Great summary, and what you're describing is a good practical/social example of information theory[1], where the entropy[2] is increasing with the unusualness o

Great summary, and what you're describing is a good practical/social example of information theory[1], where the entropy[2] is increasing with the unusualness of the phone number/backpack/whathaveyou, causing the efficiency of your ability to recognize the widget in question to decrease. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)