[lukaslalinsky]

I was in San Francisco a few years back and I was amazed to learn that Donald Knuth not only still lives, but it still giving these once a year lectures in Stanford. Going there, finding the right building in the university, and then seeing this man speak about things I could only barely follow gave me such a memorable evening. What a legend Donald Knuth is.

[sheetjs]

Knuth is also still reviewing TAOCP-related email and issuing reward checks. A teammate received a reward check for 1 hex dollar last month after finding an error in Seminumerical Algorithms. Along with the check, there was a printout of the original email with hand-written annotations.

[WillAdams]

Note that it's no longer an actual check --- instead one gets a certificate of deposit at The Bank of San Seriffe:

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

(I got a physical check for $2.88 for a typo and a point of improvement in _Digital Typography_ --- need to find another so I can get an account....)

If that was not included in your geography lessons see:

https://legacy.geog.ucsb.edu/the-semicolonial-island-nation-...

[shagie]

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

And one of my favorite quotes on the subject:

> Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text. Stupidity: Cashing that $2.56 check you got.

> — Seen in a Slashdot signature, quoted by Tess O'Connor ( https://www.stgray.com/quotes/programmingquotes.html )

[WillAdams]

Some of the checks added up to quite a bit more than that (if there's ever another error check for TeX it will be for $327.68), and one notable at a TeX User's Group conference stated that he had cashed a check for $40.96 and was grateful to DEK for it, since it put food on his table when he was a poor starving grad student.