3 ms·

I've never understood the fascination here. Apparently some expression relating the number of possible symbols and the length of a message is closer to euler's

I've never understood the fascination here. Apparently some expression relating the number of possible symbols and the length of a message is closer to euler's number. I don't see why the product of those things is worth optimizing for. The alphabet size that works best is dictated by the storage technology, more symbols usually means it's harder to disambiguate. 2 is the smallest amount of symbols needed to encode information, and makes it the easiest to disambiguate symbols in any implementation, good enough for me.

kingstnap 1y ago
The idea is roughly that the effort needed to use a system is in some situations ~propto the number of symbols * the number of needed positions. Here's a concrete example, imagine you needed to create some movable type because you are creating a printing press. And you need to represent all numbers upto 100 million. In binary you need to make 53 pieces, in ternary 50, in octal 69 pieces, in decimal 81 and in hexadecimal 101.
- alphazard 1y ago
  > In binary you need to make 53 pieces, in ternary 50, in octal 69 pieces, in decimal 81 and in hexadecimal 101. These numbers don't quite make sense to me. Hexadecimal should have 16 symbols, and then `log16(whatever) = message length`. I get what you're trying to say though. That trend continues up until the symbols start looking the same and no one can read them, and now the most important problem is not a position on a tradeoff curve. It's that the system is no longer reliable. If you wanted each letter to have the highest probability of successfully being read, you would use a grid, and shade or leave blank each grid square.
  - kingstnap 1y ago
    The hex calculation is a bit like this 100 million in Hex is 5F5E100 You need 6*16 for the trailing + 5 pieces for the leading digit. If you wanted to do any number from 0 to 100 million.
  - layla5alive 1y ago
    I love that you described a QR code (minus mentioning the squares reserved for positioning, orientation, etc.)

kingstnap 1y ago

The idea is roughly that the effort needed to use a system is in some situations ~propto the number of symbols * the number of needed positions. Here's a concrete example, imagine you needed to create some movable type because you are creating a printing press. And you need to represent all numbers upto 100 million. In binary you need to make 53 pieces, in ternary 50, in octal 69 pieces, in decimal 81 and in hexadecimal 101.

alphazard 1y ago
> In binary you need to make 53 pieces, in ternary 50, in octal 69 pieces, in decimal 81 and in hexadecimal 101. These numbers don't quite make sense to me. Hexadecimal should have 16 symbols, and then `log16(whatever) = message length`. I get what you're trying to say though. That trend continues up until the symbols start looking the same and no one can read them, and now the most important problem is not a position on a tradeoff curve. It's that the system is no longer reliable. If you wanted each letter to have the highest probability of successfully being read, you would use a grid, and shade or leave blank each grid square.
- kingstnap 1y ago
  The hex calculation is a bit like this 100 million in Hex is 5F5E100 You need 6*16 for the trailing + 5 pieces for the leading digit. If you wanted to do any number from 0 to 100 million.
- layla5alive 1y ago
  I love that you described a QR code (minus mentioning the squares reserved for positioning, orientation, etc.)