Would you believe it in trinary?

[Ericka]

You can compress information using trinary computers. The RGB channels on your monitor hold 1 byte for each channel in every pixel. So you can view the following image without having to even open up a text file. The only question is do you believe it?

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_120174526c1ed00aaa.jpg ('http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=1805')

Go ahead and try to guess what you are reading.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

You can compress information using trinary computers. The RGB channels on your monitor hold 1 byte for each channel in every pixel. So you can view the following image without having to even open up a text file. The only question is do you believe it?

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_120174526c1ed00aaa.jpg ('http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=1805')

Go ahead and try to guess what you are reading.


WTF?

[Loss Leader]

Seriously, WTF?

[c4ts]

It's a sailboat!

[quixotecoyote]

In case anyone is wondering WHY the OP is ridiculous, it's because it is completely misrepresenting binary and trinary systems.

Binary is a type of counting system, like the decimal system. Only instead of going 0,1,2,3,4 it would go 0,1,10,11,100. The wikipedia quote goes in depth, but all you need to coneptualize it is this
[in decimal system]After a digit reaches 9, an increment resets it to 0 but also causes an increment of the next digit to the left. In binary, counting is the same except that only the two symbols 0 and 1 are used. Thus after a digit reaches 1 in binary, an increment resets it to 0 but also causes an increment of the next digit to the left:

This next is a 'to the best of my knowledge'

Now it so happens that because the only digits in binary at 0 and 1, that makes it very adaptable to computer language, because 0 and 1 can be used to represent off and on states, which a very clear and simple way to build programs with. if 1 then x, if 0 then y. You can build incredibly complex structures on this simple foundation or 'is the circut on or off', and it's how all computers work.

As of the time of this post, trinary computers are only a theoretical consideration. Why Ericka is confused is that this binary computer is set to provide a display on a screen that shows a mix of the three primary colors. And somehow she's confused that fact that because the computer can display more than two things at the time, it must not be a binary computer. Why she thinks a visual scramble is evidence of this is beyond me.

[ImaginalDisc]

In case anyone is wondering WHY the OP is ridiculous, it's because it is completely misrepresenting binary and trinary systems.

Binary is a type of counting system, like the decimal system. Only instead of going 0,1,2,3,4 it would go 0,1,10,11,100. The wikipedia quote goes in depth, but all you need to coneptualize it is this


This next is a 'to the best of my knowledge'

Now it so happens that because the only digits in binary at 0 and 1, that makes it very adaptable to computer language, because 0 and 1 can be used to represent off and on states, which a very clear and simple way to build programs with. if 1 then x, if 0 then y. You can build incredibly complex structures on this simple foundation or 'is the circut on or off', and it's how all computers work.

As of the time of this post, trinary computers are only a theoretical consideration. Why Ericka is confused is that this binary computer is set to provide a display on a screen that shows a mix of the three primary colors. And somehow she's confused that fact that because the computer can display more than two things at the time, it must not be a binary computer. Why she thinks a visual scramble is evidence of this is beyond me.

I nominate you for the post of Explainer-of-Silly-OPs-that-No-One-Else-Can-Decipher.

[c4ts]

01100111011011110110010001100100011010010110010001 10100101110100

[Loss Leader]

Why Ericka is confused is that this binary computer is set to provide a display on a screen that shows a mix of the three primary colors. And somehow she's confused that fact that because the computer can display more than two things at the time, it must not be a binary computer. Why she thinks a visual scramble is evidence of this is beyond me.

I thought she might mean that since each pixel on a monitor can display, say 256 colors, we could assign a value to each color (1=A, 2=B, 35=%, 68=}, etc.) and then encode text as individual pixels. Then a very long text could be rendered as a muddy mess of pixels on the screen.

I don't know why anybody would do this, though. The code for the pixels doesn't look like it would be much shorter than the code for the original text document. Text documents don't take up much memory anyway. And it couldn't be read by a human or by another computer.

[bob_kark]

"Sorry, you are not an instant winner"

[c4ts]

I thought she might mean that since each pixel on a monitor can display, say 256 colors, we could assign a value to each color (1=A, 2=B, 35=%, 68=}, etc.) and then encode text as individual pixels. Then a very long text could be rendered as a muddy mess of pixels on the screen.

I don't know why anybody would do this, though. The code for the pixels doesn't look like it would be much shorter than the code for the original text document. Text documents don't take up much memory anyway. And it couldn't be read by a human or by another computer.

And then you could send that information across a hypothetical network of interconnected computers across the globe. Why, a project of that size is absurd!

[.13.]

I don't know why anybody would do this, though. The code for the pixels doesn't look like it would be much shorter than the code for the original text document. Text documents don't take up much memory anyway. And it couldn't be read by a human or by another computer.

It can be used as a way to hide messages in pictures. http://www.tsi.enst.fr/~maitre/tatouage/icip98/ta10_02.pdf

[c4ts]

It can be used as a way to hide messages in pictures. http://www.tsi.enst.fr/~maitre/tatouage/icip98/ta10_02.pdf

I had a program that was supposed to encode a .rar file into an existing .gif image, and it's supposed to change back if you rename the file extension. But whenever I tried it the picture turned to incomprehensible snow and renaming the extension just caused errors.

[Unnamed]

You can compress information using trinary computers. The RGB channels on your monitor hold 1 byte for each channel in every pixel. So you can view the following image without having to even open up a text file. The only question is do you believe it?

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_120174526c1ed00aaa.jpg ('http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=1805')

Go ahead and try to guess what you are reading.
I'm not sure why, but I tried to read that.

First of all, it's a JPEG so any message that you could have hidden there would be lost to compression.

Saving the image as raw data (I used the PPM format) shows that the pixels are almost entirely ASCII. So there could be a message there, after all.

However, plotting the frequency of the letters shows a perfect gaussian centered at 89 (letter "Y"). Contrast that with the same plot for this web page, which has clear peaks for the most used characters in english (t, e, i, o, s, space, etc.).

Compare with the following, which actually HAS a message inside:http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/51074527df97758c2.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=1815)

Your image is white noise, instead. What was the purpose?

[.13.]

I had a program that was supposed to encode a .rar file into an existing .gif image, and it's supposed to change back if you rename the file extension. But whenever I tried it the picture turned to incomprehensible snow and renaming the extension just caused errors.

I guess they've ironed out the kinks... :)

[Zygar]

Ericka split this into a Poll (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=65499). Read that thread if you are lost.

Not that it will help at all. This is Ericka we are talking about.

[Unnamed]

Thanks, Zygar. skeptic2 decoded the real image here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1979662&postcount=15). The one she posted in this thread is just a thumbnail.

But nobody will return my lost time, now.

[Rob Lister]

01100111011011110110010001100100011010010110010001 10100101110100

To which I say

12001102010200210 0012212100...because the OP demanded it.

[Soapy Sam]

Go ahead and try to guess what you are reading.


Complete nonsense?

[phildonnia]

You aware that jpg is a "lossy" compression, right?