> It's not my fault that a file system uses up more space storing the same amount of data in two files rather than a single file.
It's not interesting to see people play word games with each other in the HN comments, so why is it interesting to see this kind of disingenuous behavior? Trolls have always existed. I don't get what's interesting about it.
The act of offering a cash prize to prove you wrong kind of makes you look like a jerk. It's assumed that you will use every loop hole at your disposal. Seeing the situation reversed so elegantly makes me root for the challenger.
As Patrick said, if he had gotten a 1000-byte file and sent a 999-byte file/decompressor file back, nobody would have counted the inode data as a part of the solution. Why count it now?
Because the solution specifically was for 1 file submitted, 2 files back (compressed and decompressor). This topic ise the next level trolling that went on. The summary and ng faw, explained why these file metagames aren't useful. They obscure the lack of a compression strategy (eg if the inode equivalent was 2ft of tape) by nature of dispersing information into the fs.
> Because the solution specifically was for 1 file submitted, 2 files back (compressed and decompressor).
Patrick:
I meant can I send you a decompressor and several compressed files whose total file size is less than the original uncompressed file and from which I can regenerate the original uncompressed file
Mike:
Sure.
Who's the bigger troll?
Putting up the initial challenge, especially with the accompanying commentary, is just as much trolling as that.
I do agree that this last sentence (the one you quoted) is very unfortunate and doesn't match the wit of the rest. A better closing remark might have been something on the lines of, “I never claimed to have performed any compression. I only claimed to have met the terms of the challenge. I asked if I can send multiple files and the response was ‘sure’. I provided the files; they meet the total file size criterion; and the script correctly reconstructs the original files.”