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Comment by Hamuko | Hacker News Reader

What? They are quite literally compressing those things in the video. And if you apply compressive force to a bunch of objects using a massive press, the objects would obviously get destroyed.

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The metaphor is compression, the visual is crushing. An actual destructive action doesn't work as a metaphor for an imagined conserving action, the connotations of each are almost entirely at odds with each other. The best reason to do it is probably to make the audience deeply uncomfortable, which works if you're making a movie but is maybe not so good for ads.

I take tecleandor's comment to mean "metaphorically" compressing rather than actually doing it.

But they are metaphorically compressing them. If you put a grand piano under a hydraulic press, it doesn't turn into an iPad at the end like it does in the ad.

If you're being serious, I guess that shows how this could have passed review without anyone going "hang on, is this ad really saying what we want it to be saying...?"

Compressing in software terms means it doesn't get destroyed. Just compacted. You can uncompress it and it gets restored, maybe with a small loss. In the ad, the furniture etc was completely destroyed.

Yep, I was meaning compression="making it tiny and fitting them inside an iPad" not as in "compression force until it explodes".

> If you apply compressive force to a bunch of objects using a massive press, the objects would obviously get destroyed.

But in being destroyed turn into a diamond, and diamonds are forever?

It's obviously a lossy compression then.

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