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Re: VMs: Odd Thoughts
Thx Elmar :-)
Reminds me of even older CRC? (cyclic Redundicies checksums etc..)
for my 0.02 worth VMS is NOT "Lossy"..
but, hey, you give me a buck & i'll honestly give you 0.98 change :-)
best to you & yours
-=se=-
steve (STARS with a (center) DOT are MALE births/NOT STARS) ekwall
zip < crc ? ok ok...
Date: 19 Mar 2004 08:32:23 +0100
From: elvogt@xxxxxxxxxxx
Reply-To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: VMs: Odd Thoughts
Steve wrote:
> What does the term "lossy" mean regarding the vms?????
>
It means that in the encoding/decoding process information gets lost, and it's
not possible to reproduce an _exact_ copy of the original text by employing the
decoding algorithm alone.
For example, if you do a simple substitution cipher, then as long as you have
the key, you can retrieve the original message 1:1 -- "non-lossy."
But if you encode all the different vowels in your message with, say, a "0",
then a message like
"This is an example"
would read after encryption and decryption
"Th.s .s .n .x.mpl."
where each dot could represent any vowel. To fully restore the original text,
you've got to use your brains and make assumptions etc., which is beyond the
actual enciphering scheme -- in some cases, it might even be impossible to come
to an unambiguous solution. Such an enciphering procedure would therefore be
considered "lossy."
Usually, lossy procedures allow you to reduce the amount of data significantly.
In the computer world, Jpeg and Mpeg are lossy compressions, which still give
you a reasonable approximation of the original thing. As opposed to that, Zip
is a non-lossy algorithm.
Hope this helps,
Cheers,
Elmar, a software engineer bored at work
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