The word "bit" is a portmanteau word for Binary digIT (en.wikipedia.org) 3 points by damian2000 14y ago ↗ HN
[–] quorn3000 14y ago ↗ It's a contraction. Yes, I've read the wikipedia definition of portmanteau, and I still think bit isn't a portmanteau.Obligatory http://xkcd.com/739/
[–] DanBC 14y ago ↗ Vaguely disturbing that this is new to anyone on HN. Queue discussion of nibbles and bytes.The paper is well worth reading if you haven't already done so. A Mathematical Theory of Communication (http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pd...)Especially page 5, which is a very easy to understand description of EDIT markov chains. But you can use that letter frequency thing to do a really nice easy description of compression.
3 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 16.4 ms ] threadObligatory http://xkcd.com/739/
The paper is well worth reading if you haven't already done so.
(http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pd...)Especially page 5, which is a very easy to understand description of EDIT markov chains. But you can use that letter frequency thing to do a really nice easy description of compression.