5 ms·
> While biking home from school yesterday, I thought of 20 questions that would be interesting to pose to chatGPT. Was anyone else struck by the notion of reme
by gnicholas 3y ago
> While biking home from school yesterday, I thought of 20 questions
that would be interesting to pose to chatGPT.
Was anyone else struck by the notion of remembering 20 items that were brainstormed while bike riding? I could probably remember a dozen items to get at the grocery store, but I don't know that I could simultaneously generate creative ideas and remember a list of unrelated ideas (unlike groceries, which can be grouped by category).
Perhaps he just brainstormed a few dozen ideas, and these were the 20 that he remembered most easily when he got home. But given what we know of Don Knuth, it wouldn't be surprising if he were easily able to generate and remember longer lists of things than most people!
- radres 3y agoI am struck by the fact the Donald Knuth bikes to work at age 85.
- bombcar 3y agoIt’s interesting that he goes to work at all - I assume he could get work from home anytime he wants to.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- johannes1234321 3y agoI guess there are three things he does while working: * Thinking About maths problems (incl. writing them down, solving) * Teaching students * Discussing problems with researchers. The first thing he could probably do at home, but having a dedicated thinking place may help. The others are hard to do at home in the same quality for many reasons.
- lanstin 3y agoIIRC he gets into his work arrangement to try to finish TAOCP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BdBfsXbST8&ab_channel=LexFridman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BdBfsXbST8&ab_channel=LexFr... I don't really like Lex Fridman, but this interview is excellent.
- puttycat 3y agoMany people around the world bike at this age. It's true that most of them are not in the USA.
- quickthrower2 3y agoStay fit people!
- archon810 3y agoStay fit, people! Or, maybe all fit people are leaving the US: Stay, fit people!
- gnicholas 3y agoPerhaps one of the reasons he's lived so long is because he has healthy habits like this.
- hintymad 3y agoWell, given the level of details in TAOCP, and the fact that Knuth wrote a 8000-page draft of TAOCP in a matter of a few months, Knuth is certainly capable of remember the 20 questions, if not more. Still, it's striking, nonetheless.
- hintymad 3y agoIt should 3000 pages. I don’t know why I said 8000.
- bombcar 3y agoIt seems to me he was thinking of various “types” of questions, including areas he was intimately familiar with, and chose 20. I don’t know if he worked out exactly what he would ask, but perhaps he did.
- quickthrower2 3y agoWhen my TODO app had “buy milk” in it :-)
- tacker2000 3y agoKnuth is surely above us mere mortals.