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Don Knuth – Constraint Based Music Composition (youtube.com)
107 points by e7mac on May 8, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 22 comments



Can't see who's playing. Is it a recording or some sort of MIDI performance?


This was held at the ccrma stage! So many great talks and concerts have been held there. I have used that room to stream phish shows and watch cabin in the woods in 5.1 :D

If you are in the bay area you should definitely go check out one of the events, they are all free and open to the public.

--> https://ccrma.stanford.edu/


A comprehensive autobiographical video interview with Knuth from a few years ago:

http://www.webofstories.com/play/donald.knuth/1


Does anyone notice Don's piano belt :)


I would wager a bet that it is a pipe organ belt.


The word "eccentric" springs to mind. (I mean that in the nicest possible way)


He reminds me of a Physics professor I had in college. She was taught by Catholic nuns, and she had a lot of the same mannerisms.


Gotta love this Christian.


Through some odd twist of, who knows what, I attended the same high school as Donald Knuth. When I learned this, I asked my grandmother if she knew him - she (and my late grandfather) were involved with school since was formed. Not only did she know exactly who he was, but had read one of his books! (Not a CS book, of course; 3:16.) I'm glad that I get to tell people that even my granny has read Knuth.


Don is such an interesting and humble person -- and oh so very sharp.

I ran into this short video after watching the music one, which shows what a very hard worker he was and still is:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9514350


I don't understand this.


Don Knuth is a Christian, as he sometimes mentions in talks or things he's written. He also wrote this book which discusses each 3:16 verse in the bible http://www.amazon.com/3-16-Bible-Texts-Illuminated/dp/089579...


Thank you for answering my question.


A white American being Christian is so common that I wonder why the original poster felt that this was worth emphasizing.


As Knuth himself acknowledged in "Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About", it's rare among CS researchers.


Not meant to be insulting or disparaging but I'm curious: Does Knuth have some form of highly functional autism or related? His body language is very weird to me. Staring at the floor a lot, seems to be lost in thought, etc.?


If you find yourself starting a sentence with an excuse, it's a good sign you are on the wrong side of polite behaviour. He's 77 years old.


I didn't start with an excuse, I qualified my question in such a way that I had hoped these type of responses wouldn't follow.


The man built a career out of thinking and you bring up the oddity of him getting "lost in thought"?

He might have some sort of cognitive abnormality, but at this point who cares what it is? He's Donald freaking Knuth.


I know. I get that. I love the man and his work. He's one of the hardest working intellectuals I've seen and his contributions to computer science are of the highest order.


Because he's not some CEO bounding on to the stage and projecting him self with his chest puffed out?




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