[zoky]

> he makes the same kinds and the same frequency of errors as anyone else

Putting this here because I don’t know where else to tell this story and I simply have to share:

I flew into Munich a few months ago, and since I have an EU passport I was able to use the shorter self-scan line for EU citizens at passport control. In front of me was an older couple who was having trouble with getting their passports to scan. I noticed they had US passports, so I politely informed the gentleman that he was in the wrong line. He turned around and thanked me, and that’s when I noticed the guy looked exactly like Donald Knuth! Before I could compose myself enough to say anything though, he and his wife had left to find the correct line. Obviously I couldn’t be sure it was him, but I checked Knuth’s public schedule and he was apparently speaking at some conference in Venice about two weeks later, so I’m guessing he decided to come a bit early and enjoy a vacation before the conference.

So yeah, I’m like 99% sure I technically corrected an error by Donald Knuth, but unfortunately I missed out on my reward check. Didn’t even get a selfie with him.

[abhgh]

I have mentioned this elsewhere online but I was once attending a talk in the computer history museum for which I had turned up early. An elderly gentleman took his seat right before me - it took me a while to process that it was Knuth (in reality, it was less to do with processing and more with accepting!).

Somewhat recently we spotted him at a Hitchcock movie festival at Palo Alto, which my wife and I were attending.

Random run-ins are surreal :-)

[oefrha]

Back when I was at Stanford a decade ago, I spotted him biking to/from Green Library quite a few times. You can probably run into him with some regularity if you make a habit of going to said library, assuming his routine hasn’t changed much ;)

[abhgh]

Oh thats a cool fact to know! Thanks.

[weinzierl]

I attended one of his MMIX lectures in Munich two decades ago and he mentioned that he was going to visit a friend later, so I guess he might have contacts in Munich.

Speaking of errors, in the lecture he once forgot to save a file in Emacs and was confused about the compilation result briefly. Made him very relatable.

[rnewme]

At risk of sounding negative, I'm glad you didn't get to pester old man with a selfie.

[zoky]

I wouldn’t have seriously asked him for a selfie while we were both trying to get through passport control after a 12-hour flight. It’s just a little bit of a bummer that I have no way of confirming that I actually did randomly run into Donald-Freaking-Knuth in the Munich airport. Doubly so because most people who I relate this story to have absolutely no clue who Donald-Freaking-Knuth even is, so it’s just completely lost on them.