this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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Asklemmy

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[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 79 points 11 months ago (3 children)

4GB is an absolute fuck ton of text. Like, solid chunk of Wikipedia would fit in there.

[–] sik0fewl@kbin.social 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If you were restricted to just 700MM words, what would you say?

[–] qooqie@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

Help. That’s it, that’s all I’d say

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[–] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

the other day I learned you can download Wikipedia and it's something like 50 GB of text plus 50 GB of pictures

[–] MJBrune@beehaw.org 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Nah, it's 22 GB for just the current English version, text-only Wikipedia. Adding the media English current version only would be 140 GB (plus the 22 GB for the text). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaStatistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia

So you could do text-only Wikipedia and probably compress it. Maybe drop a few thousand of the articles that don't matter or are stubs. Drop all the entertainment articles, etc.

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[–] BruceTwarzen@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

So you send them text that they can't read?

[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't think you appreciate how much text you can fit into 4GB. The first entire gigabyte could be dedicated to various means of translation and explaining our language system, and you'd still have a 500 million words left after that.

[–] ShadowCatEXE@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You can also get 2-3 movies worth with 4gb depending on its length and quality. Maybe even more.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 7 points 11 months ago

So they need to understand our colors, video codecs, displays, sound, and so much more?

[–] KISSmyOS@lemmy.world 22 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Blu-ray rip of Independence Day

[–] Link@rentadrunk.org 12 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Unless you compress it heavily, a Blu-ray rip is in the 20 to 40GB range.

[–] MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee 18 points 11 months ago

700mB aXXo DVD rip then

[–] ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Blu-ray is yes.

A rip implies higher compression /changes.

A movie like Independence Day? Easy to do 7gb with good quality. Blurays is H264, We have x265 now. 4gb size? Those explosions gonna be chunky, but film is watchable.

[–] KISSmyOS@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Then they get to watch us kick their asses till there's nothing left of them but compression artifacts.

[–] MissJinx@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

pff just send star wars and male them confused

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[–] foggy@lemmy.world 21 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I would first find some big names from the demo scene and say "I am not worthy, let these folks do it" and anyone who disagreed would have their frontal lobes severed or something.

This, in its original form, was 4kb.

So, none of us are worthy. Unless one of you is on Lemmy.

Edit: this one is 1kb lmao. None of us are worthy.

[–] MarsAgainstVenus@fedimav.win 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Can you tell me a little more about these? What is the β€œdemo scene,” how were they made, and why were they made?

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

It's as rad as it could possibly be.

Wouldn't be surprised at all if anyone from that scene lurks on lemmy.

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[–] PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz 19 points 11 months ago (3 children)

A link with a cracked Minecraft client and an ip to join to a small server to chill with that alien.

Technically you can probably send a bunch of links, like Wikipedia etc. He "just" needs to access to it, which may or may not breach the 4GB rule.

[–] Joker@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Damn, what a cheapskate. A chance to play Minecraft with a friendly space alien and you can’t even pay for a legit copy. Probably going to give that alien a computer virus and doom us all. Don’t put this guy in charge.

[–] PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Can agree with that, but I wanted to save the alien from having a Microsoft account.

[–] Joker@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You’ve got a point. On second thought, maybe a different game would be better.

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[–] Gnorv@feddit.de 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Why do you assume the alien has access to the internet?

[–] PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz 3 points 11 months ago

No reason at all. Of course probably the aliens won't have access to the interwebz, but playing Minecraft with an alien sounded funny in my head.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It won't breach the 4GB rule, but even the closest star to Sol would have at minimum latency of 4 years.

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[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago

Rickroll, comeon

[–] AVincentInSpace@pawb.social 17 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the actual messages humanity has sent into space in the hopes that aliens will hear it since those are actually pretty cool.

I mean look at this crap. Look at how cool it looks. https://www.plover.com/misc/Dumas-Dutil/messages.pdf

(I'm on mobile otherwise I'd add a picture)

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

https://www.plover.com/misc/Dumas-Dutil/messages.pdf

  1. Again a cringe Word PDF title (why cant this program use normal Titles?)

  2. Why tf didnt they just draw our numbers and instead some crazy art stuff?

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[–] M68040@hexbear.net 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)
This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us. We considered (emphasis on 'considered') ourselves to be a powerful culture.

This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.

The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

The form of the danger is an species of great apes.

The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
[–] EphTen@lemdro.id 15 points 11 months ago

I would probably include an apology for using FAT32 and insist that we've made better filesystems since then.

[–] pan_troglodytes@programming.dev 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

rickroll at 8k for however many seconds that is

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[–] Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Probably an AI model that fits in that size. It might not be our best models, but it probably would be a lot more useful to aliens than whatever we'd decide to fit on 4GB.

They'd get mostly all the inner workings of our languages and how we do conversations and generally be able to answer basic questions about humanity.

[–] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 11 months ago (4 children)

What ? "an AI model" is not a compression algorithm. Why give the aliens an AI trained with some wikipedia articles when you could just give them wikipedia.

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[–] asg101@hexbear.net 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The warning "This species destroys anything it encounters, turn around, save yourselves, warn the universe". With as many before and after images of destroyed habitats and extinct creatures that would fit in the rest of the 4GB space.

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Hell I'd love that pitch for a tv series

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[–] AlwaysNowNeverNotMe@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

In_the_end.exe from limewire

[–] spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago

I’d send a small note saying β€œPlease take me away from here.”

[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 8 points 11 months ago
[–] rosymind@leminal.space 7 points 11 months ago

"Stay away" with various methods given to understand the meaning of the words (images, signs, numbers, sounds, etc)

[–] yote_zip@pawb.social 6 points 11 months ago
[–] willya@lemmyf.uk 6 points 11 months ago

2 girls 1 cup

We must send them the historical documents so they can work to achieve the perfect society.

[–] hexthismess@hexbear.net 5 points 11 months ago

An ASCII image that says "Help."

[–] federatingIsTooHard@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Frank Sinatra - stormy weather

the English Wikipedia articles on codecs, the 7 layer model, semiconductors, and microprocessors.

gcc compiler.

the source code for Firefox and the lightest possible Linux environment to run it... ... ...

and then as many axxo rips as I can cram in, sorted by IMDb rating

[–] Zellith@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)
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[–] GammaGames@beehaw.org 3 points 11 months ago

Undertale 😎

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

A history of all of our misdeeds and self-inflicted suffering, probably 1gb of compressed literature and 3gb of imagery and video, along with an Earnest plea:

Please if you are able, either teach us how to save us from ourselves, or be merciful and destroy us. Don't let this self-inflicted carnage of we barely sapient creatures commit on one another due to lack of meaningful intellect or empathy continue.

Either take our hand and teach us as the confused, selfish, irrational children that we are, or just end this evolutionary mistake.

[–] Flyberius@hexbear.net 3 points 11 months ago

A really long pocket call

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