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Comment by thrtythreeforty | Hacker News Reader

If Don Knuth sent me a 14-page letter, you bet I'm gonna read it. I might frame it.

I was fortunate enough to get one of the last physical reward checks which was accompanied by a printout of my e-mail, written on in pencil.

Fortunately, it survived a house flood which destroyed the book it was in, so now the envelope it's in is prominently displayed on a rack in my living room and would be one of the things I'd grab in the event of a fire.

Every so often, when a co-worker knows who Knuth is I bring it in to a workplace to show off.

Extremely envious of this! I don't own a copy of Art of Computer Programming, so I did spend a not-insignificant amount of reading through some of Knuth's other writings trying to find mistakes that no one else has found, and I came up empty handed. There might be mistakes ripe for the picking in there, but I'm afraid I'm not quite smart enough to find them.

Still, a guy can dream. If I ever pick up Art of Computer Programming I might give it a go again.

I was fortunate that Knuth wrote a book on a topic which I have studied deeply, _Digital Typography_:

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/dt.html

My correction is for pg. 33, and there was a minor point of improvement which I can't find.

Very cool!

He just needs to write a book on obscure cartoon history, and I'll be shoe-in. Until then I think I will just have to deal with living in envy.

You are aware that his first publication was in _Mad Magazine_?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potrzebie

(scroll down to "System of Measurement")

or see:

https://webmadness.net/blog/?post=knuth

I was not aware of that. That's a fun fact that I did not expect to learn today.

be a good person and post some pictures about both so we can refer to it someday. For science !

I have a letter from Knuth as well as a letter from Erdos. I've been hanging onto these.

I would definitely frame it. I framed an email from Norvig and a note from Dijkstra. Get joy from small things.

I once emailed Dijkstra. I was 14, it was the mid 90s, and I had just connected to the real internet a few months ago. I had just come across his name as a prominent computer scientist. I wanted to be one just like him, so I asked him what I should do.

He replied. it was 3 full paragraphs. He told me to study algorithms and to learn python.

You're right. I absolutely should frame it.

I have a blog post by Norvig where he gently chides me for wasting enormous amounts of CPU trying to find a counterexample to the Beale Conjecture. Not exactly frameable, and not exactly something to be proud of, but I got a chuckle nonetheless.

If a rando from hn sent me a 14-page letter, I'd probably read it. I might give it to the police afterwards.

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