My article about the new historical marker in New Hampshire honoring the creation of BASIC made it to the front page of Slashdot. Among the comments is the one above, which probably goes a bit too far!

In case the JPG is hard to read, it says:

After the Old Man of the Mountain collapsed in 2003, NH lost its state icon, depicted on stamps and on the state quarter. So why not a rebranding for the coin?

10 REM NEW HAMPSHIRE
20 REM The BASIC State
30 LET ThisCoin = DOLLAR(1.0 / 4, 2)

Another comment has this clever idea:

They should update the highway signs too

GOTO Manchester – 5 mi.
GOTO Concord – 24 mi.

And yet another comment noted that this addition gave New Hampshire 2^8 historical markers, adding “How geeky is that?”

Speaking of GOTO, some of the comments got snarky toward each other (what a surprise) over whether GOTO is a good or bad command.

The story was picked up later by The Verge, which said it was the nation’s first historical marker for software: “There are other historical markers for computer-related topics: one in Philadelphia honors BINAC, the “world’s first commercial electronic, stored program, digital computer program,” one in San Jose is for IBM’s RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control), but this one appears to be the first specifically for the creation of a programming language. ”

By the way, before Slashdot grabbed it, I was interested to see that the largest number of people reading the article came to it not from Reddit, where it also had a mention (although not on the front page) but from the web pages of our local Congresswoman and senior U.S. Senator. That might be the first time I’ve ever gotten serious readership from politicians.