[djcapelis]

Look, the math is quite simple on why this doesn't work...

Let me reduce it down for 4 bits to make things simple.

Let's say I make a program and claim that it can compress things to 4 bits. That means there are 16 possible files. Only 16 possible files. It is mathematically impossible to compress more than 16 files into 4 bits with the same procedure, no matter how many times you run it. (In the case of recursiveness you'd have to keep track of how many times which would immediately add to the file size.) This same concept applies when you make a claim to be able to compress any 1 megabyte file into 500 bytes.

It is simply absurd. Compression algorithms only work because they are good at finding patterns and taking patterned data and manipulating it. This is why you will almost never be able to compress random data.

Thanks for playing, hit the books and come back with something that's possible.