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Loving the video. I have a couple of volumes of TAOCP. Even though I am not in CS, the series is so well known and so respected that it is a must-have. I'll
by OldGuyInTheClub 7y ago
Loving the video. I have a couple of volumes of TAOCP. Even though I am not in CS, the series is so well known and so respected that it is a must-have. I'll periodically leaf through some pages and have a hard time grasping how much work he must have put in, how many papers he must have read - good, bad, and indifferent - to extract the best and put them all in context. No wonder he gave up email before most people even heard of it and decades before it became cool. I saw him many times on the Stanford campus in the late 1980s when I was a grad student in chemistry. Never went up to say hello and to thank him for TeX.
- haecceity 7y agoI think he has a secretary that does emails for him. Also he responded to my email a few years ago.
- OldGuyInTheClub 7y agoThat's quite an accomplishment. I hear that people who get a reward check from him for errata or other help usually frame them instead of cashing them. According to this, he has a secretary that filters messages for him: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html
- haecceity 7y agoDon't be too impressed, I didn't get a cheque. He's just a really nice guy.
- nirvdrum 7y agoFYI, he stopped sending checks back in 2008 due to check fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check. It's a shame. I had a professor that had received one for finding a bug somewhere and he proudly displayed it in his office. It was a pretty good conversation starter.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- milemi 7y agoHe still sends paper checks, issued by a fictitious Bank of San Serriffe, so you still have something to frame, in addition to being listed at https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html
- nirvdrum 7y agoAhh, thanks for clarifying. I knew about the fictitious bank, but didn't realize you got a paper check for it.
- OldGuyInTheClub 7y agoLockheed's legendary Kelly Johnson was said to have given quarters to anyone at the Skunkworks who won a technical bet off of him. I believe these were also treasured by those who got them.
- Tomte 7y agoAnd, at least in my case, he included a comic strip of a guy cashing a cheque at the bank, being asked by the bank teller what he got this cheque for. "Three dollars? You sure work cheap!". I found that hilarious.