This Interactive Explainer Makes Digital Compression Stunningly Clear
Digital compression helps make the internet possible, but there's a good chance you hardly notice it or have any idea how it works1. Ten minutes with this website by Jack Preston will expand your knowledge on compression.
"Compression Decompressed" is an interactive explainer that trades definitions and proofs for GIFs and hands-on demos. It goes from really basic compression problems (how do you represent a string of letters more efficiently?) to fundamental, big-T Truths about how we digitally encode information.
Anybody who likes to binge shows on streaming services or hoard the choicest memes should take the time to learn a little bit about compression. If we couldn't make big files smaller, everything online would load much slower and we'd all need bigger hard drives. Every bit of information compression trims off the top saves us time and money.
That's why it made perfect sense that the mega-corp from HBO's "Silicon Valley" wanted to get their hands on Pied Piper's astonishingly efficient compression algorithm — the hunt for better compression methods is a huge deal in real life. Making the show's MacGuffin a hyper-efficient algorithm also set up the smartest dick joke ever written, but I digress.
Granted, sometimes the results of compression can be ugly or annoying. Who hasn't sighed in frustration when Netflix goes from crystal-clear HD to blurry, blocky mess for seemingly no reason? That said, we should all be thankful for compression and for Preston's surprisingly fun primer on it. If you were being efficient with your time, you would have moved on to working through "Compression Decompressed."
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You're still here? Hop to it already!
In some ways we are all Hank Hill incredulously screaming "Do I look like I know what a JPEG is?" (Seriously, this video is loud. But also very funny. Life is a series of compromises.)
