Fraud Threat Halts Knuth's Hexadecimal-Dollar Checks

Barence writes "You may be aware of Donald Knuth, the creator of TeX and author of The Art of Computer Programming, who used to post checks to anyone who spotted an error in one of his books — one hexadecimal dollar, or $2.56. No one cashed them though. This blogger has two of them proudly on his wall, but the sad news is that modern day bank fraud has put a stop to Knuth's much-loved way of keeping his books free of errors." (Here's Knuth's own post about the sad change.)

Error

[onebuttonmouse]

"only 9 of the first 275 checks that I've sent out since the beginning of 2006 have actually been cashed."

Can I have my cheque now?

New Bill

[Ukab the Great]

Obviously we must petition the United States Treasury to release a $2.56 bill with Don Knuth's face on it, which he can then autograph and send to the smarty pants who find errors in his book.

Re:Forgive me

[Enki X]

I am ashamed

Re:Forgive me

[Anonymous Coward]

I work full-time and gross $19,200/year and I'm a Democrat. What's your excuse?

Does that mean you just want free stuff from people who have decent jobs?

--
I work full-time and gross $28,000/year and I'm a Libertarian.

Re:Well, checks may be out..

[gnud]

You name variables after them in illustrations of poorly thought out algorithms?

Re:paranoia much

[Anonymous Coward]

It is odd that he's had multiple attacks while I've had zero, since he claims the attack is entirely despite any knowledge of the account holder's name or wealth.

Well, his checks are posted in many people's offices, where your checks are just up at the District Attorney's office. Therefor, everyone knows you have no money in the account.

Re:Shift left by 1

[Sloppy]

Actually, don't the cheques start at $2.56, and then shift left by 1 as each error is found, up to a maximum of $327.68?

Unfortunately there was a bug in Knuth's check writing program, and the last person received a check for the amount of "one carry bit, set."

Re:Forgive me

[maxume]

Has being wrong made things difficult for you?

Re:Forgive me

[Ed Avis]

Think of a dollar as "100" cents. 0x100 cents = 256 (decimal) cents.

Yes, finally someone is taking a stand against the crappy metric-system-obsessed definition of a dollar. Everyone knows a dollar is 256 cents, this whole decimal crap is just a conspiracy by big business in cahoots with the Federal Reserve to rip us off, just like they did with hard disk sizes. I'm voting for Ron Paul.

Re:Forgive me

[0xABADC0DA]

It's still wrong though, "cent" is the same "cent" as in "centimeter" or "percent" and means 1/100. The unit is the dollar, so 0x1 dollar = one dollar.

So if you point out this error to Knuth... do you get a check for $0x1 or $2.56?

Re:Forgive me

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm currently unemployed. As far as I'm concerned, you're both making unfair "windfall" profits. Obviously, I deserve some of it, so I'm voting Democrat.

Re:Forgive me

[Anonymous Coward]

Does being an asshole give you an erection?

Re:Forgive me

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither! RTFA, n00b!

Re:Forgive me

[Bloke down the pub]

Would it help if the word "pennies" were used

Bringing base 240 in will just confuse the issue.

Re:Forgive me

[knothead99]

Forget that, I'm voting for Tron Paul [xkcd.com].