6 ms·

Not only is this a great read, but the follow up for citations is replied with "I am the reference". If this were reddit I'd post the hot fire gif. Eh, here i

Not only is this a great read, but the follow up for citations is replied with "I am the reference". If this were reddit I'd post the hot fire gif. Eh, here it's anyway: http://i.imgur.com/VQLGJOL.gif http://i.imgur.com/VQLGJOL.gif

dragontamer 10y ago
I thought he was joking. Then I read the name: Adler: as in Adler-32 (the checksum function that zlib uses). Then I knew it was real. The darn author of zlib answered the question. That's as close as you're gonna get to "primary source" folks!
- kbenson 10y ago
  And then someone helpfully posted his wikipedia bio in a comment: FYI: Mark Adler is an American software engineer, and has been heavily involved in space exploration. He is best known for his work in the field of data compression as the author of the Adler-32 checksum function, and a co-author of the zlib compression library and gzip. He has contributed to Info-ZIP, and has participated in developing the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format. Adler was also the Spirit Cruise Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. (wikipedia) That's quite a résumé.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  Plus his profile lists http://zlib.net http://zlib.net as his personal page
- bumbledraven 10y ago
  Mark Adler is such a boss. Check out his answers to space questions on http://space.stackexchange.com/users/265/mark-adler http://space.stackexchange.com/users/265/mark-adler
  - shagie 10y ago
    My personal favorite Adler SE post is in code golf: http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/78901 http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/78901 - Compute the Adler-32 checksum
- phkahler 10y ago
  >> That's as close as you're gonna get to "primary source" folks! Yes it is. Whenever I think of PKzip I am reminded of the sad tale of Phil Katz death - partly because I share his first and last initials, and now reading his Wikipedia page I see we had more in common. Fortunately alcoholism is not my thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz
  - allenu 10y ago
    I remember reading that the creators of the ARC format sued Phil Katz for essentially taking their original source code and rebranding it PKARC (with assembly optimizations). They claim [1] that Katz did essentially the same thing with PKZIP. Can anyone verify these claims? I always thought it was an injustice that the original authors were treated poorly by the BBS community and treated like a big company despite just being run from home. [1] http://www.esva.net/~thom/philkatz.html http://www.esva.net/~thom/philkatz.html
    - kimmel 10y ago
      This is covered in the BBS Documentary[1]. A comparison of Phil Katz work showed he just renamed variables and moved things around. Phil rallied the BBS community to character assassinate Thom. The documentary is shot years later and Thom still breaks down and cries when talking about what happened. It is very sad. [1] http://bbsdocumentary.com/ http://bbsdocumentary.com/
      - WoodenChair 10y ago
        Crazy how that documentary appears to be not for sale in any form and DVDs on Amazon go for $3xx. Am I missing something?
        rsneekes 10y ago
        The page says: "Enhanced Digital Downloads of the BBS Documentary series are planned. Please sign up here: sales@bbsdocumentary.com if you wish to be notified." But it appears to be on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2B9EF89CE228ED0A https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2B9EF89CE228ED0A
twotwotwo 10y ago
Neat how involved he still is this long after the initial work. When brotli came out he implemented his own decoder (https://github.com/madler/brotli/ https://github.com/madler/brotli/) to check the spec, and got some things clarified in RFC. Brotli is pretty DEFLATE-y in spirit, with changes that take advantage of today's hardware (larger history window, contexts in the entropy encoding) and a bunch of tweaks (different match encoding, static dictionary, etc.). Also, as others mention, NASA mission engineer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Adler#Mars_exploration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Adler#Mars_exploration
- Ono-Sendai 10y ago
  On the other hand he isn't making new zlib versions. There are a lot of patches posted on the mailing list going nowhere. Also there's a valgrind issue I reported that he ignored.
ape4 10y ago
The list of methods looks exactly like this https://users.cs.jmu.edu/buchhofp/forensics/formats/pkzip.html https://users.cs.jmu.edu/buchhofp/forensics/formats/pkzip.ht...
shostack 10y ago
Reminds me of the time I took my friend to play D&D up in Lake Geneva with the Gygax family whom I had been gaming with for a bit. He ended up getting into an argument with Gary about why dwarven women would have beards (of all things). I remember having to kick him under the table and quickly whisper "This is Gary Gygax, he made the game. If he says they have beards they have beards!"
- kedean 10y ago
  I'd imagine the simplest answer would be "because Tolkien said so".
  - pklausler 10y ago
    Citation? The Jackson films don't count.
    - stormbrew 10y ago
      http://tolkien.cro.net/dwarves/women.html http://tolkien.cro.net/dwarves/women.html has some references. Some of this is also apparently expanded on in the various things Christopher Tolkien has published.

dragontamer 10y ago

I thought he was joking. Then I read the name: Adler: as in Adler-32 (the checksum function that zlib uses). Then I knew it was real. The darn author of zlib answered the question. That's as close as you're gonna get to "primary source" folks!

kbenson 10y ago
And then someone helpfully posted his wikipedia bio in a comment: FYI: Mark Adler is an American software engineer, and has been heavily involved in space exploration. He is best known for his work in the field of data compression as the author of the Adler-32 checksum function, and a co-author of the zlib compression library and gzip. He has contributed to Info-ZIP, and has participated in developing the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format. Adler was also the Spirit Cruise Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. (wikipedia) That's quite a résumé.
sliverstorm 10y ago
Plus his profile lists http://zlib.net http://zlib.net as his personal page
bumbledraven 10y ago
Mark Adler is such a boss. Check out his answers to space questions on http://space.stackexchange.com/users/265/mark-adler http://space.stackexchange.com/users/265/mark-adler
- shagie 10y ago
  My personal favorite Adler SE post is in code golf: http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/78901 http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/78901 - Compute the Adler-32 checksum
phkahler 10y ago
>> That's as close as you're gonna get to "primary source" folks! Yes it is. Whenever I think of PKzip I am reminded of the sad tale of Phil Katz death - partly because I share his first and last initials, and now reading his Wikipedia page I see we had more in common. Fortunately alcoholism is not my thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz
- allenu 10y ago
  I remember reading that the creators of the ARC format sued Phil Katz for essentially taking their original source code and rebranding it PKARC (with assembly optimizations). They claim [1] that Katz did essentially the same thing with PKZIP. Can anyone verify these claims? I always thought it was an injustice that the original authors were treated poorly by the BBS community and treated like a big company despite just being run from home. [1] http://www.esva.net/~thom/philkatz.html http://www.esva.net/~thom/philkatz.html
  - kimmel 10y ago
    This is covered in the BBS Documentary[1]. A comparison of Phil Katz work showed he just renamed variables and moved things around. Phil rallied the BBS community to character assassinate Thom. The documentary is shot years later and Thom still breaks down and cries when talking about what happened. It is very sad. [1] http://bbsdocumentary.com/ http://bbsdocumentary.com/
    - WoodenChair 10y ago
      Crazy how that documentary appears to be not for sale in any form and DVDs on Amazon go for $3xx. Am I missing something?
      - rsneekes 10y ago
        The page says: "Enhanced Digital Downloads of the BBS Documentary series are planned. Please sign up here: sales@bbsdocumentary.com if you wish to be notified." But it appears to be on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2B9EF89CE228ED0A https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2B9EF89CE228ED0A

twotwotwo 10y ago

Neat how involved he still is this long after the initial work. When brotli came out he implemented his own decoder (https://github.com/madler/brotli/ https://github.com/madler/brotli/) to check the spec, and got some things clarified in RFC. Brotli is pretty DEFLATE-y in spirit, with changes that take advantage of today's hardware (larger history window, contexts in the entropy encoding) and a bunch of tweaks (different match encoding, static dictionary, etc.). Also, as others mention, NASA mission engineer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Adler#Mars_exploration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Adler#Mars_exploration

Ono-Sendai 10y ago
On the other hand he isn't making new zlib versions. There are a lot of patches posted on the mailing list going nowhere. Also there's a valgrind issue I reported that he ignored.

ape4 10y ago

The list of methods looks exactly like this https://users.cs.jmu.edu/buchhofp/forensics/formats/pkzip.html https://users.cs.jmu.edu/buchhofp/forensics/formats/pkzip.ht...

shostack 10y ago

Reminds me of the time I took my friend to play D&D up in Lake Geneva with the Gygax family whom I had been gaming with for a bit. He ended up getting into an argument with Gary about why dwarven women would have beards (of all things). I remember having to kick him under the table and quickly whisper "This is Gary Gygax, he made the game. If he says they have beards they have beards!"

kedean 10y ago
I'd imagine the simplest answer would be "because Tolkien said so".
- pklausler 10y ago
  Citation? The Jackson films don't count.
  - stormbrew 10y ago
    http://tolkien.cro.net/dwarves/women.html http://tolkien.cro.net/dwarves/women.html has some references. Some of this is also apparently expanded on in the various things Christopher Tolkien has published.