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Challenge to JREF techies: Visible Video code on a postage stamp?

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EdZiomek

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I am challenging the JREF audience with a brain teaser I am discussing on two other websites.

Is it possible to create a visible representation of the contents of 60 minutes of video, arguably 28mbs x 60 seconds, x 60 minutes, on something the size of a postage stamp, 1" by 1"?

For example, can I have a number system that is so large, that a series of these numbers could be deciphered using only normal 20-20 eyesight, and that these extremely large number-characters could sequentially represent a video data stream that could be recombined into a 50 minute video?

I have come up with a method that might give me 6 minutes of video, using a contrived unique character number system of 0 to 100,000, and a series of these numbers might give me a data stream out to ??? 78 places or so. That is not enough. Imagine a DVD with one continuous string of data bits and stop bits and synch bits, all on one continuous line, with one "virtual" alphanumeric number representing it.

The whole concept is that magnetic storage material has a life of ??? 10 years or so. CDs have a life expectancy of what? What if all CDs and DVDs had a printout of this number, which someone in 200 years could reproduce providing they still had the code I am suggesting. Can you imagine all the information that will be lost because it is stored on magnetic media, with no known copy or recovery method?

Note: I am not asking for your solution, only your opinion if your concepted solution IS doable.

I am holding my breath, because I half expect somebody already has done it.
 
not sure what you are asking here. There are media formats smaller than a postage stamp that are neither magnetic nor optical. There are already codes to shrink the size of video files, called codecs. But if you are asking if the entirety of a 60 minute video can be printed as code text onto a postage stamp, the answer is no. (unless if you are talking about an extremely low resolution, low frame rate video with low color depth and no sound...)
 
Too big for me I think.

I have a program by ULEAD for animated gifs which could handle the format and make it the correct size. The hour long part would be the killer though. Instead of an average GIF of about 50KB it would be a ga-zillion KB long, LOL. I would have to read the instruction book to see if it could handle a file that large.

Uncle Frank

 
Easy:

Just enumerate all possible videos you ever want to encode.

Then print the enumeration and let decompression take care of the rest...
 
Maybe it can be done, maybe not....

Thanks for all the responses...

Possibly you ARE giving me better answers, and correct answers, but let me restate the challenge...

My flawed solution so far...

Think of a alpha-numeric number system that could represent all numbers individually, within one iconic character, from 0 to 1 quintillion quintillion (Frank, I made that up!)

Example, Estimated
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 space-values in a single alpha-numeric iconic character, or series of characters, that could be recreated into a video data stream. The whole idea is to be able to read it with normal eyesight, no computers involved at the data input level. Of course, it would take a computer to translate this symbol into a usable data stream.

0 to ....9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999.... in one single iconic character!

And, by my estimate, this number can only give me 6 minutes of 28 mega-bits-per-second video. Not good enough!

I guess I am asking that one re-invents the number system. What can one single space of 5 pica type display to the visible eye?

One idea...
Can a recognizable English language character be modified to show the central character plus clock-mark hyphens in a circular pattern which can expand the meaning?

For example, the English letter, Capital "A"
A-no-hyphen =11
A-1 o'clock hyphen =128 +11 =139
A-2 o'clock hyphen = 128+128+11 = 267
etc.

"A" with a 1-o'clock asterisk, and a 2-o'clock hyphen = 1536 +128 +11 =1575
"B" with a 1-o'clock asterisk, and a 2-o'clock hyphen = 1536 +128 +12 =1576
etc.

By the way, I am not sure I have a working solution, yet, so I can't say it can be done...but I strongly suspect if I can get to 6 minutes of video in a single iconic character....why not 60 minutes from an expert? Or 6000 minutes?

And why couldn't a mega-iconic number-character be displayed onto a postage stamp, or laser cut in stone?

I am sure many others are concerned about the longevity of magnetic and stored media, and this may be a solution. But I don't have the solution yet.
 
Any visual representation of a high-base number system would be less efficient than simply printing dots.

Say I devised a base-1000000 number system with 1000000 symbols. I would presumably need about a 15x15 dot space to make them distinct. So I can represent about 20 bits in a 15x15 space.

But if I used the same space to simply print dots, and used dots of 8 different colors, I would be able to print 15x15x3 = 675 bits in that same space.

There are limits to how small of an object the human eye can detect, and a limit to the number of colors it can distinguish when they are tiny dots. Let's generously say the limit is .25mm and 16 colors, then a 1"x1" postage stamp could hold 4 x 25.4 x 25.4 x 4 = about 10322 bits.
 
Your thinking is very flawed, Ed. A value between 0 and 1 quintillion quintillion is about 120 bits, or 15 bytes. That's not even enough to store this post.
 
No, let me try again.

Jimmyseal....120 bits? You are not being serious here, are you!

I will try it a third time, obviously I didn't articulate it well enough.

A quintillion-quintillion value spaces, let's say 120 to the 120th spaces, each space valued from 0 to a quintillion-quintillion of alpha-numeric value.

What I need might be much less.
Good video: 28 megabits per second, x 60 seconds, x 60 minutes.

100,800,000,000 bits, or bit-values in a data stream, that is the minimum goal, in one iconic character, or few series of iconic characters.

You control the number system! Our number system is limited to what? Trillion symbolic? Billion symbolic? If there is a number system that defines the mega numbers, then it is much easier. Quintillion quintillion, to the 100k power? No symbol available.

Maybe all that is needed is a mega number code, above the trillion level?
 
Again, as I explained in post #6, any human-recognizable symbolic representation of numbers would be less space efficient than a simple array of colored visible dots, and such an array, itself, wouldn't be able to represent much data.
A .5'x.5' space, at 90 dpi monochrome would be able to represent at most 2^2025 unique symbols, which is tantamount to saying 2025 bits. Use four of those and you've already filled the whole space storing less than a kilobyte.
 
While we bemoan the loss of some past things and the potential loss of some current things, the simple fact is that the loss of much of the ancient stuff was no real loss to modern society, and neither will the loss of much of what we churn out be disastrous to our progeny centuries down the line.

The folks who ran the library at Alexandria have already amply displayed the futility of such projects, and the fact that we get along just fine with just a miniscule portion of the combined output of centuries of our forebears displays the lack of necessity.
 
Dis-believers? Sure, why not.

JimmySeal and Mike Cash, wow!

You've got the secrets of humanity down so good, why bother with anything new or different? Congratulations.

I mean, everything's been answered right? Everything has been accomplished? Why question? Why strive? What could the ancients have known, that we need to know, isn't that what you are saying?

I take the opposite side of the coin. I am humbled by what some of the ancients knew, that we don't know today. Pharmaceuticals. Gem cutting. Metallurgy. Astronomy. Farming/Horticulture. Mathematics. Ceramics. Architecture. Fabric-manufacture. Navigation.

Its like a turquoise necklace, dated 2000 BC, with stone beads the size of tweezer heads...they drilled holes in them to string them together. I'm sure that such talent would be hard to duplicate by most humans of today, and maybe not by anyone, without special equipment.

You might not be, but I'm impressed.

Jimmy...2025 individual symbols in a .5" by .5" space? How about one symbolic, with 2,000,000 'visible additives', in a .25" x .25" space? (Hyphens, asterisks, stars, crosses, etc)

If you are dead set against the idea, I accept.
 
Where is Albert Einstien when you need him. I am sure he would solve this problem and gives us an answer we could all understand.

Is this size just too small?
 
EdZiomek said:
Jimmy...2025 individual symbols in a .5" by .5" space? How about one symbolic, with 2,000,000 'visible additives', in a .25" x .25" space? (Hyphens, asterisks, stars, crosses, etc)
Click to expand...

2,000,000 printed items in 1/16 of a square inch? Do you have microscopes for eyeballs? Maybe that's why we don't seem to be on the same page.
 
not on same page, you are right.

Jim, your quote..."2,000,000 printed items in 1/16 of a square inch?"

You say 1/16 of a square inch. I say one quarter inch by one quarter inch - drive a truck through it. I think I could accomplish it much smaller than this, but let me make the point in numbers you can understand.

"2,000,000 printed items", no, I never said that. An iconic symbol number system that represents 2,000,000 individual numbers, or 20 million, or 200 million. Create a number system that represents a data stream 100,800 million bits long.

It is not a dotted colorized code, but maybe your idea could also work. It is a symbolic code that represents a mega numbering system.

Jimmy...please, don't feel you have to contribute beyond your stated objections. We are accomplishing the same hash as three messages ago, now we are just spamming and diluting this thought process. I say it is possible, you say impossible, fine, point noted!
 
As I've already demonstrated many times, if a number system has 200 million distinct symbols, it can only represent, at most, 27 bits with one symbol. I know 200 million seems like a big number to you, but that's how data representation works.

If you somehow devised a number system with 10^100000 distinct symbols (33336 bits of information contained in each symbol), not only would you not be much closer to your goal, there is no possible set of that many symbols such that even a single symbol would fit in a 1"x1" space.

You seem to have no idea what you are talking about. If I am mistaken about that point, please give a concrete example of a large number system of the sort you are talking about. I am giving rational arguments for why such a system cannot exist, and rather than refuting them, all you have to say is, "stop being such a naysayer."


I'm not just being pessimistic here. I'm giving valid arguments for why such a thing is not feasible. It is possible to prove the impossibility of some things.
 
Last edited:
Why people lose interest in JREF threads? Bickering on nothingness.

Oh well, it was a valid try, and I am busted into apathy.

Good luck.
 
Bickering on nothingness? Oh no, my dear boy. I was trying to give you the most valuable response you could get. Now you can abandon this fruitless pursuit and go do something useful

You're welcome.
 
You miss my larger point.

Even if you manage to get an hour's worth of video encoded in visible form on something the size of a postage stamp, you still have the much much much larger task of ensuring the survival of the postage stamp down through the centuries. Not to mention the fact that even of the things we do still have available to us from the past, only a tiny portion of it is accessed. We keep creating things not all of which stand the test of time. For example, I used to think it unspeakably tragic that only 1/3 of the episodes of the radio program The Shadow still survive. Then I listened to them and came to the conclusion that everything after Orson Welles departed the program was largely worthless tripe anyway. Conversely, I'd love to go back and time and throttle the idiots at Proctor & Gamble who destroyed over 3,000 episodes of Vic & Sade.

Sure, the ancients no doubt wrote tons of interesting things that it would be fascinating to still have. I don't dispute that at all. But human being being human beings, there was no doubt a major amount of tripe that was tripe at the time and would still be tripe today. We're no worse off for not having still in existence every little scrap of everything man has ever created. Some of it is a tragic loss to humanity; but the rest ended up on the ash-heap of history where it so richly belonged. Or would you have me believe Dude, Where's My Car? is going to be a high priority item for preservation if you ever get this system perfected?
 
semi-final

200 million individual numbers. No. Too small. Too short.

Postage stamp? How about a single iconic character lasered into a stone memorial character, something like inside-a-corn-seed size.

And I have contacted a patent attorney, and will document it out, and if I am real lucky, be granted a patent, so the world can steal it with simple adjustments. I think that is the way it works, and I accept those terms. I always come up with the show, but never had the go. Never did. Never needed to.

I presented the challenge-idea on this JREF site, as I have presented other ideas, because I don't think Americans care about science and technology anymore. Why be creative when somebody else can invent it?

It is not an argue point, or a name-calling task, unless one is closed minded, or thugged out, and then it is not the place where I want to be, or the audience I am targeting that can handle a theoretical discussion.

The only compromise I have made with my idea is to segment the data stream up into usable video packets. It is no immediate need to convert an entire 60 minute stream of video into a single character, when all a computer probably needs is a 60 second head start-segment, then converts followup number/symbols on a sequential basis.

Bottom line, I think I have done it, so I will present it to a patent attorney.

Note: 200,000,000 bit stream is ...??? ....6 seconds of video? Sure!
 
Looking forward very much to hearing what your patent attorney has to say.
 
Again, you jest...

Jim...

What do all attorneys say, Jim?

"Money up front, and I'm a believer too!"

As I live and breathe, when I get it all done, and show you, it is almost as retarded simple as ..."the sky is blue."

I had to get over calling it a "number" as opposed to a "data stream coded symbol".

Let me give you a clue...the old story...King says to loyal servant ...name me what you want..."take a chess board, one rice kernel first square, double it till you fill every square". Loyal servant bankrupts the nation, loses his head to angry king. And I ask you...how many grains of rice on the last square?

And you say, that is easy... "1 +(2 to the xxth square value)".....where xx is the number of squares minus two.
Answer, maybe...140,737,488,355,328.

And I ask you...How many grains of rice on the whole board?

Oh, that's easy.... 1+ 2sq1+2sq2+....2sq47.

You don't need to know the end number or any of the middle numbers when the formula is brain dead easy, and let the computer crunch the rest if you can't write a software program to handle it. You know the first number, you know the formula, and you write the answer in a single graphic character code which you invent....

-Great idea Mr. Z, and my price is.....$$$$$$$$$$ -those will be his exact words.
 
final say

First of all, my mathematic ultimately failed, and I failed to accomplish what I was trying to do. My mathematics could give amazingly large numeric numbers, call them data streams of unfathomable size. The problem was that the incremental task of let us say, adding one data bit in size, to the middle of the equation data stream (try and imagine trillions of byte-streams of data), which caused unfathomable problems in the remainder. It is undoable, as others have said.

So I failed miserably on this "next step".

I still believe it is possible, to incrementally represent an entire data stream, like a video stream, in a single image the size of a corn kernel.

Even though my system could count to staggering levels, way beyond all known or useful counting systems, I didn't come close to what I needed. I failed, but it was a great mental exercise in the process.

At the same time, Israeli scientists put an entire Bible, in written literal form, on some object the size of a rice kernel. Ultra microscopic, for text, not a video stream.

So technically, their single image was the actual writing, call it an electron microscope etching, of an entire book.

While I failed, other persons made amazing progress and achievements that are similar in concept.

I still believe someone will do it.
 
EdZiomek said:
At the same time, Israeli scientists put an entire Bible, in written literal form, on some object the size of a rice kernel.
Click to expand...

Did that include the New Testament too? Did they manage to get Jesus' words printed in red?
 
Wonder why the Israelis didn't go ahead and do the New Testament while they were at it....
 
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