About the 27 bits. This is from the article: > Fano’s balancing approach starts by assigning the O and one other letter to the left branch, with the five total

About the 27 bits. This is from the article: > Fano’s balancing approach starts by assigning the O and one other letter to the left branch, with the five total uses of those letters balancing out the five appearances of the remaining letters. > The resulting message requires 27 bits. I didn’t calculate it, the author of the article did