4 ms·

Ok, so this journalist gets to spend WHOLE day with Knuth and all we get is some bits of history and quotes from couple of Google guys. Massively lost opportuni

Ok, so this journalist gets to spend WHOLE day with Knuth and all we get is some bits of history and quotes from couple of Google guys. Massively lost opportunity to provide window in this legends daily life, thoughts and habits...

time-domain0 8y ago
Begs Toccata and Fugue in D minor
rpeden 8y ago
To be fair though, Peter Norvig is a lot more than just a "Google guy". I'd happily read an article that's nothing but Norvig quotes. I thought that the article was pretty decent, considering it is aimed at an audience of people who aren't computer scientists and who have never heard of Donald Knuth.
klenwell 8y ago
> At age 19, Dr. Knuth published his first technical paper, “The Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures,” in Mad magazine. I'd say she did something positive with the opportunity.
- redshirtrob 8y ago
  I have a copy of the issue, so when I went to see one of his Christmas Tree Lectures a few years ago I took it with me to get signed after the talk. Instead of just signing it, he opened to his article and corrected a typo in the Potrzebie article--I think it amounted to two numbers being transposed somewhere around the millionths place (My copy is packed away from a recent move so it's not too convenient to verify). What was funny was he had a poem he used to remember the order of the numbers after the decimal. He couldn't quite remember it, so he ssh'd into his home machine (or University, dunno), fired up Emacs, and opened a file containing the poem. Then he corrected the typo. And that's how Donald Knuth "signed" my copy.
  - svat 8y ago
    +1 I was behind you in this line and can confirm this story :-) He was surprised someone brought this and IIRC asked you how you got hold of this MAD magazine issue. I remember him not wanting to sign without fixing the typo, and also ssh-ing to find the correct numbers after he wasn't sure he remembered them.
    - redshirtrob 8y ago
      Wow, that's wild. It makes me happy someone else remembers it. I kinda figured it was just me as I think I attended the lecture alone that year--pretty sure it was 2015. FTR, the answer to how I got it: I made an off-hand comment to my wife about the magazine and she tracked it down for the next gift-giving occasion.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

time-domain0 8y ago

Begs Toccata and Fugue in D minor

rpeden 8y ago

To be fair though, Peter Norvig is a lot more than just a "Google guy". I'd happily read an article that's nothing but Norvig quotes. I thought that the article was pretty decent, considering it is aimed at an audience of people who aren't computer scientists and who have never heard of Donald Knuth.

klenwell 8y ago

> At age 19, Dr. Knuth published his first technical paper, “The Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures,” in Mad magazine. I'd say she did something positive with the opportunity.

redshirtrob 8y ago
I have a copy of the issue, so when I went to see one of his Christmas Tree Lectures a few years ago I took it with me to get signed after the talk. Instead of just signing it, he opened to his article and corrected a typo in the Potrzebie article--I think it amounted to two numbers being transposed somewhere around the millionths place (My copy is packed away from a recent move so it's not too convenient to verify). What was funny was he had a poem he used to remember the order of the numbers after the decimal. He couldn't quite remember it, so he ssh'd into his home machine (or University, dunno), fired up Emacs, and opened a file containing the poem. Then he corrected the typo. And that's how Donald Knuth "signed" my copy.
- svat 8y ago
  +1 I was behind you in this line and can confirm this story :-) He was surprised someone brought this and IIRC asked you how you got hold of this MAD magazine issue. I remember him not wanting to sign without fixing the typo, and also ssh-ing to find the correct numbers after he wasn't sure he remembered them.
  - redshirtrob 8y ago
    Wow, that's wild. It makes me happy someone else remembers it. I kinda figured it was just me as I think I attended the lecture alone that year--pretty sure it was 2015. FTR, the answer to how I got it: I made an off-hand comment to my wife about the magazine and she tracked it down for the next gift-giving occasion.

deleted 8y ago

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