4 ms·
85 years old. Rides his bike routinely. Is able to compose and remember a list of 20 detailed questions to use in evaluating new technology, while riding said
by yodon 3y ago
85 years old.
Rides his bike routinely.
Is able to compose and remember a list of 20 detailed questions to use in evaluating new technology, while riding said bike.
- bombcar 3y agoI firmly believe if you locked Knuth to a desk with a computer his output would fall precipitously.
- weinzierl 3y agoWhy? Despite some of his witty remarks ("I have only proved it correct, not tried it" and others) he seems to be a pretty hands on guy. The lecture I attended was more of a workshop where he was showing his MMIX tools in a live coding session. Everyone got an MMIX assembly cheat sheet and he hacked everything himself in Emacs.
- bombcar 3y agoBecause lots of what he thinks about happens away from the computer. He’s good with computer but he’s also good away from the computer.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoYou'd have thought a "hands-on" guy would have been capable of using the keyboard and typing his own ChatGPT prompts rather than asking a grad student to do it! He could then have tried to ask some follow-up questions and begun to do a more meaningful evaluation than seeing if he can come up with a 10 word "gotcha" prompt.
- bombcar 3y agoI assume he specifically did NOT do that because he did not want to “pollute” himself in some way. He just wanted to see how it did. This was more of a fun diversion for him than a scientific study.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoEvidentially so, but bizarre that someone like that never had the curiosity to try it at all before last month, and then gives it such a perfunctory test! Imagine if an alien visitor was captured, and it took David Attenborough 6 months to show any interest and send his intern off to check it out.
- suprfsat 3y ago"Who are you? How did you get in my house?" https://xkcd.com/163/ https://xkcd.com/163/
- weinzierl 3y agoI attended one of Donald Knuth's lectures many years ago (2001, I believe) and if my memory serves me right he mentioned that several of his colleagues died that year and he was musing that it might be a good year to die for him as well. I'm happy he is still with us.