Overview
At some point we reach a physical limit of how fast we can send bits and if we want to send a large amount of information faster, we have to find a way to represent the same information with fewer bits - we must compress the data.Vocab
- Heuristic - a problem solving approach (algorithm) to find a satisfactory solution where finding an optimal or exact solution is impractical or impossible.
- Lossless Compression - a data compression algorithm that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data.
- Lossy Compression - (or irreversible compression) a data compression method that uses inexact approximations, discarding some data to represent the content. Most commonly seen in image formats like .jpg.
Resources
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Decode this message - Activity Guide (copy as MS Word, Google Doc)
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Activity Guide - Text Compression - Activity Guide (copy as MS Word, Google Doc)
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Activity Guide - Text Compression Heuristics - Activity Guide (copy as MS Word, Google Doc)