An inch-long universal text encoder
I here present a method of unparalleled efficiency and flexibility for encoding text. This method can encode and compress text of any length, comprising any written language or characters supported by modern computers, into a single, unbroken line less than one inch long.
This website demonstrates the effect. Simply type any message into the text field below. (While this encoding method can receive texts whose sizes surpass that of the whole Library of Congress many times over, I do not wish to take up too much of your time, so you’ll find that I have limited this demonstration to 200 characters at most.)
The above text, encoded into a single, solid line:
Length of that line (in inches): 0
The above line contains, in encoded format, the entirety of the text you have typed in. Its simple form makes it suitable for printing, email attachments, novelty clothing, tattoos, et cetera.
To decode the line back into its source text, simply follow these steps:
Measure the line’s length, in inches. (More to the point: as a length between zero and one inch, expressed as a decimal number.)
Treating this length’s measurement as a whole number (that is, discarding its decimal point), convert it from decimal to hexadecimal.
Read this hexadecimal number as a string of text, encoded via UTF–8: this is the original message, now decoded.
Encoding, of course, merely reverses these steps: we convert the original text to a single hexadecimal number, based on a simple concatenation of all its characters’ UTF–8 representations. (In your input’s case, this is “”.) We in turn convert this single number into decimal, prepend a decimal point to it, and finally draw a line that many inches in length.
I hereby publish and release this method, which I fully expect to have a singular and permanent transformative effect on all human communication, for the whole world’s free and everlasting use. Share it in friendship and in peace.
jmac@jmac.org
@jmac@masto.nyc