Programming Is Forgetting: Toward a New Hacker Ethic
The audio "loss" example sounds plausible in passing (and the diagram looks plausible) but is actually incorrect.  The frequency and timing dimensions of analog audio below the Nyquist frequency is preserved <i>perfectly</i> by digital quantization, which in practice for CD/DVD usecase are the full spectrum of the human ear. This counterintuitive result is explored in some detail in [1].<p>It is true that the amplitude dimension (only) is quantized to (typically, 16 or 24) bits, which you could detect with a very good oscilloscope.  However 24 bits is way smaller than any human ear can discern.  Visually, it is like looking at two stacks of dollar bills that are 6,000 feet high and trying to discern which one has one extra bill.<p>I suppose that is technically "lossy", but the only thing we are "forgetting" is something no human could perceive, or remember.<p>[1] <a href="https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html" rel="nofollow">https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html</a>