Brian

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The telegraph operator sending message A has a shortcut: he can transmit something like “Repeat ‘01’ twenty-five times.” For longer messages with easy patterns, the savings in keystrokes becomes enormous. Once the pattern is clear, the extra characters are free. The operator for message B must soldier on the hard way, sending every character, because every character is a complete surprise; every character costs one bit. This pair of questions—how random and how much information—turn out to be one and the same. They have a single answer.
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
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