In every full set of TAOCP, there is a sentence that reads "If you have read this far, mail this string to the author to collect $25." The sentence is followed by a 10 character alphanumeric string. The string and placement of this sentence is randomized: different in every set.
To this day only 3 people have collected their checks. All three have them framed on their walls.
My parent post was a (badly executed) joke, riffing on a) the famous bug reward checks and b) the running joke (mentioned in other comments) that a lot more people own TAOCP than have actually read it. EDIT: and c) the urban legends of students putting such a "test" sentence in papers they hand in to inattentive professors.
There is no better way to kill a joke than explain it, but mine was DOA anyway...
Wow. This sounds like an urban legend (for values of "urban" that mean "university CS departmental"), but I would love to be convinced that it is true.
I'm skeptical. I read the first 3 volumes nearly 20 years ago, skipping only a couple of the most laborious mathy sections and don't recall seeing this.
In every full set of TAOCP, there is a sentence that reads "If you have read this far, mail this string to the author to collect $25." The sentence is followed by a 10 character alphanumeric string. The string and placement of this sentence is randomized: different in every set.
To this day only 3 people have collected their checks. All three have them framed on their walls.