The solution in the article is a bit of a mystery. To come up with that particular solution you already know what bits are, because the first step is formatting

The solution in the article is a bit of a mystery. To come up with that particular solution you already know what bits are, because the first step is formatting the number as bits. Everyone, even people clueless of computers, know that computers are "ones and zeroes" i.e. binary. Keep in mind "The Daily WTF" is widely suspected to be making up most of its articles.