The Source Code (MUST READ)

[Johan1951]

From: Bacon

Yeah, I thought of that too. Stories are pretty similar, right down to the compression technology...

[Johan1951]

From: Uncle Dukey

Kobun Heat wrote:
As opposed to all those true urban legends.

You've got me there.

[Johan1951]

From: Pochacco

I've invented a device that will download internet porn 100 times faster.

[Johan1951]

From: Border

I had only read a little bit about this before. I think the guy was just a crackpot or charlatan that managed to get some heavyweight financial backers. Can someone find a reliable article about the whole affair?

http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/p.spronck/Sloot.htm

I think Jan Sloot really believed he had found a way to compress movies to one kilobyte. Probably he had imagined something as the alien's stick, something that would be theoretically possible in an alternate world, with infinitely divisible particles, but impossible in our reality. He probably lacked the mathematical insight to see that his 'invention' was a farce. In his prototype, he faked his invention, which is why he refused to let anyone near it, and answered only in mystical vagueness to questions. He probably imagined that, with enough money, he could get his invention to work for real. He probably did not feel himself a charlatan or a crook, but an honest businessman, who needed a starting capital to create the world's greatest invention, make some people incredibly rich, and win a Nobel prize.

What truly amazes me is that a man as Roel Pieper, who is a professor of Computer Science no less, could fall for his story, to the point where he invested a huge amount of capital. If his role in this story is really as reported in the media, his credibility as a computer scientist has been seriously tarnished. In my opinion, the University of Twente, with which Pieper is associated, should at least perform an internal investigation, to assess whether Pieper's position can be maintained.

KobunHeat wrote:
As opposed to all those true urban legends.

There are lots of true urban legends.

[Johan1951]

From: Jett

Interesting work of fiction.

[Johan1951]

From: Hitokage

So a random guy with no mathematical background spends 20 years developing a magical digital media storage and compression system in his garage that somehow is able to compress 2690GB worth of A/V data (16 2 hr movies at dvd resolution uncompressed) into 64 kilobytes and with neglible computation to boot....

[Johan1951]

From: Sprsk

Hitokage wrote:
So a random guy with no mathematical background spends 20 years developing a magical digital media storage and compression system in his garage that somehow is able to compress 2690GB worth of A/V data (16 2 hr movies at dvd resolution uncompressed) into 64 kilobytes and with neglible computation to boot....

what, you dont think he did it?

sorry youre gonna have to do a little more than that mister "logic".

peh!

[Johan1951]

From: Silver

Um, guys, this is all very real.

Sloot got support from all the heavyweights in the industry. A bank like ABN Amro also doesn't just give EUR 25,000,000 credit to some crackpot.

Do you not think that in the future, compression technology WILL get as advanced as this? Could it not be that Sloot was ahead of his time? A man like Roel Pieper, a man like Charles Wang, they wouldn't fall for some kind of trick. If you read more detailed stories on this, you will know that people from Philips and some companies in Silicon Valley studied this device.

Let's also not forget that one Swiss office clerk who went on to become the greatest scientist of his age... what was his name again? Oh yeah. Einstein.

[Johan1951]

From: Hitokage

Silver wrote:
Um, guys, this is all very real.

Sloot got support from all the heavyweights in the industry. A bank like ABN Amro also doesn't just give EUR 25,000,000 credit to some crackpot.

Do you not think that in the future, compression technology WILL get as advanced as this? Could it not be that Sloot was ahead of his time? A man like Roel Pieper, a man like Charles Wang, they wouldn't fall for some kind of trick. If you read more detailed stories on this, you will know that people from Philips and some companies in Silicon Valley studied this device.

Let's also not forget that one Swiss office clerk who went on to become the greatest scientist of his age... what was his name again? Oh yeah. Einstein.

Appeal to authority and the Einstein name drop that's required in defending any crackpot.

Do you not think that in the future, compression technology WILL get as advanced as this?

Do you lack any sense at all? No matter how advanced compression may get, it still must mathematically describe the original to an acceptable degree. What this guy is promoting is a method to recreate the Last Supper with a connect-the-dots of 4 points.

[Johan1951]

From: Silver

Are you all-knowing? You sound like an ignorant, pretentious semi-expert. I bet you haven't looked it up with Google, some articles explain how it works (well, at least the basics). Who am I going to believe? Computer technology guru Pieper or HITOKAGE FROM TEH GAYMING AGE FORUMS?

So a random guy with no mathematical background spends 20 years developing a magical digital media storage and compression system in his garage that somehow is able to compress 2690GB worth of A/V data (16 2 hr movies at dvd resolution uncompressed) into 64 kilobytes and with neglible computation to boot....

Yeah. Have you not heard that story about a young Dutch boy whose hobby was playing around with electronics and found a way to increase the lifespan of Philips light bulbs by 300%? Same thing. You don't have to be a scientist in a white coat to discover something revolutionary. Who are you to say that this is bullshit? Because if it's true, then obviously you don't know jack shit about it, or else YOU would have 100 billion bucks now, right?