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Gengulphus

Formerly "Lemon Fool - Improve the Recipe" repurposed as Room 102 (see above).
Troglodytes
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Re: Gengulphus

#477055

Postby Troglodytes » January 29th, 2022, 1:13 pm

MDW1954 wrote:One suggestion that I haven't seen posted on this thread is some sort of compilation of Genguphus' "greatest hits". I have a number of mathematical/ statistical/ financial interests of my own, and for years have routinely saved any relevant "Seal-o-grams" as PDFs.

...
Thoughts?

MDW1954

That would be lovely to read through and reference - but obvioulsy I appreciate it's a fair bit of effort to compile. I did have a quick look at TMF to see if the archive was still there (until I remembered it was deleted -apart from a few snippets on archive.org). I'd been hoping to find some of our old correspondence as I would sometimes add remarks (on TMF) to my brother's posts in the full knowledge he'd know who they were from ;-)

Trog

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Re: Gengulphus

#477056

Postby Troglodytes » January 29th, 2022, 1:16 pm

Troglodytes wrote:Dear TLFers,

Firstly I would like to thank everyone for their kind words and memories of Gengulphus. We (the family) are deeply moved by all the heartfelt messages. Thank-you.

We've also have had a bit on a confab about outing Gengulphus; overall we feel that David wouldn't mind and would even smile at the idea. He quite liked a mystery and I can almost see his broad grin when a mystery gets solved. Also, of course, it's quite clear that many of you already know or have guessed. UncleEbenezer is quite right to make the connection to phutball; see John Conway's books on 'Winning Ways' (where incidently David is credited for some of the original work on solving Rubik's Magic Cube).

Anyway - Gengulphus in real-life was David Seal. I set up a condolence page a few weeks back if you would like to read more about him and other people's memories or if you would like to make a donation in his memory to Cancer Research. It's at davidseal.muchloved.com.

Once again thank-you to all of you and your lovely messages. Regards Trog and the rest of David's family.


Also just to let you know ARM have just published an online obituary - see https://www.arm.com/blogs/blueprint/rem ... david-seal

Trog

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Re: Gengulphus

#477062

Postby Troglodytes » January 29th, 2022, 1:51 pm

GoSeigen wrote:

Thanks for sharing Trog. I lost my father today. When I was a kid he bought me a Rubik's cube. I never solved it on my own but perhaps the photostated solution I "cheated" with was the one David helped create?

GoSeigen, I'm so sorry to hear of your loss :(

As I understand it David's main contribution to the Rubik's Cube was in helping to solve the top layer (if your solution is the typical layer-by-layer method). I'm not totally sure but I think David's contribution was to do with a method to correctly rotate (or flip) the top-layer edge pieces and he realised that doing so messed up some other edges in the lower layers but that wasn't necessarily a problem. If one corrected two top-layer edges consecutively then it would be possible to undo all the changes in the lower layers that had just been messed up with the second top-layer edge piece rotation. So one needs to flip top-layer edges pieces in pairs. This was all before the cube became widely known in 1980 when the Ideal Toy Corp won the rights to market it. From recollection I think someone else at Cambridge University (or more probably David Singmaster) was arranging special imports of the toy from Hungary before that (1977-80) and so mathematicians including John Conway's group at Cambridge University looked at it.

On a personal note, my credibility at school in 1980 shot up as I could solve the cube before any book came out, thus benefitting from my brother's excellent tutelage and written notes (another seal-o-gram I guess). The news spread quickly around the school that I could solve it; every break time and lunch other students would approach me with a cube to solve. With so much practice I became pretty fast at it and people started to time me - could pretty much guarantee to do it under a minute and often in just under 30seconds.

Regards and my condolences GoSeigen, Trog

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Re: Gengulphus

#477074

Postby MDW1954 » January 29th, 2022, 3:10 pm

Breelander wrote:
MDW1954 wrote:Now, TMF posts are (AFAIR) TMF-copyright.

I think you'll find that copyright of a post was retained by the author, and presumably now passes to the estate. TMF were granted an irrevocable non-exclusive licence to publish it, that's all.
TMF terms & conditions wrote:Your content
You hold the copyright in the expression that you post on our sites. Please note, however, that when you post content (such as a discussion board post) in our internet areas, you expressly grant The Motley Fool a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, edit, alter, adapt, translate, copy, publish, continue to publish or republish the submission (and/or an edited, adapted or translated version of it or part of it) (‘the Work’) and/or to sell or otherwise communicate or distribute the Work, as part of an edited compilation or in any other way howsoever.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160203033 ... ourcontent

There is a similar non-exclusive licence in the TLF terms and conditions.


Bree,

I'm not sure. I'm not saying that you're wrong, or disputing the statement that you quote, but I'm actually looking at old TMF posts, and they all end with a copyright symbol, the word "Copyright", and a date range. An old post from 2007, for instance, ends with "© Copyright 1998-2007".

That date range can't apply to the original poster, so I was assuming that it applied to TMF.

MDW1954

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Re: Gengulphus

#477095

Postby simoan » January 29th, 2022, 4:18 pm

Troglodytes wrote:
Troglodytes wrote:Dear TLFers,

Firstly I would like to thank everyone for their kind words and memories of Gengulphus. We (the family) are deeply moved by all the heartfelt messages. Thank-you.

We've also have had a bit on a confab about outing Gengulphus; overall we feel that David wouldn't mind and would even smile at the idea. He quite liked a mystery and I can almost see his broad grin when a mystery gets solved. Also, of course, it's quite clear that many of you already know or have guessed. UncleEbenezer is quite right to make the connection to phutball; see John Conway's books on 'Winning Ways' (where incidently David is credited for some of the original work on solving Rubik's Magic Cube).

Anyway - Gengulphus in real-life was David Seal. I set up a condolence page a few weeks back if you would like to read more about him and other people's memories or if you would like to make a donation in his memory to Cancer Research. It's at davidseal.muchloved.com.

Once again thank-you to all of you and your lovely messages. Regards Trog and the rest of David's family.


Also just to let you know ARM have just published an online obituary - see https://www.arm.com/blogs/blueprint/rem ... david-seal

Trog

Hi Trog,

That's a fantastic tribute to a most brilliant engineer. As an engineer myself who struggled implementing arithmetic pipeline controllers on many occasions, I can empathise with his colleagues. They were very lucky to have him on hand, not all of us were that fortunate! I'm really pleased that ARM have paid this amazing tribute to provide a wider audience for David's achievements. I didn't know the full details of his work at ARM, but it really is a stunning collection of technical genius as illustrated by his patent portfolio. BTW I know he liked puzzles but the biggest puzzle for me is why he ended up owning 5% of Pennant International? :-)

https://www.investegate.co.uk/pennant-i ... 47221860X/

It only paid a small, intermittent dividend which is not very HYP! It was this RNS that joined the dots for me as to who Gengulphus was.

All the very best, Si

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Re: Gengulphus

#477099

Postby Lootman » January 29th, 2022, 4:37 pm

simoan wrote:BTW I know he liked puzzles but the biggest puzzle for me is why he ended up owning 5% of Pennant International? :-)

https://www.investegate.co.uk/pennant-i ... 47221860X/

It only paid a small, intermittent dividend which is not very HYP! It was this RNS that joined the dots for me.
All the very best, Si

I recall that more than once G talked about how he had never had much success with investing in smaller companies or growth shares.

Growth investing requires a different set of skills from things like HYP and value investing. The latter is more quantitative, which is a fit for those who are mathematically minded. The former is more about understanding intangible and qualitative factors like future demand, assessing management etc. There is less structure and more intuition.

To my mind a key part of investing success is about knowing yourself and understanding what style of investing suits your nature. Left-brained people invest differently from right-brained people. I am guessing G figured that out for himself.

PS: I am pretty bad with numbers (BA, not BSc) so definitely on the right-brained side of the spectrum.

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Re: Gengulphus

#477108

Postby simoan » January 29th, 2022, 4:53 pm

Lootman wrote:
simoan wrote:BTW I know he liked puzzles but the biggest puzzle for me is why he ended up owning 5% of Pennant International? :-)

https://www.investegate.co.uk/pennant-i ... 47221860X/

It only paid a small, intermittent dividend which is not very HYP! It was this RNS that joined the dots for me.
All the very best, Si

I recall that more than once G talked about how he had never had much success with investing in smaller companies or growth shares.

Growth investing requires a different set of skills from things like HYP and value investing. The latter is more quantitative, which is a fit for those who are mathematically minded. The former is more about understanding intangible and qualitative factors like future demand, assessing management etc. There is less structure and more intuition.

To my mind a key part of investing success is about knowing yourself and understanding what style of investing suits your nature. Left-brained people invest differently from right-brained people. I am guessing G figured that out for himself.

PS: I am pretty bad with numbers (BA, not BSc) so definitely on the right-brained side of the spectrum.

For the record, this was only intended as a light hearted quip. Hence, the smiley face.

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Re: Gengulphus

#477111

Postby mc2fool » January 29th, 2022, 5:02 pm

simoan wrote:BTW I know he liked puzzles but the biggest puzzle for me is why he ended up owning 5% of Pennant International? :-)

https://www.investegate.co.uk/pennant-i ... 47221860X/

And one has to wonder, if/when did he sell? :o http://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=legacydai ... e=0&size=3 (no answer expected!) ;)

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Re: Gengulphus

#477151

Postby doug2500 » January 29th, 2022, 7:50 pm

Troglodytes wrote:
Troglodytes wrote:Dear TLFers,

Firstly I would like to thank everyone for their kind words and memories of Gengulphus. We (the family) are deeply moved by all the heartfelt messages. Thank-you.

We've also have had a bit on a confab about outing Gengulphus; overall we feel that David wouldn't mind and would even smile at the idea. He quite liked a mystery and I can almost see his broad grin when a mystery gets solved. Also, of course, it's quite clear that many of you already know or have guessed. UncleEbenezer is quite right to make the connection to phutball; see John Conway's books on 'Winning Ways' (where incidently David is credited for some of the original work on solving Rubik's Magic Cube).

Anyway - Gengulphus in real-life was David Seal. I set up a condolence page a few weeks back if you would like to read more about him and other people's memories or if you would like to make a donation in his memory to Cancer Research. It's at davidseal.muchloved.com.

Once again thank-you to all of you and your lovely messages. Regards Trog and the rest of David's family.


Also just to let you know ARM have just published an online obituary - see https://www.arm.com/blogs/blueprint/rem ... david-seal

Trog


That's a great obituary, it resonates with how he came across on both fool sites. I'm actually very glad to have had a glimpse of the real person so thanks for 'outing' David.

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Re: Gengulphus

#477179

Postby Itsallaguess » January 29th, 2022, 10:29 pm

Troglodytes wrote:
MDW1954 wrote:
One suggestion that I haven't seen posted on this thread is some sort of compilation of Genguphus' "greatest hits". I have a number of mathematical/ statistical/ financial interests of my own, and for years have routinely saved any relevant "Seal-o-grams" as PDFs.


That would be lovely to read through and reference - but obviously I appreciate it's a fair bit of effort to compile.


Here's a table of David's Lemon Fool posts that have been thanked 5 times or more -



I know that having compiled the above table, it's absolutely crystal clear that there are also many, many other richly detailed and interesting posts of his on this site that are not listed in it, but I hope there's enough in the above list for his family to clearly see how much David valued this investment community, and how lucky we were that he was willing to spend time helping others on such a wide range of topics.

I'm so glad that we've been able to learn of David's simply brilliant achievements out in the real world, and I hope his family know how much we valued the time he was able to spend with us here as well, in this little corner of the internet...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: Gengulphus

#477212

Postby Dod101 » January 30th, 2022, 8:41 am

Thanks IAAG and it is good to have a contribution from you again.

I have picked just one post and it is under the heading Retirement Investing, No 430205. I was one who found some of G's posts rather long for a Board like this and occasionally said so, but now knowing something of the man behind the name, that post seems to me to be an excellent explanation of his style. We will all undoubtedly miss posts from Gengulphus and love them or not they were beacons of lucidity and clarity. If we had a mind to it they could become a sort of reference manual for issues which crop up from time to time.

Dod

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Re: Gengulphus

#477268

Postby tjh290633 » January 30th, 2022, 12:48 pm

Dod101 wrote:Thanks IAAG and it is good to have a contribution from you again.

I have picked just one post and it is under the heading Retirement Investing, No 430205. I was one who found some of G's posts rather long for a Board like this and occasionally said so, but now knowing something of the man behind the name, that post seems to me to be an excellent explanation of his style. We will all undoubtedly miss posts from Gengulphus and love them or not they were beacons of lucidity and clarity. If we had a mind to it they could become a sort of reference manual for issues which crop up from time to time.

Dod

Yes, Dod. It is a good example of the thorough way in which he composed a post. I suspect that he did his composition offline, refined and edited it before posting. He did tend to cover every nook and cranny of a question including some aspects that you or I might have never thought about. You could find fault with the length of his replies but never with the thoroughness.

TJH

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Re: Gengulphus

#477343

Postby csearle » January 30th, 2022, 7:00 pm

Itsallaguess wrote:...
Excellent post, thank you. Also so incredibly good that you are ok. Chris

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Re: Gengulphus

#477345

Postby MDW1954 » January 30th, 2022, 7:05 pm

Dod101 wrote:If we had a mind to it they could become a sort of reference manual for issues which crop up from time to time.

Dod


That was exactly what I had in mind, Dod. I still refer to posts from the TMF era.

And incidentally, while we have IAAG's atttention, the 2007 post to which I alluded earlier, in my reply to Bree, was one of his!

MDW1954

PhaseThree

Re: Gengulphus

#477766

Postby PhaseThree » February 1st, 2022, 12:34 pm


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Re: Gengulphus

#478168

Postby UncleEbenezer » February 2nd, 2022, 9:57 pm

Troglodytes wrote:Dear TLFers,

Firstly I would like to thank everyone for their kind words and memories of Gengulphus. We (the family) are deeply moved by all the heartfelt messages. Thank-you.

We've also have had a bit on a confab about outing Gengulphus; overall we feel that David wouldn't mind and would even smile at the idea. He quite liked a mystery and I can almost see his broad grin when a mystery gets solved. Also, of course, it's quite clear that many of you already know or have guessed. UncleEbenezer is quite right to make the connection to phutball; see John Conway's books on 'Winning Ways' (where incidently David is credited for some of the original work on solving Rubik's Magic Cube).

Anyway - Gengulphus in real-life was David Seal. I set up a condolence page a few weeks back if you would like to read more about him and other people's memories or if you would like to make a donation in his memory to Cancer Research. It's at davidseal.muchloved.com.

Once again thank-you to all of you and your lovely messages. Regards Trog and the rest of David's family.


Thanks for that. I didn't know, but I do have fairly clear memories from my own Cambridge days in the early 1980s, even down to his mannerisms, and I thought him a very likely Gengulphus based on things he posted here and on TMF over the years. It was in my Part III year (1982-3) that I frequented the DPMMS common room and knew him: memory fails on whether I met him earlier than that. But I'm afraid I never knew about his work, at least beyond where it intersected with Conway and/or DPMMS games.

I'm rehearsing the Verdi Requiem tomorrow, and will think of him. Requiem aeternam.

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Re: Gengulphus

#479214

Postby Bouleversee » February 7th, 2022, 10:44 pm

MDW1954 wrote:One suggestion that I haven't seen posted on this thread is some sort of compilation of Genguphus' "greatest hits". I have a number of mathematical/ statistical/ financial interests of my own, and for years have routinely saved any relevant "Seal-o-grams" as PDFs.

Quite possibly, many others here have done the same.

Obviously, posts here on TLF are readily accessible, without recourse to PDFs. But I have PDFs from the TMF days, and potentially more are available via The Wayback Machine.

Now, TMF posts are (AFAIR) TMF-copyright. But as Fool analyst Malcolm Wheatley (as some of you know), I'm happy to approach TMF top brass to ask for permission.

Thoughts?

MDW1954


I was going to suggest the same thing. I don't find searching for things on TLF at all easy and haven't downloaded anything.

I have only just heard the news of the demise of Gengulphus, which made me very sad. Geng (as I used to call him) answered several of my queries and I (an elderly widow coming rather late to trying to manage equity investments, not to mention computers) never ceased to be amazed by the trouble he went to to explain everything. He must have spent an awful lot of time answering questions on these boards. I was surprised to learn how young he was; I had in my mind's eye a picture of a soberly dressed gentleman, even older than I am, and not a relative youngster looking dashing in an exotically patterned shirt, which makes his passing even more tragic. But hey, how wonderful to have achieved so much in his life, to have freely given so much of his time and shared his knowledge with so many others, often strangers, and to have merited so many tributes, and not just here, which must be a great comfort to his family, to whom I send my condolences.

ARM was one of my better investments and It's good to know that Geng played a large part in its success, though I was cross when it was sold to foreigners.

RIP Geng. A life well lived.

Bouleversee.

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Re: Gengulphus

#480445

Postby Clitheroekid » February 13th, 2022, 11:28 pm

As I never normally visit this board it was just by chance that I noticed this thread, and I just wanted to add my own rather belated tribute to Gengulphus, or David as we now know him to be. I never had the privilege of dealing with him personally, but I was always impressed by the time and trouble he took to deal with complex matters to help other Fools.

In some ways, his passing feels even sadder now that I've read the obituaries and realised that he was not just a very clever man but, more importantly, a very kind man as well.

It really does come as a visceral shock when one of our `family' dies like this - it's no exaggeration to say that I've felt more grief over the passing of some Fools (PinkDalek being one of them) than of some people I've known quite well in `real' life, whatever that may be. It's amazing how we can form a sort of relationship with someone we've never met - I think reading their posts and how they respond to other posters gives us quite a deep insight into the poster's personality, so that we feel we know them, and would immediately recognise them if we met them in person just by the way they spoke and expressed themselves.

Anyway, to David's brother thank you so much for taking the time to tell us about David. I'm sure we all really appreciate your doing so, especially at a time when you're trying to deal with the pain of his loss. It's so cruel that someone like him should be taken at such a relatively young age, when he had so much more to give, and I'd like to think that it will make us pause to appreciate people we often take for granted as always being there - until suddenly they're not.

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Re: Gengulphus

#493887

Postby johnw11 » April 13th, 2022, 12:35 am

I have only just found this post, following the link from the HYP board. This is such sad news and to finally learn who Gengulphus is has opened up a whole new world. Other posters have made great comments about the posts that he made, an amazing amount of detail. I love the term Seal-O-Gram, maybe we have our own unique name of Geng-O-Gram. I will sorely miss them as he gave me 2 fantastic replies to my questions on the HYP board.

It is great to know that his family realise how much he was appreciated in this parallel world of ours. RIP Genulphus and condolences to his family.

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Re: Gengulphus

#498777

Postby Julian » May 5th, 2022, 11:19 pm

I only just stumbled across this thread. What terrible news. From my earliest days on the MotleyFool HYP board it was clear what a wonderful and generous contributor he was. When the MF forums closed down and many of us migrated here I had a mental list of those contributors I most hoped would transition across to the LemonFool and Gengulphus was very (very) high up on that list.

I made no attempt to work out who he was although, as a contributor who I valued and respected, I looked at his profile and saw that his first name was David and that he lived in Cambridge. Due to his posting style and the way he structured his communications, plus the fact that he had said that he had worked in the IT industry, I had the feeling from that point on that he was someone who I had met in real life. It now turns out that I was right, he was who I thought he was, and memories come flooding back of face to face conversations with him - surprisingly vivid memories given how long ago those conversations were. I suspect that is because David’s precision of thought in conversation as well as in written communication was not easily forgotten. He was one of the more extraordinary intellects that I have met in my life.

RIP David/Gengulphus & condolences to the family.

- Julian


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