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Knuth's 'Earthshaking Announcement' due tomorrow
- ja27 16y agoHe's quitting Stanford to work for Facebook|Google|Twitter.
- kloncks 16y agoHow will this be earth-shattering? Not trying to be a dick, just wondering if you have a point if you're not kidding.
- jey 16y agoDude, it's Knuth. OTOH, maybe Twitter will continue their overengineering by porting everything to MMIX.
- pyre 16y agoTeX <-> JSON <-> JavaScript translator?
- ja27 16y agoMostly joking, but it could be possible. I just can't think of anything besides P=NP (or proving P!=NP) that Knuth is likely to announce that I'd consider earth-shattering. In the end, it's likely to be a decent but not earth-shattering discovery. It better not be a TeX announcement. If he walks out, says "42" and leaves, I'm selling my copies of "The Art of Computer Programming".
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- NonEUCitizen 16y agotitle should say "Knuth's..." not "Kuth's..."
- dermatthias 16y agosorry for the typo. that's a hard to control habit of mine, because in german it's ok to write 'Knuths'. fixed it.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- lenbuster 16y agoAny theories on what Knuth will announce?
- varjag 16y agoP=NP
- squidsoup 16y agoClearly this would be an exciting announcement, but is Knuth even known to be working on the problem?
- regularfry 16y agoOnly in his sleep.
- faboo 16y agoIsn't every computer scientist supposed to work on P=NP in their sleep? Or maybe it's their lack of sleep. I forget who it was that said it first, but one of my profs relayed it as serious advice: that every computer scientist should dable in P=NP in his early years, then go off and do something useful for a few decades, and come back to it to dable again.
- swombat 16y ago"Pepsi tastes better than Coke"
- sigzero 16y agoThat would be earth shattering because it is so not true.
- twobar 16y agoI guess something TeX related, since it's at the TeX Users Group anniversary.
- michael_dorfman 16y agoI had it on my list to post a reminder of this today as well-- looks like you beat me to it. I'm curious to see other's guesses here. My personal hunch is that he is going to declare TeX complete, and move the version number to Pi (as he had planned to do upon his death.)
- spicyj 16y agoDon't you mean tau/2?
- nudge 16y agoMaybe he's declaring the project finished early so as to avoid the upcoming pi/tau bloodshed :-)
- ez77 16y agoI gather you say that pi/tau jokingly.
- shasta 16y agoYou're tau/pi funny
- TheAmazingIdiot 16y agoWell... My old cd burner was a tau/pi. Does that count? ObOntopic: it most lilkely is him declaring version pi.
- spicyj 16y agoHuh?
- TheAmazingIdiot 16y agoA tau/pi = atapi Just a bad joke.
- fbu 16y agoBack when it was first announced, everybody made jokes about the new TeX policy and every document made using TeX will have to be reviewed before publishing :)
- mikecane 16y agoWill TeX somehow tie into eBooks?
- Torn 16y agoWould put money on it being along these lines.
- xtho 16y agoHe converted to OpenOffice.
- Tichy 16y agoThis better be good
- abeppu 16y agoIn the same spirit as his objections to the old style delta (http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cm.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cm.html) he'll be making comments regarding whether we should be writing with $\phi$ or $\varphi$
- Amnon 16y agoUnfortunately, it appears to be just a lecture called "Earthshaking Announcement". The previous one was called "All Questions Answered" and I'm sure he left some questions unanswered.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- user24 16y agoI really think this is going to be one of the most overblown things ever. I seriously doubt it's actually going to be interesting at all. Really. He's being sarcastic with the title of a lecture. Calm down fanboys.
- jacquesm 16y agoNothing will ever trump 'it' aka the segway.
- tricky 16y agoor Transmeta or Danger inc. if you were around in 2000.
- shill 16y agoor Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's vault live on television. Anyone here remember that?
- malkia 16y agoOr Geraldo Rivera giving up the positions of the army unit he was embedded in.
- huhtenberg 16y agoor Duke Nukem Forever
- mbreese 16y ago"Ginger" was a much better code name.
- RyanMcGreal 16y agoTeX 4.0 will have Ribbons.
- pistoriusp 16y agoI've seen a bunch of companies/ people using this strategy lately. Making it appear like they're going to make a revolutionary statement that is going to change the world. An "idea implemented." Unfortunately is rarely turns out to be something concrete - it's usually an idea with a significant buy in... But an idea that's a step in the right direction... A call to action... Examples: 1) Cisco announced a really fast router that was going to "change the Internet forever." (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/09/what-cisco-lacks-in-sex-appeal-it-makes-up-for-with-speed/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/09/what-cisco-lacks-in-s...) 2) Bloombox (http://bloomenergy.com http://bloomenergy.com) Of course, as others have pointed out maybe he's just playing the fool.
- lamby 16y agoDoesn't seem like Knuth's style.
- michael_dorfman 16y agoCome on. You're really comparing a throwaway line in the "upcoming events" section of Knuth's blog to a Cisco press release?
- pistoriusp 16y agoI actually just thought it was an interesting discussion point for strategies like this; I also pointed out that he might be playing the fool. Did not mean to garner offense.
- michael_dorfman 16y agoNo offense taken, but the point is, there's no "like these." You're comparing two very different things. Knuth's comment was aimed at piqueing the interest of the tiny fraction of people who might want to come see him at a TeX celebration-- which has absolutely nothing to do with hyperbole in marketing press releases.
- masklinn 16y ago> I've seen a bunch of companies/ people using this strategy lately. Making it appear like they're going to make a revolutionary statement that is going to change the world. Valve at E3. Bastards.
- fbu 16y agoMaybe the numbering of TeX will now go up to 6 and something...
- hernan7 16y agoYes, he is changing the numbering from pi to tau.
- jackfoxy 16y agoTomorrow @ 5:30 PM PDT, to be more precise. http://tug.org/tug2010/program.html http://tug.org/tug2010/program.html Given how many people on HN are interested in this, I'm curious to see how fast, and in what manner, the announcement gets posted here. Perhaps someone tweets it directly from the conference and the tweet gets posted here. I'm hoping for a post here by 6:00 PM.
- jey 16y agoWe could just crash it, it's in Union Square (SF). :)
- jimfl 16y agoTeX will be able to render moment tensor solutions, with a package called Beachball.
- kloncks 16y agoDoes p = np or not? That's what I hope we'll find out tomorrow. Too hopeful?
- jcl 16y agoUsing new features of TeX π, Knuth has inserted interrobangs along critical fault lines, and he intends to offset the entire West Coast, widening rivers and reflowing the Pacific; the Bay Area will be left flushed and right ragged, creating many widows and orphans. The only way to stem this bold, unjustified plot is to transfer a well-padded figure of $175,921,860,444.16 immediately to the Bank of San Serriffe.
- francoisdevlin 16y agoLand: It's the only thing they're not making more of.
- dustin 16y agoWell, almost: http://bit.ly/bcaonj http://bit.ly/bcaonj
- chc 16y agoI know a few volcanoes who would beg to differ.
- wmoxam 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Islands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Islands
- FluidDjango 16y agoOh the timeliness of wp: Interesting how many features of those Dubai items are still described as "will be completed in" ...2008 or ...2009.
- rroy1590 16y agothe lesson here is: Don't make jokes on the internet unless you've thoroughly researched the 'facts' of your 'joke'.
- Natsu 16y ago
- sarvesh 16y agoHe will start using email again.
- fierarul 16y agoWhat's the purpose of this besides having us speculate? Just have a post tomorrow with whatever Knuth announced and it's enough to have a good discussion.
- buro9 16y agoMaybe he's created an earthquake algorithm?
- mmaunder 16y agoHe's announcing that he's retiring. He had some health issues in 2006 so I really hope it's not related to that. Of course his consciousness will be uploaded to a positronic brain so he'll be around for a while yet.
- qq66 16y agoIf he was actually retiring, he's not the kind of guy to call that an "Earthshaking announcement." Incidentally, I went to his last Stanford lecture, the lecture hall with maybe ~400 seats was totally full, and there were exactly 3 women in the audience.
- JoelMcCracken 16y agoDo we know how long this has been up? If it was something as significant as P{=,!=}NP, I really doubt he would have been able to keep this hidden for any length of time.
- pyre 16y agoFor a month or so. It was announced on HN before. Hit up searchyc.com if you are curious how long ago.
- jpablo 16y agoMaybe he will unleash the missing volumes of TAoCP
- mhd 16y ago\blink{}
- vrode 16y ago\marquee{ }
- zmmz 16y agoThe Art of Computer Programming will not get finished.
- taloft 16y agoHe will be introducing the $99 holographic PC.
- brg 16y agoI'm pretty sure the announcement will be release dates of Volumes 4a, 4b, and 4c of "The Art of Computer Programming."
- michael_dorfman 16y agoNot likely. The release date for 4A, sure-- that's scheduled for later this year. 4B and 4C aren't even written, much less available in pre-fascicle form. Besides, this is an announcement at a TeX conference; it's going to be TeX-related.
- brg 16y agoThanks for the update, I was under the impression that each of the fascicles were a dot volume, instead of chapters within 4A.
- faragon 16y agoWell, if He's not the one demostrating P = NP or P != NP, some other will have to take the token. That's life. Anyway, Knuth is a great hacker, having my respect and admiration.
- huherto 16y agoI think he will retire. That is the last speaking engagement in the page.
- jhaglund 16y ago47 minutes past the scheduled 5:30 pm, pacific announcement time. Earth still stable.
- brfox 16y agoThis thread has too many one-line jokes like reddit.