4 ms·
Random compression-related story time: I once had to run a program hundreds of times and capture all the stack traces to help the author catch a stochastic bug
by rcthompson 3y ago
Random compression-related story time:
I once had to run a program hundreds of times and capture all the stack traces to help the author catch a stochastic bug. I zipped up all the stack traces and sent the resulting file to the author. The compressed file was only a few dozen MB, and the uncompressed stack traces all together were only a few hundred MB... on my ZFS filesystem with compression enabled. When the author unzipped the file on their end, they were surprised to find around 10 GB of very repetitive stack traces.
- waltbosz 3y agoMy favorite uncompressed file size surprise comes from the world of Dreamcast game piracy. Pirates would publish game disc images in a ZIP file that was say 100mb. When uncompressed the iso file would be 750mb. The reason for the huge compression ratio was because the iso would contain a 600mb empty file, which compressed down to almost nothing. The purpose was so the when the image was burned to a cdr, the game data would be burned on the outer part of the physical media, and the empty file burned to the inner. The goal was to speed up read times when playing a game.
- crazygringo 3y agoThat’s really clever!
- ac2u 3y agoMemories flooding back of so many useless CD-Rs thrown in the bin until I could perfect the procedure of getting bootable CD-Rs with DiscJuggler/Nero