4 ms·

it's unfortunate that he is promoting the fractal image compression hoax. http://world.mathigon.org/Fractals http://world.mathigon.org/Fractals

• thomasfrank09 13y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't fractal image compression a real technique? However, I did read about a hoax in the 90's where there was a claim of a fractal compression technique that could reduce a file down to 1% of its original size, which turned out to just be a program that stored a reference to the file's location instead of an actual compressed file. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_compression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_compression http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=885055 http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=885055
  • spot 13y ago
    yes it's real but it's useless and unused. mentioning it without disclaimers is confusing. that wikipedia page was mostly written by one of the people behind the hoax.
    • Fr0styMatt 13y ago
      Do you have references? I'm curious; I've tried Googling but don't get a lot about the hoax part of it. Would be really interested in that story - the last I ever heard fractal compression being mentioned was to do with jpeg2000.