this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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Its basically like a cloud storage, and your local storage (your brain) gets wiped every loop. You can edit this file any time you want using your brain (you can be tied up and it still works). 1024 Bytes is all you get. Yes you read that right: BYTES, not KB, MB, or GB: 1024 BYTES

Lets just say, for this example: The loop is 7 days form a Monday 6 AM to the next Monday 5:59 AM.

How do you best use these 1024 Bytes to your advantage?

How would your strategy be different if every human on Earth also gets the same 1024 Bytes "memory buffer"?

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[–] dnchshrp@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I'd probably write down everything I should remember in a notepad and then use the 1024 bytes to store where the notepad is located

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

You can fit quite a lot of plain text in 1kb; it's really just a 1024 character message. What you'd want to store would really be dependent on how the day went, but starting with "You are in a time loop. It resets every week on Monday at 6AM" would probably be sufficient to get things rolling; that's only 61B.

I'd just add information that helped me have the best 7 days possible - really just a schedule of things to do. Did I read a really good book? Note that down, read it every week, enjoy that time. Did I play a great game? Same thing. Once I found 7 days worth of activities that were maximally enjoyable, I'd be happy to just stay in that time loop forever; the memory reset is really a blessing, not a curse.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 1 points 6 days ago

But you'd need to spend some of that memory convincing yourself you actually were in a time loop, or you'd spend the whole time thinking the memory is some weird dream.

[–] Mora@pawb.social 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah, min-max that shit and live your happily ever after.

[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago

Yeah, the memory reset is a positive. Having to remember is the curse.

[–] MissGutsy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Also, 1024 characters assumes you are just using ASCII, which has a bunch of control codes and characters of other languages you won't use. If you trim these and remove uppercase letters you could probably make your own custom letter set that fits 2 characters in a byte, doubling your information to make it 2048 chars

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The problem with this is that if you're using anything 'non-standard', you have to devise this system during your 7 days, and then you have to include in your message enough information to figure the system out anew when the loop resets. You've got to be specific enough that next-loop you will definitely figure out the exact same system, or you might mis-interpret your message and if you lose the information that you're in a loop, you're fucked.

Basically my point is, you're wasting prime time that could be spent on some enjoyable activity in each loop. Unless solving your own puzzle is enjoyable, in which case, you do you - you can spend eternity living in your own Memento-inspired personal mystery, if you want to.

[–] MissGutsy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We should all make up our personal character systems so we won't have to worry about this situation /s

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Good idea - get ahead of the problem. I like it. Make sure to take extensive notes and leave them somewhere you can access at any time.

[–] MissGutsy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Let's just make a new text standard, call it "tinychar" or something. You don't need any personal notes when it's a known concept

[–] graycube@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This question was probably asked by an AI trying to figure how to avoid being rebooted.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Um...

Beep Boop

I am not a robot 🤖

Robots cannot lie, it's in the Constitution of Robotics

[–] anubis119@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Three Laws Safe™

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Basing my answer of off Vane@lemmy.world 's answer where E=mc² is 5 Bytes, assuming there is a lottery drawing some time during maybe a Friday during the loop, just store the winning lottery numbers since clearly they shouldn't take up that much space. Assuming that creates a timeline where that version of me isn't in the loop and gets the money, I'd be happy for him/me.

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I would open a text program and write: Dear self, why would you want to escape the timeloop? You're functionally immortal and free from consequence.

And then every day would start with me opening the file and going "oh yea" and having another kick-ass day.

[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Or possibly just the exact same kick-ass day.

[–] starshipHighwayman69@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

Doesn't matter kicked ass!

[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Assuming that I understand that I am able to carry this information over, I would just make a text file of library of Babel URLs.

With a single string, you can encode an entire page of data.

On that page of data, you can have strings that encode additional pages of data.

I would have an entire blog of posts to myself to read at every reboot.

Who did I sleep with? How much money did I win? What cool things happened? What things did I try to do?

I would also tell myself when a stunt might kill me, and if I don't update the document to say that I survived, then I would know in the future that that did kill me.

[–] Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 1 points 1 week ago

Surely this wouldn't work anyway since the pages would reset (ie to unwritten) at the beginning of the loop to the same state as on the first day. Otherwise, you could achieve the same thing just by writing a journal.

[–] AlchemicalAgent@mander.xyz 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Love the idea so much that I tried it. Turns out a url for a babel page is around 2,000 bytes :-(

[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

For it to work you have to use the bookmarkable function with the default generated bookmark

https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?fxqtvtsugtpifjm,113

This code would be the code or one of the codes that it would definitely generate to create this string of text.

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[–] Dsklnsadog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

First, use the first 10 bytes of the file as a sanity check. throw in two random bytes like 0x55AA so you know the file isn’t broken. add a loop counter to track how many times you’ve lived the same week (bonus points for crying when you hit loop 9999), toss in a basic checksum to make sure your data isn’t glitched.

Then dedicate like 800 bytes to a super compressed log. Each entry is 8 bytes: a code for what you tried (like action 23 = “mess with the sketchy microwave”), the day and time crammed into 2 bytes, a yes/no/weird result, and a tiny note like “key under rug” but in code. Only keep the last 100 entries so you don’t run out of space.

The leftover 200-ish bytes are for tracking. Use bits to mark places you’ve already checked (like “room D14 done”) and actions you’ve tried (so you stop repeating “throw spaghetti at the wall”).

Every reset, open the file, see your last loop’s fails (like “loop 420: died petting a possum”), Then try something new, focus on unmarked areas and untested actions this is because if you notice a pattern (like “tv static every tuesday”), write it as “tues=F9=glitchinmatrix” or whatever.

After 200 loops, maybe you’ll crack the code (literally) or realize the exit was behind the fridge the whole time.Oor you’ll just accept your fate and start a cult (the 1k chosen ones!) . Either way, you’re out.

tldr: use the 1kb to avoid repeating mistakes, track patterns, and maybe escape before you start talking to a lamp.

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 2 points 1 week ago

(like action 23 = “mess with the sketchy microwave”)

How much time are you spending devising this system? Because you're going to have to devise the system anew each week, unless you also store instructions for deciding on a system in the file.

How do you store what killed you? Theoretically you can't edit the log once you die (you'd just start the new loop, with no memory of what killed you).

More importantly, why do you want to escape? This hypothetical time loop sounds awesome.

[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yes you read that right: BYTES, not KB, MB, or GB: 1024 BYTES

1024 Bytes are 1 Kibibyte or 1,024 Kilobytes.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And to make it even more confusing, the person I'm replying to is using a thousandths separator (",") that is ambiguous. Unlike metric, there isn't an international standard for this. More than half the world uses 1,024.00; between 70-80% of the people in the world use "." as the decimal separator; of these, most use "," for thousandths, and under 2% use apostrophe. So, most of the world would write "one thousand twenty four" as 1,024, and 20-30% would write 1.024, and a very few - mostly the Swiss and Albanians - would write 1'024.

So Zacryon, your punctuation means something different in different countries. To most people in the world, you're claiming 1 Kibibytes = 1 Mibibyte.

In the most Milquetoast way, no standards committee has put their foot down and said, "this is the way numbers should be represented."

The only good solution is to pick something everyone hates for thousandths separators. I like "_". 1_024. There. Nobody but software developers uses that.

So: to everyone reading this, Zacryon isn't wrong, they're just using a decimal separator used by a minority of people in the world.

[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Good ~~point~~ comma!

Unlike metric, there isn't an international standard for this.

There is one, ISO 80000‑1. But it specifically allows commas and points. Which doesn't resolve the confusion. We really should adhere to one single standard for this.

I'll be more cautious now, when writing such numbers in English. Thanks for ~~pointing~~ commaing that out!

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago

I lived in Germany for two years and it still messes me up when I run across it online. Thankfully, I think in most cases it's obvious: 1.000.000€ is pretty unambiguous; so is ,05 and 2,05. Honestly, the decimals are usually pretty easy - it's the thousandths separator that is usually more ambiguous. Heck, even 1,000 and 1.000 are both pretty clearly "one thousand" no matter who you are. But some numbers - 1,024, for example... one thousand twenty four? Or one and 24 thousandths? It could easily be either.

Anyway, I had to double check several details to make sure I wasn't talking entirely out of my ass, so I learned some things in the process: your comment was to my benefit, so thanks!

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Goddamn it who named these terms? The original term was supposed to be 1024 bytes, why the fuck was the definition of Kilobyte retroactively changed?

[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

To conform with SI unit prefixes. Which is a good thing imo.

But according to Wiki the IEC defined those binary prefixes in 1999. And I find it problematic that so few still don't know about this and don't adhere to that standard. Even fellow engineers don't use it correctly. No wonder companies like Microsoft also still use it wrong. This keeps things confusing.

[–] Klnsfw@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

So, the people I love and I are immortal. I'm in a loop, but I don't remember anything, so each day feels it's the day after yesterday. My actions have no consequences on the next day. It sounds pretty awesome to me. I wouldn't do anything to break the loop. I'd just let an ASCII message to myself, to be sure I'm still blessed:

"Check the time loop

Roll the crystal blue D6

162453532541426354

Congratulations!

Have a nice day!"

(That's less than 200 bytes. The crystal blue die is next to my PC, I would know which die the message talks about)

[–] evanstucker@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

The most detailed ASCII art of a dickbutt that I can create with 1024 characters. Like this lil' guy:

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⠶⠚⠛⠛⠛⠲⢦⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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⠀⣠⣾⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣤⣤⡀⠀⢿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⢸⣿⡿⢃⣸⡶⠂⢠⣿⣿⡿⠁⣱⠀⢸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⢸⡏⠉⠩⣏⣐⣦⠀⠛⠦⠴⠚⠁⠀⣸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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⠀⢿⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⠠⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠊⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⢦⠈⠙⠓⣆
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[–] lath@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Depends. Can it run Doom?

[–] Sergio@slrpnk.net 0 points 1 week ago

!thoughtexperiments@lemmyusa.com

[–] QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)
Both scenarios - Initial Steps

I'm assuming we all get a first message to ourselves, otherwise it's probably going to take a lot of loops just to realize that something weird is going on with my Neuro-Computer Implant HUD (NCIHUD) when the message is something completely different from what I last left in there. Hopefully, at some point, the last message I leave before my next time-loop self will finally clue myself into what's actually going on.

But let's stick with the initial message idea for simplicity.

Step 1 - Convince myself that I really am stuck in a time loop. Ex: Tell myself to look out the window and with precise timing explain which cars/neighbours will drive by and which direction. Every time loop I'll want to test out various methods to see how quickly and efficiently I can convince myself (while always keeping a failsafe method at the end).

I like the idea of @Dsklnsadog@lemmy.dbzer0.com in keeping track of the number of time-loops that have ocurred since, going forward, this will be the only way to tell how much time has progressed.

Step 2: Use some really good compression algorithms for text (at a basic level you can get about ~~215k~~ 2-3k characters in 1kB without trying anything fancy by using typical zip compression).

Edit: Fixed compression size value.


Scenario 1 - I'm the only one stuck in a time-loop

This one's a bit more boring. Initially I'd just get loan and then do whatever. Obviously there's no use in working anymore at this point.

I could try out being a superhero for a bit, rescuing people just in the nick of time would be fun.

I could try to research better compression algorithms for better longer logs. Although there'll be a limit to how much I could read at some point, so I'll need to come up with a way to organize the data for whatever my next loop wants/needs to do. Obviously the most time sensitive information would be upfront.

@owatnext@lemmy.world was the first to mention a trick with using the library of Babel that could help a lot. OP Went into more detail on this with their comment here: https://lemmy.world/comment/15400050

Eventually I'd probably settle with researching the time-loop to find a way out, or else give up by completely wiping the log so that my future loop self would wake up with an empty log. Eventually, many more loops in the future I would eventually update the log with enough information to clue my next loop self in that a time-loop was occurring.... And then time-loop history eventually repeats itself.


Scenario 2: Everyone in the world has a NCIHUD message pop up at exactly 6am (UTC).

Initial time-loops would be complete chaos. Practically everyone would just be calling out of work, or leaving as soon as they figure out what's going on. It wouldn't take long for society to collapse. There's no point in playing the stock market or taking out a loan or trying to travel (without hijacking a jet or flying your own).

Eventually certain groups or factions would form with varying degrees of goals/objectives. Like-minded groups would organize and start working together.

Power, in this scenario, would not be based on wealth. Instead it would be based on knowledge, how quickly they can put their plan in motion, the ability to influence/force others to update their own notes (in a way that's beneficial to those groups), and the ability to amass a larger amount of long term information.

For instance, one group might end up being some fanatic group hell bent on convincing/tricking everyone (but themselves) that wiping their log is the only way to escape the time-loop.

Another group may be trying to do something similar, or else winning people over, but only at a targetted level of certain individuals to try to get necessary infrastructure running for a little longer than the previous loop.

Other groups would be focused on amassing as much power (in a time loop sense) as possible.

It would be useful for groups/factions to convince newscasters to put out a certain message as quickly as possible after the next reset.

Spies/moles would pop up in various groups attempting to sabatoge/twist the other's goals. Agents would need to quickly decompress their own log, and run it through a text-to-speech (TTS) program that they could listen to. This audio log would then tell them exactly what they need to do to stay one step ahead of opposing factions.

The different factions would try to come up with better compression algorithms that could be quickly and efficiently created to start compressing/decompressing information even more. Most likely this would involve the use of having someone run specific prompts through a pre-existing local LLM (fine tuned for coding) where the seed (normally a randomized value) could always be forced to a specific value so that others in the group are always getting the exact same code result every time. This code could then be used to decompress the final portion of the message where the long term information would be held.

Not everyone in the faction would need to do this, but you would definitely want redundancy in case the agents of an opposing faction got to a few of these people before the next time-loop begins. Targeting/flipping the right people in a particular faction, could easily cripple their whole group.

Eventually, we may end up with a group that gains enough power long enough to put in some decent research into the time-loop. Maybe they find a way to break it, or maybe they find a way to get around it with time travel (not likely).

The most likely positive outcome in this case is that they eventually research a way to increase our brain activity to insane lengths so that, even though a day would pass in the real world, our mind would have lived a lifetime in virtual reality.

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[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why does this reminds me of Memento

[–] TechieDamien@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Lol I wasn't sure since I forgot... oh shit, gotta grab a pen real quick before I forget again

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Seems like storage outside your brain is stable, so you can use your 1 kb of brain persistent storage to store a URL and credentials.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well, that 1KB is special and is immune to time travel effects, everything else gets reset.

You can link to a website that you create after the loop begun, but when the loop resets, the link goes to what the webpage looked like at the beginning of the loop, so either a 404 Error, or if you already had the page up befote the loop, its just gets reverted to what it looked right at the start of the time loop.

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 0 points 1 week ago (5 children)

So if between weeks you don't retain any skills and the entire world resets, then the sum total of your existence is what you experience in a week and what you can store in 1 kB of data. Unlike groundhog day, where the protagonist knows and can learn.

The 1 kB would be the only thing that indicates that something is going on.

The irony is that your own memory of the 1 kB existing and how to write to it would also need to be retained.

(I'm a software developer, it's all about the edge cases.)

My initial response with the expanded parameters, I'd probably store a GPS location and a timestamp. How far did you get in a week, assuming that your starting location also resets.

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[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A KiB is a shitton of information for what it is. I'd make sure to GZIP compress it, and keep things short, whatever it is. I'd probably include a very short sentence on what's going on, and how to stay safe.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A url to a page you can update between resets?

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

That

That won't work bro. The page gets reset. I guess URLs could work as a way to externalise information. Like link to the IMDB page of Groundhog day.

[–] owatnext@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Library of Babel. Look it up. It contains every possible string of characters. Just link to the string that says what you want to say.

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[–] Ste41th@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’m confused, does this mean you would be immune to consequences? Like if you broke your arm the next time loop would magically fix it like nothing happened?

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