The Manager who knew Shannon.

A manager had to hire for a position in his company. This position required the person to give suggestions, depending on which the company made decisions. So 3 interns A, B and C were hired. They were informed that the person with the best success rate at the end of the probation period would be hired permanently.

The probation period ended. A had a success % of 50, B had 70 and C had 10. Everyone thought that B would be hired. But to the dismay of all, C was hired. Enraged, B confronted the manager to justify his decision. To this the manager calmly replied, "A has a success % of 50. We will never know which suggestion would succeed or fail. You have 70. It is good, but not good enough. C has 10%, but everytime we do the opposite of what he suggests we will have a success rate of 90%. You either be good at something or be good at being bad".

P.S: I read this long back somewhere on the internet as an example for Shannon's error detection and correction theorem. Couldn't find the source now. All credits duly belong to the original author. :-)