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Comment: Re:Why is this so important? (Score 1) 245

But they DID rubber stamp it. Only instead of "YES", they chose the answer they always give, which was "NO". Not clueless, just, sorry, no, we don't do that. "But, but, kittens, and puppies and dead kids." Sorry, no.

They probably get requests like this a lot. Sometimes it's a tragic circumstance like this. Sometimes it's "Oh, hey, my uncle was a jerk and killed dolphins for a living, but he really liked Superman" or "We just thought it'd be a neat idea, coz his name is Stan and all".

This, to me, doesn't look like a heartless corporation. It looks like "Can we use the Superman symbol?" "No."

And, really, it was a dumb idea in the first place. He could have liked just about anything. "But he really liked nuclear launch codes, why is the government being such a dick about this?" I can see how it's sad, but they should have come up with another idea for a memorial. Maybe donate the money that would have been wasted on a stupid statue to helping other, living children.

Comment: And it exists too! (Score 3, Interesting) 103

Not! This is a figment in AVX's collective mind. The real helicopter doesn't move at all except for CGI on a computer monitor. Not to say they couldn't build it but a bit premature to say much about it. "It could reach speeds of a billion light-years per fortnight." Hey, maybe it'll do the Kessel run in 12 parsecs.

Comment: Why is this so important? (Score 1) 245

I was thinking, what if the kid liked to dress up as Hello Kitty, or Worf from Star Trek, or Darth Vader? Would they be so gung-ho? Or how about if he like to dress as a girl? I'm unclear why his choice of outlet, apparently to get away from abusive parents and grand-parents matters. DC is not the bad-guy here (well, not for this).

And to the person below, I don't think anyone is suggesting we forget all about this. It's just that the kid being in a Superman costume has little to do with his memorial.

Comment: Re:Simple answer (Score 1) 800

This was what I immediately thought of. Swerving makes no sense, and I wouldn't think a programmer would even consider it. The best course of action is always to hit the brakes as hard as you can. What is going to suddenly pop up (or fall down) right in front of you that the car wouldn't have already seen coming? What weird course are you on? The car has a radar or something to detect traffic from all sides. "Things constantly fall from the skies here, so you have to swerve on a moments notice." And is the detection system going to be good enough to tell the difference between all the options available? Is that a 2003 or a 2005 Volvo, the difference is 3.9 points of survivability. The question and premise is flawed.

Comment: What is the halfway divide? (Score 1) 55

by honestmonkey (#46913307) Attached to: How To Find Nearby Dark Skies, No Matter Where You Are
If you look at the light map, there seems to be a fairly clear line almost halfway in the middle of the US. I couldn't find a natural barrier. The Mississippi is to the east, and the Rockies to the west. But it looks to me that it's pretty much the exact eastern half of the the US is bright almost everywhere, and the western half, except for the cities, is pretty dark. It's curious to me that the line is pretty straight, north to south. Is there a reason for this other than an accident of history?

Comment: Labview, and ExtendSim, and ... (Score 1) 876

by honestmonkey (#46192469) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Why Are We Still Writing Text-Based Code?
I used to program for a number of years in Extend/ExtendSim. It's mostly for simulations (thus the name-change to ExtendSim I guess). I always called it "Lego-block programming" to explain it to anyone. It was pretty powerful, did most everything we wanted it to. I wrote some blocks as well, and the internal language was more or less C. There were other languages that were similar, some more suited to supply-chain programs, for instance. In general you could do almost everything you needed to by drag-n-drop placement of blocks and connecting them together via their inputs and outputs. It was even fun most of the time, and you could "debug" it graphically by watching the data flow around.

Comment: Re:Windows keys? (Score 2, Interesting) 459

by honestmonkey (#45998731) Attached to: Stop Trying To 'Innovate' Keyboards, You're Just Making Them Worse
Does anyone actually use the damn Windows Key? I have a Microsoft keyboard (the "split-in-half" one, tilted and all). It has a "Windows" key and another one on the right the is for - menus or something? I never touch either one. Hell, I rarely even hit any of the function keys. The only non-standard key I use is the one that brings up a calculator because at least that's useful.

Comment: Re: iTunes-exclusive recording artists (Score 1) 317

by honestmonkey (#45628753) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best FLOSS iTunes Replacement In 2013?
Not always. There is an artist that is the only reason I've ever gone on iTunes (Patrick O'Hearn), and to be a complete-ist, I signed up to get a couple of his albums that are not on CD or available anywhere else. Downloaded them, burned them and have not gone back since.

Comment: Six dollars billion dollars (Score 4, Funny) 205

I like that they laundered "$6 billion dollars". So one guy, Mr. Six Dollars had his billion dollars laundered? Or was it a billion and six dollars? A billion dollars worth of six dollar bills? Or is it that the dollar sign or the word 'dollars' was redundant? Hmmmmm.
