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Why common letters get short codes in a ZIP file: Huffman coding ASCII spends 8 bits on every letter, whether it is a common e or a rare z. In 1951 a graduate student, David Huffman, found a way to give frequent symbols… Computing4 min read Why good used cars vanish from the market: Akerlof's lemons Why can a market of willing buyers and sellers fall apart? In 1970 the economist George Akerlof showed that when only the seller knows a used car's quality… Economics4 min read Why Spanish sounds faster than Vietnamese yet says just as much Listen to Spanish or Japanese and it seems to rush past; Vietnamese or Thai can sound almost unhurried. Yet when researchers timed 170 people reading the same… Language5 min read