Back when I was at UC Santa Cruz, I spent a summer there trying to finish up my coursework so that I could graduate by the end of 1991 (a semester late). One of the requirements which I had previously eluded was for math and science. However, an interesting-sounding course, something like "Introduction to Computer Math", caught my eye, and I signed up.
I was doomed to failure, however. The teacher was brilliant, but he kept saying things like "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah it's all just common sense, really." At least, that's what it sounded like to me.
I finally decided that I didn't have any common sense, and I dropped the course, replacing it with "The Psychology of Human Sexuality," which was taught by a repulsive hairy little man who wore loud Hawaiian shirts and compared male circumcision at birth to the genital mutilation of adult women in Africa. (That class was an easy pass, at least. But I digress)
Anyway, the teacher of the computer math course was none other than David Huffman, inventor of the Huffman Code, a fact which he proudly mentioned. It meant nothing to me at the time, of course, but it means a great deal to me now, because it's one of the bases for mp3 compression. And I listen to a lot of mp3s.
From Slashdot's comments today:
David Huffman is also the inventor of Huffman coding used in MP3s...
"Let's sue HIM too!!!" -RIAA
