Dec 3, 2007 4:16 AM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
> > Somewhere in the archives is a discussion of formats and cost for X-
> > boat messages. At a guess, 10 years back.
> >
> > We had it broken down using then current stuff and a bit of guessing
> > as to future tech.
> >
> > For example, based on per bit or byte charges, it's noticeably
> > cheaper to use a limited character set (Baudot or ASCII) than to use
> > something like unicode.
> 
> Yeah, but the Shannon entropy of the data is still the same so if you
> compress it you end up with identical (theoretical case) or near
> identical (real world case) sizes. For instance Mary Shelly's
> Frankenstein goes from (ascii/unicode) 439kB/877kB to 140kB/142kB
> using the 7z compression algorithm. Since you'd like to compress the
> message anyway you don't save anything useful from using a more
> compact character set.

On the other hand, compressing the data makes it more vulnerable to 
errors in transmission.

BTW, have you tried seeing what size Frankenstein would be in Baudot?


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com