Burrows-Wheeler Transform [video]

Wow this is a great video. I was able to implement a simple python version of the BWT as described in the video here:

https://gist.github.com/damiankao/908fe1fd6562dc75f40c

This algorithm is widely used in genomics. Here's an explanation by Ben Langmead, a computational biologist, with some Python code as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n7NPk5lwbI

The original paper, interestingly, only published as a report:

http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/Compaq-DEC/SRC-RR-124.pdf

Fun! Now I'm going to watch the whole 'Compressor Head' series. Thanks, Googler Developers!

Finally, an explanation that kinda sorta makes sense of why it's reversable.

if only it explained how it works!