I’ve put together a little algorithm called chess104. It will let you encode data as positions of chess pieces (104 bits of data, hence the name).
That works out to 20 characters using a squashy 5-bit encoding, but there are other options too if you really feel the need to write "COFFEE" in efficient hexadecimal.
- Write something on a chessboard
- An example board: "Mike was here"
If I can find a speedy way to encode more data, there might be a sequel to this. 104 bits is nowhere near the limit, but my other ideas were too much for my netbook to handle (presumably that makes them bad candidates for running as a web app).