Re: John McCarthy R.I.P.

From	seeWebInstead@rem.intarweb.org (Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t)
Newsgroups	comp.ai.philosophy, comp.programming
Subject	Re: John McCarthy R.I.P.
References	<c7a06143-1467-467b-9151-bd5f88ea89b4@n13g2000vbv.googlegroups.com>
Message-ID	<REM-2011nov13-004@Yahoo.Com> (permalink)
Date	2011-11-13 16:00 -0800

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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Shit, he was one of only four still-living people listed in
NNDB.Com whom I ever met in real-life, the other three being Whit
Diffie, Richard Stallman and Donald Knuth, of which only JMC and
Whit would likely still remember me, now only Whit. (I also met
Eugene McCarthy, but he died before NNDB.Com existed. I wish Bill
Gosper or Hans Moravec or Kent Pitman were listed in NNDB.Com,
because they would each remember me too. I'm hanging by a thread
from NNDB.Com, sigh.)
This newsgroup thread is the first I learned of JMC's death.
(Oops, two different meanings of "thread" in same paragraph. Oh well.)

> From: RichD <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com>
> Anybody have any personal McCarthy stories to share?

In late 1970 I was hanging around the A.I. lab, doing my own
software research using SAIL (based on Algol 60) to analyze
random-number generators using a graphic tree representation of
short-growing-context statistics, when he approached me to throw me
out of the lab because I wasn't formally affiliated with Stanford.
But he told me that because I had placed top five in the Putnam
contest, he'd give me a second chance: If I did research for him to
achieve good data compression, he might hire me. So I was allowed
to continue to use the computer, more directed towards
data-compression. The next spring he finally hired me, for two
months.

Later I met his daughter Sarah, who became the 23rd gal I ever
kissed. I wonder what she's up to lately.

P.s. it was Greta Torp, the 3rd gal I ever kissed, who told me
about folk dancing at Stanford, and it was there at Stanford folk
dancing where I heard about the Chess-playing program at the A.I.
lab, causing me to go visit there and start hanging around there,
allowing me to meet Arthur Samuel and later John McCarthy.

Google-groups-search-key: imtrgfdi

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John McCarthy R.I.P. RichD <r_delaney2001@yahoo.com> - 2011-11-04 13:17 -0700
  Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. RichD <r_delaney2001@yahoo.com> - 2011-11-09 13:17 -0800
    Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. casey <jgkjcasey@yahoo.com.au> - 2011-11-09 14:04 -0800
      Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2011-11-10 09:45 +0100
        Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. casey <jgkjcasey@yahoo.com.au> - 2011-11-10 01:24 -0800
          Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2011-11-10 12:14 +0100
        Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. Antti J Ylikoski <antti.ylikoski@aalto.fi> - 2011-11-10 11:38 +0200
          Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2011-11-10 11:54 +0100
            Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. Antti J Ylikoski <antti.ylikoski@aalto.fi> - 2011-11-10 14:09 +0200
              Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2011-11-10 14:46 +0100
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. seeWebInstead@rem.intarweb.org (Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) - 2011-11-13 18:00 -0800
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2011-11-14 12:07 +0100
                Towards true A.I. (was: John McCarthy R.I.P.) seeWebInstead@rem.intarweb.org (Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) - 2012-03-27 12:25 -0700
                Re: Towards true A.I. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-03-29 15:21 +0200
                Re: Towards true A.I. curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) - 2012-03-30 15:56 +0000
                Re: Towards true A.I. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-03-30 18:32 +0200
                Re: Towards true A.I. Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.nospam@virtualinfinity.net> - 2012-03-30 14:20 -0700
                Re: Towards true A.I. Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-03-30 15:01 -0700
                Re: Towards true A.I. seeWebInstead@rem.intarweb.org (Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) - 2012-04-21 15:53 -0700
                Re: Towards true A.I. casey <jgkjcasey@yahoo.com.au> - 2012-04-21 18:47 -0700
                Re: Towards true A.I. "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-04-22 10:03 +0100
                Re: Towards true A.I. Don Stockbauer <donstockbauer@hotmail.com> - 2012-04-22 04:10 -0700
                Re: Towards true A.I. Gary Forbis <forbisgaryg@msn.com> - 2012-04-02 19:46 -0700
                Re: Towards true A.I. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-04-03 09:51 +0200
                Re: Towards true A.I. Gary Forbis <forbisgaryg@gmail.com> - 2012-04-03 05:22 -0700
                Re: Towards true A.I. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-04-04 10:31 +0200
                Re: Towards true A.I. curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) - 2012-04-05 00:24 +0000
                Re: Towards true A.I. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-04-06 10:41 +0200
                Re: Towards true A.I. curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) - 2012-04-05 01:00 +0000
                Re: Towards true A.I. seeWebInstead@rem.intarweb.org (Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) - 2012-04-21 15:44 -0700
                Re: Towards true A.I. seeWebInstead@rem.intarweb.org (Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) - 2012-04-17 21:57 -0700
                Re: Towards true A.I. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-04-21 10:08 +0200
            Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) - 2011-11-10 16:03 +0000
              Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. casey <jgkjcasey@yahoo.com.au> - 2011-11-10 12:16 -0800
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "James" <no@spam.invalid> - 2011-11-10 13:00 -0800
              Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2011-11-10 21:50 +0100
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) - 2011-11-10 21:07 +0000
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2011-11-11 11:43 +0100
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) - 2011-11-12 22:38 +0000
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. casey <jgkjcasey@yahoo.com.au> - 2011-11-13 01:32 -0800
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) - 2011-11-14 15:28 +0000
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2011-11-14 16:57 +0100
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) - 2011-11-17 22:19 +0000
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2011-11-18 10:51 +0100
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. casey <jgkjcasey@yahoo.com.au> - 2011-11-14 11:42 -0800
                Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2011-11-13 12:45 +0100
    Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. RichD <r_delaney2001@yahoo.com> - 2011-12-14 10:28 -0800
  Re: John McCarthy R.I.P. seeWebInstead@rem.intarweb.org (Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) - 2011-11-13 16:00 -0800

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