Are there any mythical beasts which aren't simple pastiches of nature? Centaurs, minotaurs, unicorns, griffons, chimeras, sphinxes, manticores, and the like don't speak well for the human imagination. None is as novel as a kangaroo or starfish.

In The Tricky Art of Co-Existing, Sandi Toksvig navigates life's little dilemmas with wit and not-so-common sense. You'll learn the strange history of common courtesy and the one true secret of social success: how to not drive everyone around you crazy.

The more improbable the message, the less "compressible" it is, and the more bandwidth it requires. This is Shannon's point: the essence is its improbability.

There were many at Bell Labs and MIT who compared Shannon's insight to Einstein's. Others found that comparison unfair - unfair to Shannon.

The ultimate compound return rate is acutely sensitive to fat tails.

At a bare minimum, understanding entails being able to detect an internal contradiction: a paradox.

Paradox is thus a much deeper and universal concept than the ancients would have dreamed. Rather than an oddity, it is a mainstay of the philosophy of science.