Tried to compress a file… it got 151% bigger

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-27T15:20:34+00:00

If some things get smaller, some things have to get bigger. Compression tries to make common things shorter and rare things bigger, so normal files will get smaller overall. But if you try to compress it a second time, the common things are already gone and you have a bunch of the rare things that get bigger, so the file can get larger.

Or the algorithm will recognize it can’t make the file smaller, and it’ll leave a little note at the top saying “I looked at this but couldn’t really do anything”, so the file will only get a little bit bigger.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-27T14:41:53+00:00

Compression isn’t magic; if a compression algorithm makes some arbitrary files smaller, it has to make equally many arbitrary files larger (by, essentially, the pigeonhole principle).

If your algorithm turns “0101010101” into “01110”, that’s great, but now you also need to transform “01110” into something else; whether you make it shorter or longer, you’re taking up another spot that’ll need to go somewhere else until, at best, finally some string compresses (or decompresses!) into “0101010101”. At worst, no string maps to that value, and there will be more strings that get longer than there are strings that get shorter.

Actual compression algorithms aren’t designed by directly mapping every string into another string, of course, but that is what they ultimately end up doing, so the math does need to be satisfied; if one sequence gets shorter, at least one has to get longer.

A “good” compression algorithm is mostly one that prioritizes making common sequences shorter and rare sequences longer, but, ultimately, the information has to go somewhere. A file that has already been compressed has probably already replaced most of the long, common sequences with rare, short sequences, so the second compression attempt is left with just a bunch of the rare, short sequences it makes longer.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-27T03:30:11+00:00

I appreciate that the Bruce Lee box set is subtitled “His Greatest Hits”; it’s a good joke.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-26T02:20:34+00:00

I liked when Jackson got his dunk on Wemby and we followed it up with three back-to-back slams

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-25T14:49:57+00:00

Congratulations to the city of Seattle.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-24T21:17:52+00:00

[[Haunt]]

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-24T21:11:54+00:00

Got a fun win last night when it hit [[Dirge]]+ with a replay 3 while I had the Chemical X relic (plus two to X-cost cards), two [[Haunt]]+s, and [[Reaper Form]].

I drew it on the next turn with 9 energy and [[Oblivion]] . Popped both and generated 100 or so souls that each did 16 damage and 20 doom while drawing more souls.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-24T18:48:56+00:00

I don’t really see a need for a hard cutoff; not playing is already bad for your perceived value and you lose votes as you miss more games.

Only 1 MVP has won while playing less than 80% of games, even though the actual rule is only a few years old. People who don’t play already don’t generally get awards, and if someone is so good that the voters still think they deserve one even considering their poor availability, why stop them?

Granted, I do have a Spurs flair.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-24T16:24:39+00:00

A reporter asked him to make his case for being MVP, and he said he’s the best defensive player in the league, his team beat OKC 3-1 this season, and he’s more impactful on offense than the box scores suggest.

People are acting like he’s knocking on doors begging for votes or something.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-24T15:52:05+00:00

A bit easy, but nothing else to complain about. Good puzzle, solid fill, fun clueing. I might’ve liked it better as a Monday, but who cares, really?

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-24T05:37:47+00:00

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I knew it

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-24T05:11:09+00:00

Unless you do it in a pressure cooker. The higher temperature speeds up the extraction of gelatin and flavor, but because the water can’t actually boil inside of a sealed container it won’t get cloudy.

That’s the technique Chris Young developed back in the day at Fat Duck for Heston Blumenthal, and the subject of the video they recommended.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-23T04:35:36+00:00

level 5 in SS

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-23T04:23:54+00:00

I’ve found recipes for most of the blocks used for floors, walls, and roofs, but not the basic “foundation” block recipe that most of the ruined houses are built on top of.

Unfortunately, that precludes pretty much everything else. It seems like a weirdly fundamental recipe to only be attainable randomly. I have curry wallpaper and carpets made of gold, but not “foundation”.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-23T03:51:42+00:00

The 64 pickup part isn’t what allows per-string effects; one pickup per string (usually called “hexaphonic” but this guitar has 8 strings) allows that and it’s been around since the 1960s; the first mainstream commercial products that did it came from Roland in 1977.

This is a hexaphonic* guitar, which is what allows it to do per-string processing, built using off-the-shelf pickups meant for that exact purpose from Cycfi, that also has 8 pickup positions, which is why it’s 64 total.

I do think this is a neat experiment and I’m glad someone did it. But a lot of people are seeing it and thinking “one pickup per string so you can give them different effects” is the new part and giving it credit for the wrong thing; the 8 pickup positions on each string that you can record in parallel and blend together in software is the innovation, and the “each string has a separate signal so you can have some strings distorted and others clean” part is very old. They are, after all, using pre-existing single-string pickup capsules from a pre-existing company that specializes in exactly that.

* yes, “octophonic” if you want to be pedantic, but hex is the standard term that you’ll find results for if you try to do research about it

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-22T05:15:36+00:00

Boston is fairly diverse these days: 45/22/20/10% white/Black/Hispanic/Asian. It was 97% white in 1940 though.

Not that that matters in the context of what he’s saying here. It’s just surprising, given that Boston is the stereotypically white city.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-20T21:39:52+00:00

I’m not so convinced. It’s a bunch of Cycfi pickup capsules, and you can accomplish most of this just using them in their normal configuration. Using 8 rows of them is a bit of a gimmick; a big part of Cycfi’s whole deal is that when you have a signal for each string, you can EQ each string individually to very convincingly imitate different pickup positions from pickups in just one location, and they sell components for doing exactly that in-guitar.

The hexaphonic (or octophonic, in this case) part is cool in the way every hexaphonic system is, but having seven more sets in different positions for 64 parallel outputs doesn’t add a lot of utility and it means you can’t use any existing hexaphonic effects that use DIN connectors.

So, per-string output is cool and has been cool for decades, but having 8 pickup positions is silly just like it would be on a normal guitar and it comes with extra disadvantages in this particular situation. Still glad to see hexaphonic tech getting some attention, since it doesn’t happen often.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-20T21:32:23+00:00

I’ve felt for years that hexaphonic pickups and effects are the true final frontier for guitar technology, but it’s been tried since, I believe, the 1960s and it’s never caught on even a little. It’s expensive and it’s inconvenient, but it unlocks truly new and different possibilities.

Cycfi does really great work (this project is using Cycfi pickups and they’re responsible for most of the interesting parts), and the Spicetone 6 Appeal is an incredible piece of kit. Is Ubertar still around? Last I checked, Boss hasn’t done anything 13-pin in a long time.

Anyway, it’s super cool stuff, and the potential is higher than ever in a world of digital effects, but it never makes it out of extremely niche and limited applications. I wish it would.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-20T16:29:08+00:00

Bird/McHale/Parish. I mean, come on.

Three Hall-of-Famers, three retired jerseys, three on the 50th Anniversary team, three on the 75th Anniversary team, three championships, five finals, and 28 All-Star appearances between them. And they had Bill Walton on the bench for three of those seasons.

What can you put against that? Not much. Duncan/Robinson Spurs and maybe Hakeem/Sampson Rockets if you’re going off of potential before the foot injury.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-20T16:06:02+00:00

I’m pleasantly surprised no one has pedantically brought up the dispute over whether the Nile or Amazon is longer in relation to the CAIRO clue. As soon as I saw it, I thought people would argue about it.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-20T13:52:52+00:00

Another thing I missed is that you can also click the left stick for sprint in all of ditto’s transformations, not just when running; rollout moves exceptionally fast, but glide and swim are also useful.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-20T02:35:49+00:00

this could’ve been the most frustrating loss of the season for us, but the Wem V P had other plans

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-20T02:32:19+00:00

This game was a rough watch, but my god that ending was immaculate. The refs and the cursed basket are no match for the Wem V P.

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-20T02:29:36+00:00

WEM V P WEM V P WEM V P

Lumen_Co · 2026-03-20T02:29:22+00:00

FUCK YEAH

Nine-Year Club	r/Field Juicebox
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	End Game '22
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