In real conversations, we are always trying to outguess each other.

Use "entropy" and you can never lose a debate, von Neumann told Shannon - because no one really knows what "entropy" is.

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.

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

"Average" isn't so hot at the race track given those steep track takes. "Average" is pretty decent for stocks, something like 6 percent above the inflation rate. For a buy-and -hold investor, commissions and taxes are small.

The assumption that anything true is knowable is the grandfather of paradoxes.

A bit is worth 10,000 basis points.