way too funny…
I was reading a discussion on Slashdot tonight about how Wikipedia is planning to release a DVD version of their article database. Some guy on slashdot made a rather hilarious comment about why the German version of the DVD will be smaller in size then the English version:
Deutche has an amazing built-in fractal encoding scheme. For example, the German version may say:
Gerflugenichterschweitzenbaggen.
whereas the English version has to write out:
Shortly after September 11, 2001, the United States attempted to rally its allies for a strike against the presumed Al-Queda stronghold in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, the RAR algorithm averages a 3% compression ratio on German text, in comparison to 82% for English and 94% for French - it’s like bzipping a .gz file. On the other hand, there are significant savings due to the lack of entries on “sweet nothings”, “pillow talk”, and “Bavarian romantic verse”.
I thought his post was extremely funny. Of course, the humor I find in it might just be because it’s 0026 hrs, and my brain is 3/4 shut down.
G’nite all.
Discussion Area - Leave a Comment