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Comment by WillAdams | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, one no longer gets physical checks, instead, one gets an account in The Bank of the Island of San Seriffe:

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

(unfortunately, I have yet to find another typo since getting my $2.88 for _Digital Typography_)

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Close enough. If I ever got such a check it would be professionally framed and hung on my wall. As would most people reading this.

Most people reading this would be hung on your wall?

After being framed, of course. You need to have a justification.

I heard philipallstar and sandbach were doing treason.

@bluGill, you owe me some money or this framing won't be professional. ;)

Wait, I thought I was going to frame you, but it turns out you're you're blackmailing me. I don't have to frame you anymore. I have evidence of a real crime.

This is some very unprofessional framing.

I have at least one Knuth check¹ from the days when they were actual checks, but to be honest, I’m not 100% sure where it (they?) are. I’m on the mailing list where potential TeX-related bugs appear and it’s crazy the level of detail people go to in looking for any remaining bugs in that software.

⸻

1. I know at least one of these came from porting lesser-known utilities to VM/CMS. By that time, DEK already had adopted a practice of having his secretary print his emails and he’d hand-write a reply and you’d get it in the mail.

You still get a physical piece of paper that looks like a check; it's just not a valid check.

It can still be cashed in, though not in any bank, you need to contact Knuth beforehand.

For me it will stay framed on the wall.

I wonder if one can do the reverse? Turn in a physical check and get an account?

There’s a funny explanation at the bottom:

> It turns out that only 9 of the first 275 checks that I've sent out since the beginning of 2006 have actually been cashed. The others have apparently been cached. So this change in policy will probably not affect too many people. On the other hand, I don't like to renege on promises, so I shall do my best to find a suitable way to send money to anyone who really prefers legal tender.

But but... that's all serif.

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