[OT] Knuth's rewards [Was: Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme]

[Neal Holtz]

mertz at gnosis.cx (David Mertz) wrote in message news:<mailman.153.1066381568.2192.python-list at python.org>...
> Jacek Generowicz <jacek.generowicz at cern.ch> wrote previously:
> |> Could you afford to pay $327.68 for every bug found in your glorious
> |> software?
> |Anyone know how Knuth arrives at the amounts he offers ?
> |(He also offers $2.56 for errors in his books.)
> 
> Surely you recognize powers of two? :-).
> 
> The system is really the ultimate in chutzpah.  In takes VERY few errors
> before he goes broke... or, say, if the US treasury were at his
> disposal, *IT* goes broke.
> 

I don't think it doubles at every error, but at every version.
So if he pays $2.56 for errors in version 3.141, he pays $5.12
for errors in version 3.1415 (for example).  So he gets to control
how fast he is pauperized.