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Ideas tagged with computer science

Average difference entropy

Calculating Shannon entropy on octet streams can be confusing, especially with those who lack a background in mathematics. It's also not necessary in many cases. A more intuitive calculation, which is also easier to implement, involves calculating the average difference. An informal descripti...

By Tim McNamara

Extending run-length encoding to support arbitrary byte streams with hexadecimal notation

Conventionally, run-length encoding is restricted to a fixed alphabet. Because the encoded form is often transmitted over human-readable media, this alphabet is usually restricted to printed characters. That makes run-length encoding unsuitable for transmitting arbitrary byte strings. To addr...

By Tim McNamara