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The post mentions him apologizing "For not declining the award—as some might have hoped" - can anyone comment on why that might have been the case?
by kingbirdy 9y ago
The post mentions him apologizing "For not declining the award—as some might have hoped" - can anyone comment on why that might have been the case?
- gweinberg 9y agoJust a guess: It's a joke, referring to the fact that most people who win the $2.56 checks from Knuth don't cash them in.
- vmarquet 9y agoKnuth's checks have their own wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check
- eatbitseveryday 9y agoFrom the Wiki page: > Very few of these checks were actually cashed, even the largest ones. More often they have been framed and kept as "bragging rights".[4][5] Cashing a check only removes it from your possession if you hand it in to do so. Banks these days need only a physical scan of a check, e.g. via mobile phone deposit. Why not do both? There's nothing wrong with taking payment for your efforts.
- colejohnson66 9y agoAFAIK, after deposit, you're supposed to void a check by either destroying it or writing something on the front of it (such as "void")
- dom0 9y ago(void*)
- mistaken 9y agohttp://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html
- Ar-Curunir 9y agoThe Knuth prize is different from the reward given for finding a bug in TeX.
- homin 9y agoHe's famously opinionated: http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded/on-awards.html http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded/on-awards.html
- ihm 9y agoOded has argued previously[1] against awards in academia. [1]: http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded/on-awards.html http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded/on-awards.html
- throwaway91111 9y agoPeople may be tempted to call this hypocracy; i think it's classy.
- greeneggs 9y agoWhy? He argues that other people shouldn't get awards, but he's willing to take them himself? Honestly, I don't get it. His stance does real harm to young theorists, especially those doing cross-disciplinary research. But I think this is a minor issue, and don't want to take away from the bigger point, which is the award that he very much deserves.
- detaro 9y agoI think there is a difference between arguing "there shouldn't be as many awards" and being negative about people receiving them. Has he demanded/argued for other people to decline their awards before?
- santoshalper 9y agoDisliking a system and even publicly arguing against it, while still participating in it, is not hypocrisy, it is pragmatism. It would be hypocrisy if he started giving out his own award.
- mfukar 9y agoSome would even argue that you can't meaningfully criticise a system without experience in it.