File Compression To Detect Life?

Tech writes "Until a few years ago, whenever geobiologists found an ancient rock looked like a fossilized stromatolite, they figured it was a stromatolite, a layered structure built by colonies of microorganisms. But in 1996 it was shown that stromatolite-like structures could be formed through a simple chemical process. So how does one separate the wheat from the chaff, the true stromatolites from the fakes? Frank Corsetti and Michael Storrie-Lombardi think they may have found a way. Their approach is simplicity itself: Create a digital image of the rock; then compress the image file. The more the file shrinks, the more likely it is that life was responsible for building the layers."

Re:YADP

[WWWAvenger]

We shouldn't need an acronym for this.

Detecting...

[WWWAvenger]

Is there a way we can use this amazing compression technology to detect duplicate posts?

Re:Detecting...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

The funny thing is that the answer is probably yes!

Dupe

[alwayslurking]

Original here, still on the front page for science [slashdot.org]

Amazing!

[tweder]

Now if only they could use this technology to detect duplicate articles, we'd be set!

Re:Amazing!

[WWWAvenger]

Amen. ::Grumble::

Re:Amazing!

[SeanAhern]

Now if we could only get it to eradicate redundant comments...

Re:Amazing!

[Telastyn]

Actually, given how gzip works, you could probably use the same method to detect dupe articles... :]

Re:Amazing!

[orkysoft]

Actually, Slashdot already uses it to distinguish real posts from trolls.

Are sweeps over?

[foistboinder]

I'm starting to see reruns.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Daddypants, help me!

[Universal Nerd]

I feel sorry for you subscribers, you may get a peek at stories before they come out yet CmdrTaco wants you guys to do the dirty work of checking dupes, that they ignore obviously, and spelling. Check out Taco's diary, it's from a few months ago when he states his plans for the subscribers.

I'd gladly pay for Slashdot when Slashdot starts being worth paying for.

Re:Daddypants, help me!

[Universal Nerd]

Here's the journal entry [slashdot.org]

Re:Daddypants, help me!

[Surye]

all that journal shows me is an attempt at making this a better place. Imagine tring to please everyone on /., that's a joke, I think he's doing a good job at attempting to balance it.

Re:Daddypants, help me!

[PeterClark]

What do you think this is, Kuro5hin? :)

April 2, 2003

[Henry V .009]

April Fool!

...all year long.

Hmm....

[daeley]

Looks like the evil bit has struck again, which means the terrorists have already won.

Duplicate Moderatoion

[ParamonKreel]

There should be on articles in the "Mysterious Future" the option for subscribers to mark it as a duplicate, avoiding this type of thing. Just a button / link somewhere in the blurb on the front page.

Just my 2 cents

Re:Duplicate Moderatoion

[DeadSea]

I noticed this was going to be posted in the mysterious future and sent an email to [e-mail] [mailto] (cmdrtaco says this goes to the admin on duty) a full 10 minutes before it went live.

I guess sometimes daddypants just isn't responsive (darn michael).

Thank you.

[rco3]

Yesterday, I requested that the April Fool gag be continued beyond April 1. I also requested that more stories be duplicated.

I have been heard. My wishes have clearly been your command. Let's see, what shall I ask for now? How about...

Oh, yeah, here's a good one. HOW ABOUT SOME EDITORS WITH A FSCKING CLUE?

Dorks.

OFFICIAL NOTICE

[TheSHAD0W]

Considering how jaded and uneducated most of the inhabitants of this planet have become, it has been decided that a single day of pranks is insufficient to commemorate the stupidity they can be capable of.

THEREFORE, the month of April is designated as National April Fool's month.

IN ADDITION, April 15th is designated as the National Ultimate Fool's Day. It is also the deadline for filing Federal Income Tax Returns. Please note that this is not a coincidence.

Yes, but can it detect the evil bit?

[wowbagger]

Yes, you can detect life by looking for duplicate patterns.

But does this technique correctly identify evil life forms and set their headers appropriately?

And does this mean that Slashdot is alive, or merely that the Slashdot editors are alive?

How does this work?

[ubiquitin]

There must be some periodicity that allows the compression algorithm to go further with images from living things. Any fft-based compression algorithm would pick up on that. Kewl. You could probably do something similar with satellite images to pick out man-made structures, since these would have greater periodicity (think of sectioned fields in the midwest or city streets spaced by blocks) than natural structures such as the fractal-like shapes of rivers and mountains.

Patterns and Redundancy

[jensend]

In other words, things with patterns and redundancy compress better, so compression can be used to detect patterns and redundancy.

Now, what can we think of with lots of patterns and redundancy besides images of lifeforms? How about starting with...

SLASHDOT DUPES