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Knuth's 15th Annual Christmas Tree Lecture [video]

aw3c2 17y ago
Can anyone find a working link to the actual video file? I tried http://proedvid.stanford.edu/knuth/091208/091208-knuth-500.wmv http://proedvid.stanford.edu/knuth/091208/091208-knuth-500.w... with mplayer but it tries again and again without ever starting. Inside seem to be more links. Curl has no luck either.
- chaosmachine 17y ago
  The provided link worked, but died after about 5 minutes. The server is probably overwhelmed.
- ovi256 17y ago
  The .asx link works with Firefox or VLC, but not with Safari 4 on Snow Leopard. I guess it's a codec problem. Update : it stopped after a few mins ... server overload as others guessed.
pkrumins 17y ago
I'll download all his lectures, convert to a good format, re-upload to youtube, and then write summaries of all of them!
- almost 17y ago
  That's most kind of you, thanks!
  - pkrumins 17y ago
    You're welcome. Watching video lectures is my most favorite hobby. I'll let you all know when I start doing this!
- michael_dorfman 17y ago
  I'm looking forward to the summaries, but are you sure Knuth wants his videos on YouTube? I'd ask, first. Right now they are available via iTunes and SCPD-- I imagine if he wanted them on YouTube, he would have had them put there....
  - dangoldin 17y ago
    Knuth doesn't use email so the pkrumins will need to call him or send him snail mail.
pvg 17y ago
Keep in mind these are fairly dense (judging from the ones I've attended in years past) and assume a reasonable amount of background - they're not google tech talks. 'Christmas Lecture' makes them sound universally accessible but that's not quite the case. It's helpful if you're familiar with the sort of topics covered in his Concrete Mathematics. Also if you're expecting a lecturer in the Feynmanian stratosphere, you might be disappointed. Certainly interesting stuff, with those caveats. Edit: A few minutes into this lecture after drawing a graph and its Laplacian matrix on a bit of paper he says 'I'm not going to use high-powered determinant theory in this talk but if determinants scare you, too bad, just enjoy the jokes'.
jeresig 17y ago
Excellent! I attended this talk in person and it was great to see him work. (I'm the "the guy from Boston" that Knuth referred to.) Picture with Knuth: http://twitpic.com/sqxku http://twitpic.com/sqxku My note-taking pages were absolutely loaded by the end of the talk. I'm glad I got to hear from him at least once in my life!
- juvenn 17y ago
  You both are my heroes. One from academia, and another javascript guru.
zokier 17y ago
He is maybe one of the greatest computer scientists of all time, but he doesn't seem to be very good talker. Kinda surprising.
- pavs 17y ago
  I might be one of the few who enjoyed it, didn't watch the whole thing yet. Even though I have never watched his earlier talks to make a comparison, at 71 he might not be in his best form when giving talks.
- dagw 17y ago
  Why surprising? I don't think I've ever seen any correlation between greatness and ability to give a talk. I certainly remember at university we had courses by world class leaders in their fields that put everyone to sleep and lectures by recent grad students which where really great.

aw3c2 17y ago

Can anyone find a working link to the actual video file? I tried http://proedvid.stanford.edu/knuth/091208/091208-knuth-500.wmv http://proedvid.stanford.edu/knuth/091208/091208-knuth-500.w... with mplayer but it tries again and again without ever starting. Inside seem to be more links. Curl has no luck either.

chaosmachine 17y ago
The provided link worked, but died after about 5 minutes. The server is probably overwhelmed.
ovi256 17y ago
The .asx link works with Firefox or VLC, but not with Safari 4 on Snow Leopard. I guess it's a codec problem. Update : it stopped after a few mins ... server overload as others guessed.

pkrumins 17y ago

I'll download all his lectures, convert to a good format, re-upload to youtube, and then write summaries of all of them!

almost 17y ago
That's most kind of you, thanks!
- pkrumins 17y ago
  You're welcome. Watching video lectures is my most favorite hobby. I'll let you all know when I start doing this!
michael_dorfman 17y ago
I'm looking forward to the summaries, but are you sure Knuth wants his videos on YouTube? I'd ask, first. Right now they are available via iTunes and SCPD-- I imagine if he wanted them on YouTube, he would have had them put there....
- dangoldin 17y ago
  Knuth doesn't use email so the pkrumins will need to call him or send him snail mail.

pvg 17y ago

Keep in mind these are fairly dense (judging from the ones I've attended in years past) and assume a reasonable amount of background - they're not google tech talks. 'Christmas Lecture' makes them sound universally accessible but that's not quite the case. It's helpful if you're familiar with the sort of topics covered in his Concrete Mathematics. Also if you're expecting a lecturer in the Feynmanian stratosphere, you might be disappointed. Certainly interesting stuff, with those caveats. Edit: A few minutes into this lecture after drawing a graph and its Laplacian matrix on a bit of paper he says 'I'm not going to use high-powered determinant theory in this talk but if determinants scare you, too bad, just enjoy the jokes'.

jeresig 17y ago

Excellent! I attended this talk in person and it was great to see him work. (I'm the "the guy from Boston" that Knuth referred to.) Picture with Knuth: http://twitpic.com/sqxku http://twitpic.com/sqxku My note-taking pages were absolutely loaded by the end of the talk. I'm glad I got to hear from him at least once in my life!

juvenn 17y ago
You both are my heroes. One from academia, and another javascript guru.

zokier 17y ago

He is maybe one of the greatest computer scientists of all time, but he doesn't seem to be very good talker. Kinda surprising.

pavs 17y ago
I might be one of the few who enjoyed it, didn't watch the whole thing yet. Even though I have never watched his earlier talks to make a comparison, at 71 he might not be in his best form when giving talks.
dagw 17y ago
Why surprising? I don't think I've ever seen any correlation between greatness and ability to give a talk. I certainly remember at university we had courses by world class leaders in their fields that put everyone to sleep and lectures by recent grad students which where really great.