Experiments in Data Compression w/David Cable
Details
Reinventing the Wheel for Miserable Fun
In this talk, we’ll take a deep dive into modern data compression—and then immediately ignore most sensible advice. I’ll walk you through a hopefully not-too-long sequence of failed experiments, near misses, and a few genuinely promising ideas from my ongoing attempt to beat the giants of compression and claim the Hutter Prize.
Along the way, we’ll explore why many clever transforms don’t help, why segmentation often beats sophistication, and why entropy coders keep quietly winning while the rest of us overthink everything.
P.S. You will probably learn more about data compression theory than anyone else on the planet.
P.P.S. This may not be strictly true, but it will feel true.
P.P.P.S. Possibly against your will.
About David
David is a senior software developer with a long-standing obsession with systems that sit uncomfortably close to theory but have to survive real data. He’s currently building HoloCodec, an experimental lossless compression engine that blends entropy coding, statistical segmentation, and mixture-of-experts modeling to explore what still works—and what doesn’t—beyond today’s mainstream compressors. When he’s not chasing fractional bits per byte, he enjoys dismantling elegant ideas that fail empirical tests, rebuilding them into something uglier but faster, and occasionally discovering that the boring solution was right all along.
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About TriDev
TriDev is a monthly software development meetup with a wide range of topics in order to mix a wide range of people. Topics include code, AI, IoT and maker projects, VR/AR, design, soft skills, leadership, and more.
Each meetup starts at 6PM with a few minutes of chat and networking. At 6:15 a speaker gives the talk on the topic of the night. We try to limit the talk to an hour, so at 7:15 we can start our giveaways. We try and dismiss around 7:30 to have some time for discussion or extra Q/A with the speaker for folks who want to hang around, but allow for others to get home or to other obligations if needed. After the talk, we all just pick a place and go hang out for a while (White Duck, Mulligans, or something awesome you suggest!)
