Compression of random binary data

[Steve D'Aprano]

On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 02:40 am, Lele Gaifax wrote:

> Steve D'Aprano <steve+python at pearwood.info> writes:
> 
>> But given an empty file, how do you distinguish the empty file you get
>> from 'music.mp3' and the identical empty file you get from 'movie.avi'?
> 
> That's simple enough: of course one empty file would be
> "music.mp3.zip.zip.zip", while the other would be
> "movie.avi.zip.zip.zip.zip.zip"... some sort of
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_memory applied to file system entries
> :-)


Does that mean if I name an empty file 

serenity2-by-joss-whedon.avi.zip.zip.zip.zip.zip

Dancerswithnumbers' magic algorithm will recreate the movie from some
alternative universe where it actually exists?

Awesome.


-- 
Steve
“Cheer up,” they said, “things could be worse.” So I cheered up, and sure
enough, things got worse.