"Monkeys Typing Shakespeare" Simulation Illustrates Combinatorial Inflation Problem

We've all heard the old line about how it would take a virtual eternity for monkeys sitting at typewriters to produce all the works of Shakespeare. Well, according to a BBC News article, someone is actually making the attempt -- not with real monkeys but with virtual ones. But there's a catch: the simulation isn't trying to produce all the works of Shakespeare in one fell swoop. It's cheating by only trying to generate small pieces of Shakespeare's writings, and then splicing them together...