A very clever idea in network coding: Simply put, assume you are a server and there are two clients each of which has one half of a movie! Instead of sending each remaining half separately, you send 'first half XOR second half' preserving network bandwidth along the common portion of the path. Then each client can get back the half it's missing by 'received data XOR current half'.

Of course this can be generalized, i.e. there could be any number of clients each missing one segment of the data and all that you'd have to send out is the XOR of all segments.

This might sound crazy but the concept reminds me of abstract modern art masterpieces! They look pretty much random (one might even say catastrophic) just like the resulting video from XORing two halves of a movie!

People interpret them in rather different ways. But in the end everyone seems satisfied, having taken away what they were missing.

ps. Photo: Jackson Pollock in action

pps. "Ah... the endless effort these miserable creatures go through everyday to find the tiniest string of reason, connecting their sad lives to their passion!", is what any intelligent life form from outer space would think of humans after reading this post.

ppps. This post is turning into a masterpiece, randomness-wise!