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Every time something like this comes up, I recall “office hours” with David Huffman at UC Santa Cruz. Most of the conversation was about things other than clas
by jmspring 2y ago
Every time something like this comes up, I recall “office hours” with David Huffman at UC Santa Cruz. Most of the conversation was about things other than class. One frequent topic was his paper folding.
https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/collection/david-a-huffman-collection https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/collection/david-a-huf...
- dekhn 2y agoI took Huffman's class "Cybernetics" (we never discussed origami) which was pretty fun. It's the only CS class I ever took in college, and the only class I failed (his tests were hard). The class was filled with interesting tidbits of information theory and random interesting math problems like sphere packing.
- jmspring 2y agoCybernetics, if I recall rightly, was a “multidisciplinary (80 series when I was there) class, no? His classes were my favorite because he was one of the few profs that really didn’t sugar coat things and appreciated those that put effort in.
- dekhn 2y agoWell, this was 1993 so my memory may be faulty but I believe it was a CS class (or maybe math?) I put the effort in but he didn't appreciate me. I still got a lot of out of the course, though: the imposter syndrome it gave me made me work extra hard to learn actual CS I needed to be successful later in my career.
- jmspring 2y agoHe was a hardass. I had a class with an acquiantence/friend (who went on to found two start ups) and failed is 103a class the first time around with Huffman. We caught Huffman in a mistake and gave back as good as he gave. It was a fun time. Learned a lot.