HN Gopher Feed (2017-06-22) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Oded Wins the Knuth Prize
70 points by sndean
https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2017/06/22/oded-wins-the-knuth-pr...___________________________________________________________________
kingbirdy - 2 hours ago
The post mentions him apologizing "For not declining the award?as
some might have hoped" - can anyone comment on why that might have
been the case?
gweinberg - 2 hours ago
Just a guess: It's a joke, referring to the fact that most people
who win the $2.56 checks from Knuth don't cash them in.
vmarquet - 2 hours ago
Knuth's checks have their own wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check
eatbitseveryday - 48 minutes ago
From the Wiki page:> Very few of these checks were actually
cashed, even the largest ones. More often they have been
framed and kept as "bragging rights".[4][5]Cashing a check
only removes it from your possession if you hand it in to do
so. Banks these days need only a physical scan of a check,
e.g. via mobile phone deposit. Why not do both? There's
nothing wrong with taking payment for your efforts.
ihm - 42 minutes ago
Oded has argued previously[1] against awards in academia.[1]:
http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded/on-awards.html
homin - 1 hours ago
He's famously opinionated: http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded
/on-awards.html
hackernewsacct - 59 minutes ago
Looks like he does research in theoretical computer science,
applied to cryptography. With his academic expertise, what kind of
industry jobs would fit his skill sets? He wouldn't fit the typical
tech security job.
throwawayjava - 41 minutes ago
> With his academic expertise, what kind of industry jobs would
fit his skill sets?I would imagine his pick among the various
industry research labs, if he wanted them.> He wouldn't fit the
typical tech security job.Nor would he be a good fit as a line
cook or as a surgeon...
modalduality - 2 minutes ago
Some context: doubly efficient interactive proofs are one of the
fundamental ideas that make Zcash possible on modern hardware.
z2 - 2 hours ago
Took me a while to register that the simple letter replacement
cipher used on that message has 26! = 403291461126605635584000000
possible keys... Ha!
wickawic - 1 hours ago
Oh that's clever. By noting the zeroes I just assumed the joke
was that the number was embarrassingly factorable.
shmageggy - 1 hours ago
"ODED WINS THE KNUTH PRIZE"I had a little help from context ;)
raldi - 59 minutes ago
For those who don't get it, the cryptogram "YXWX APRN LKW CRTLK
DHPFW" decodes to the above.