There are actually way more, since the context associated with those states is virtually limitless. For example, let's say my wedding is serving salmon or stea

There are actually way more, since the context associated with those states is virtually limitless. For example, let's say my wedding is serving salmon or steak, I decide to allocate a single bit to storing those. Now let's say Caesar's thumb gets tired from deciding who lives or dies, so he decides to use a single bit to light up his verdict. We've now thought of 2*(2^2) "things you can do" with 2 bits. Also, just from the title: why 2 ^ 1024 and not 2 ^ 8000?