5 ms·
> "It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve [Jobs] said. "I've read all of your books." > "You're full of shit," Knuth responded. (http://www.folk
by ot 11y ago
> "It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve [Jobs] said. "I've read all of your books."
> "You're full of shit," Knuth responded.
(http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_of_the_Steve_Kind.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_...)
Yes, now we know that this never happened, but I like to think it did.
- snowwrestler 11y agoHe could respond that way to everyone. In every full set of TAOCP, there is a sentence that reads "If you have read this far, mail this string to the author to collect $25." The sentence is followed by a 10 character alphanumeric string. The string and placement of this sentence is randomized: different in every set. To this day only 3 people have collected their checks. All three have them framed on their walls.
- sjackso 11y agoWow. This sounds like an urban legend (for values of "urban" that mean "university CS departmental"), but I would love to be convinced that it is true.
- jackfoxy 11y agoI'm skeptical. I read the first 3 volumes nearly 20 years ago, skipping only a couple of the most laborious mathy sections and don't recall seeing this.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- screature2 11y agoHmm... I've only ever heard about the reward checks for finding errors in the books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check
- snowwrestler 11y agoToo late to edit, so I'll reply to myself: My parent post was a (badly executed) joke, riffing on a) the famous bug reward checks and b) the running joke (mentioned in other comments) that a lot more people own TAOCP than have actually read it. EDIT: and c) the urban legends of students putting such a "test" sentence in papers they hand in to inattentive professors. There is no better way to kill a joke than explain it, but mine was DOA anyway...