I am having a hard time understanding this article.
You're trying to encode all objects in the universe into 20 bits. It's fun, and oddly doable. Try it and see:
http://www.20q.net/
That site is terrible. I chose “the squeaking sound chalk sometimes makes” and picked “Concept” as the first thing. It asked me 20 questions that only apply to physical objects, like “Is it larger than a microwave oven.”
This particular version of 20Q does allow quite a few answers besides Yes and No though.
I agree. It analyses the strategy for a specific game, not 20Q generally.
I think the examples are given for a specific game, and the explanation applies to 20Q generally
Yeah, this made sense to me. It took me a minute but I got there. The general strategy is "binary search" which doesn't make for a good article :p. Also, the details of actually implementing the strategy are difficult so an example was useful for me (not that I will ever play this game, but hypothetically...)