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Life on the Internet Is Hard When Your Last Name Is 'Butts'

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Re: Life on the Internet Is Hard When Your Last Name Is 'Butts'

#51

Post by MiddleEndian »

gambiting wrote: post #42

It's only going to get worse - more and more systems are replaced with "AI" which in return produces the worst case of "computer says no" - with the older systems, customer service could at least override the system, with the newer ones it becomes increasingly difficult to do so. Even simpler technologies like voice recognition are incredibly shit if you have an accent or a surname that's not recognised by English "s…

On the topic of voice recognition systems, my old flip phone had a voice recognition system where you had to first record yourself saying the name of your contact before being able to call said contact.

Once you got past that initial step it was much much more reliable than today's voice recognition systems on Android phones, especially for "foreign" names.

Re: Life on the Internet Is Hard When Your Last Name Is 'Butts'

#52

Post by crooked-v »

MrEfficiency wrote: post #3

I believe this is a dying problem. The next social media will be based around a real life user. First name, last name, photo, home address(or similar). Everything verified or at least enough for people to feel like they are talking to real people. Given how easily reddit is astroturfed by Aldi, Tmobile, Samsung, Tesla, Donald Trump, and more, the next gen social media will revolve around real people rather than usern…

> First name, last name, photo, home address(or similar). Everything verified or at least enough for people to feel like they are talking to real people.

Unless, of course, the service refuses to acknowledge that some real people exist because they're not white enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-name_policy_cont...

Re: Life on the Internet Is Hard When Your Last Name Is 'Butts'

#54

Post by driverdan »

qume wrote: post #49
maxerickson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it Leonard Nimoy?

Wow that was downvoted. I guess these people aren't aware of Nimoys extensive practical jokes with Shatner. But even so, why would anyone downvote this?

Because jokes are generally frowned upon.

Re: Life on the Internet Is Hard When Your Last Name Is 'Butts'

#55

Post by rectangletangle »

preinheimer wrote: post #2

I'm pretty sure Caterina Fake[1] has talked about problems with signing up for everything from Facebook to buying plane tickets. These names need to be on those "things programmers believe about names that are false" lists closer to the top[2]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterina_Fake [2] - https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

I actually wrote a full-stack web service to handle people's names, specifically to help avoid situations like this. My best advice: treat people's names as a potentially very long and entirely arbitrary text field. Don't assume anything without their confirmation, even if it seems obvious, because somewhere out there someone's name will violate that assumption. My research did conclude that nearly all names are below 500 characters, so that's a reasonable upper bound, though I would at least double it to be safe.

https://www.alphanym.com/demo

Re: Life on the Internet Is Hard When Your Last Name Is 'Butts'

#57

Post by maxerickson »

protomyth wrote: post #26

Native Americans have the fun problem of taking a lot of grief (and some Facebook deletions[3]) for last names like "Yellow Bird", "Good Iron", "Walking Eagle", and "Has No Horses". In fact, I was a little disappointed with a thread on this and some of the logic[1][2]. 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7364933 2) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7367657 3) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9025246

To me the weirdest part is how apparently important it is to some people that the world fit into their expectations.

Re: Life on the Internet Is Hard When Your Last Name Is 'Butts'

#58

Post by maxerickson »

driverdan wrote: post #54
qume wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that was downvoted. I guess these people aren't aware of Nimoys extensive practical jokes with Shatner. But even so, why would anyone downvote this?

Because jokes are generally frowned upon.

Yep, this thread is meant for substantive discussion of Butts and I ruined it.

Re: Life on the Internet Is Hard When Your Last Name Is 'Butts'

#59

Post by crooked-v »

rectangletangle wrote: post #55
preinheimer wrote: post #2

I'm pretty sure Caterina Fake[1] has talked about problems with signing up for everything from Facebook to buying plane tickets. These names need to be on those "things programmers believe about names that are false" lists closer to the top[2]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterina_Fake [2] - https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

I actually wrote a full-stack web service to handle people's names, specifically to help avoid situations like this. My best advice: treat people's names as a potentially very long and entirely arbitrary text field. Don't assume anything without their confirmation, even if it seems obvious, because somewhere out there someone's name will violate that assumption. My research did conclude that nearly all names are belo…

http://www.historyrundown.com/top-5-people-with-the-longest-...

There's a couple of people for you with legal names well past 500 characters, and that's just of Western European descent, where German-style compound words are rare.

Re: Life on the Internet Is Hard When Your Last Name Is 'Butts'

#60

Post by davidw »

driverdan wrote: post #54
qume wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that was downvoted. I guess these people aren't aware of Nimoys extensive practical jokes with Shatner. But even so, why would anyone downvote this?

Because jokes are generally frowned upon.

Unoriginal or not funny ones; if they're unique and not some lame meme, they'll often get upvoted
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