OT: Will Knuth's lifetime of work be used for learning input in AI systems, and does he control that?
An AI application might make a good search interface for Knuth's opus.
Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
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Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#22OT: Will Knuth's lifetime of work be used for learning input in AI systems, and does he control that? An AI application might make a good search interface for Knuth's opus.
The key players have likely all ingested Anna's Archive.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#23I have a Knuth cheque from back when he sent out real cheques. Or at least I did; for some reason I decided that cashing it was a good idea and so I have his note back to me and a photocopy of the actual cheque.
lol I'm a bit curious about the thought process that led you to decide you wanted to cash it.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#24OT: Will Knuth's lifetime of work be used for learning input in AI systems, and does he control that? An AI application might make a good search interface for Knuth's opus.
The key players have likely all ingested Anna's Archive.
Based on what you say, I presume that Anna's Archive includes Knuth. For certain purposes, would you want AI software trained only on Knuth or have it 'diluted' with everything else?
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#25Great post. Some general takeaways for people who want Knuth checks: 1. You are unlikely to find errors in the algorithms themselves, especially if they've been officially published. You might find some infelicities, but these are not counted as full errors. For example, the author here found some confusing-but-not-wrong comments about local variables and unused registers. These are counted as "suggestions" (worth 0x…
Knuth has the Pablo Picasso’s Dinner Bill “Problem” and so can afford to be generous.
Picasso used to dine and dash as it were by drawing a doodle on the back of his check when the bill came due, and often enough the owner would choose to frame the check instead of cash it.
For a long time most of the cost of writing checks to Knuth is the writing of the checks, not the cashing of them. He’s paying for X00 checks at a time and the energy to fill them out. And anyone who had gotten their first check from him would not cash it.
Though these days I can cash a check via a phone app and so I don’t need to forfeit the check to get the money.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#26Great post. Some general takeaways for people who want Knuth checks: 1. You are unlikely to find errors in the algorithms themselves, especially if they've been officially published. You might find some infelicities, but these are not counted as full errors. For example, the author here found some confusing-but-not-wrong comments about local variables and unused registers. These are counted as "suggestions" (worth 0x…
Knuth has the Pablo Picasso’s Dinner Bill “Problem” and so can afford to be generous. Picasso used to dine and dash as it were by drawing a doodle on the back of his check when the bill came due, and often enough the owner would choose to frame the check instead of cash it. For a long time most of the cost of writing checks to Knuth is the writing of the checks, not the cashing of them. He’s paying for X00 checks at…
>Though these days I can cash a check via a phone app and so I don’t need to forfeit the check to get the money.
Its incredible that both of these technologies is in active use at the same time.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#27I have a Knuth cheque from back when he sent out real cheques. Or at least I did; for some reason I decided that cashing it was a good idea and so I have his note back to me and a photocopy of the actual cheque.
Aren't the cheques for $2.56?
Why am I just now having this thought?
He should make them $5.12 so it’s a check for 1,000,000,000 cents, instead of 100,000,000.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#28Great post. Some general takeaways for people who want Knuth checks: 1. You are unlikely to find errors in the algorithms themselves, especially if they've been officially published. You might find some infelicities, but these are not counted as full errors. For example, the author here found some confusing-but-not-wrong comments about local variables and unused registers. These are counted as "suggestions" (worth 0x…
> ... includes a reference to an article in the Bulletin de l’Institut français du Caire. But the author points out that the article is actually in the Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale. Whoops! 0x$1.00 for you!
I do wonder whether this is more likely to be a case where the journal actually changed its name over time (perhaps because the Institut itself did) and then made the older papers available under the new name - which would mean both references are ultimately correct.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#29Great post. Some general takeaways for people who want Knuth checks: 1. You are unlikely to find errors in the algorithms themselves, especially if they've been officially published. You might find some infelicities, but these are not counted as full errors. For example, the author here found some confusing-but-not-wrong comments about local variables and unused registers. These are counted as "suggestions" (worth 0x…
> ... includes a reference to an article in the Bulletin de l’Institut français du Caire . But the author points out that the article is actually in the Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale . Whoops! 0x$1.00 for you! I do wonder whether this is more likely to be a case where the journal actually changed its name over time (perhaps because the Institut itself did) and then made the older papers avai…
I don't think so. The article links to an image of the 1930 journal article – https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53180372w – it doesn't look like it has been republished, it looks like something close to the original publication
I don't completely know what is going on here, but I guess it is something like this: the institute has since 1898 officially been called Institut français d'archéologie orientale, and its journal has always officially been called Bulletin de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale. However, historically, people would sometimes add du Caire (in Cairo) to the institute's name (to specify its location) – this habit was supported by the history that, prior to 1898, the institute (or its predecessor) was called École française du Caire (French School of Cairo) – and then unofficially abbreviate it from Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire to Institut français d'archéologie du Caire or even Institut français du Caire. And since the journal is named for the institution, once people got in the habit of unofficially abbreviating the name of the institution, they applied the same habit to the journal.
So Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale has always been the official name of the journal, but Bulletin de l’Institut français du Caire is a historical unofficial alternative name.
As I said, I'm just speculating, I don't really know. But this seems more plausible to me than the journal or institute changing its name, because I can't find any evidence of any name change since 1898, which was long before the publication of the 1930 article.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#30I have a Knuth cheque from back when he sent out real cheques. Or at least I did; for some reason I decided that cashing it was a good idea and so I have his note back to me and a photocopy of the actual cheque.
I have one for $7.68 ($2.56*3). Alas, it was for some minor typos and grammatical errors in SPOCS [1], not "real" math errors in TAOCP. Never plan on cashing it in though. And I can't remember where I stashed it, so there's that too... :)