robinturner | Soundbyte

Just now, when I was in the shower, I came up with the line: "In real life, there is no such thing as lossless compression." Well actually, the line that first popped into my shampooed head was "In language, there is no lossless compression," but that sounds like it might actually mean something, and thus be falsifiable. This is much better, as it doesn't seem to mean anything at all, and thus can be used for many purposes. So go on, use it! Post it in your blogs. Submit it to famous quotations pages. Use it to get rid of people who are intent on chatting you up, unless you actually want them to chat them up, in which case, change it to something like "In love, there is no such thing as lossless compression." Use it as a snappy come-back to your boss. If asked what it means, just talk incomprehensibly about algorithms until he or she gives up and goes away. (Warning: don't try this if you work in an IT department. They'll catch you out.)