

Golumb Run Length Encodings: 'Secret Agent 00111 is back at the casino' (1966) [pdf] - nkurz
http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee398a/handouts/papers/Golomb%20-%20Run-Length%20Codes%20-%20IT66.pdf

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nkurz
This is Solomon Golomb's original paper on Golomb coding, which is used as the
basis for many current audio, video, and text compression techniques. The
submitted title was: "Run Length Encodings: 'Secret Agent 00111 is back at the
casino...' (Golomb 1966)".

This is the title, the first line of the piece, the author, and the date of
publication. One could argue that dropping the first line is a good policy,
but in this case I think it adds the necessary flavor of the piece. What one
might expect to be a dry academic paper is written using a James Bond example,
with 00111 being a Golomb coding for the number 7.

Changing the title to just "Run Length Encodings (1966)" conveys very little
of this. Perhaps at least the distinctive name Golomb could be added back, as
(Author Date) is a common citation style? This would signify to a few people
what it will be. Or perhaps the title could be reverted, so that even more
people will read this influential, historical, and extremely readable paper.

ps: If anyone knows of a better version of this PDF, please add it so the URL
can be switched. This is the most readable version I could find, but it's
likely I was missing some better ones.

pps: Did you realize that Golomb is still alive? Here's an interview with him
upon receiving the 2011 National Medal of Science:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ24iQ26mis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ24iQ26mis)

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dang
Ok, we'll put it back.

