[MUD-Dev] Re: [DevMUD] Re: Database module

T. Alexander Popiel popiel at snugharbor.com
Tue Dec 22 08:32:44 CET 1998


In message:  <XFMail.981221232233.cynbe at muq.org>
             cynbe at muq.org writes:
>
>(2) If you need to pass numbers through human channels, a possible
>    improvement on UUENCODE-ing style translation is:
>     (a) Pick a set of 1024 words (probably short, single-syllable words)
>     (b) bite off 10-bit chunks from your integer, and use each to select
>         a word from the set:  A 64-bit integer becomes seven words.
>    The result will be a number encoding with much more mnemonic value to
>    native speakers than the corresponding UUENCODE-ed version:  I'm sure
>    any of us can remember seven words easier than 16 random hex digits.
>      (For extra credit:  Pick separate verb, noun and adjective sets of
>    1024 words, and arrange for your numbers to make grammatical sentences.
>    I'll bet this will increase the mnemonicity of the encoded numbers
>    significantly.)

I was briefly involved with some similar work in PGPFone; in that
case, two dictionaries of 256 words were used.  One dictionary
contained only two-syllable words, and the other contained only
three-syllable words.  The dictionaries were used alternatingly
when encoding a byte sequence, so that dropping a single word
would be bleedingly obvious.

Another very important factor that went into the dictionary
generation was the concept of word-distance.  The words in each
dictionary were specifically chosen not to sound like one another,
or be easily confused with other words.  Thus, 'phonograph' and
'photograph' do not appear in the three-syllable dictionary
because they might be mistaken for one another.  (The final
dictionaries were chosen from wordlists of a couple thousand
words as a distance maximization problem.  I think we used
simulated annealing in the process.)

I think that all the words we used were nouns; nonsense
sentences are not noticably easier to remember than just
strings of nouns (and a lot harder to generate, given the
restrictions we put on the dictionaries!).  (Meaningful
sentences, on the other hand, would be easier to remember,
but we didn't even consider that.)

I'm not sure if this system got included in the final product,
since I've actually never looked at the final product. :-)

- Alex




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