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Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

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Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#81

Post by Ambroos »

buildzr wrote: post #49
DoreenMichele wrote: post #42

I worked in insurance for over five years. One of the more common reasons we had to send out HIPAA notification letters was due to relatives in the same city with similar or identical names getting claims processed under the wrong policy. These were very often two male relatives -- father and son, twin brothers, cousins. They sometimes even lived on the same street. There's also this story about two women with the sa…

Be careful with that - my friends enjoy an automatic level of anonymity even if they publish something under their real names, but my real name is rare enough that it points directly to me and me alone on Google results.

I've just embraced it. My real first name (Ambroos) is usually my username and I'm easy to Google with just my first name as a result.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#82

Post by kgwgk »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #39
Iv wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IDs were being asked for by police and others as a matter of course rather than of suspicion. Is the existence of an ID really the problem there? I like the idea that having to provide an ID is optional and the police can't force someone to comply without a good reason, but the existence of an UID for people seems really necessary in a lot of cases, to prove someone did not vote 10 times in an election, to track yo…

UID per se no. Asking for it, most definitely yes. This is a hill I would die on. I have a passport and driving licence. I can be asked to produce my driving licence in limited circumstances (suspected of driving offences and stopped) at a police station within 7 days. Every other production of ID is optional, except passport at international ports. No ID needed for NHS care, dental care - there's an NHS number but I…

Note that, right or wrong, this is the kind of attitude that made Brexit happen.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#83

Post by w-m »

wirrbel wrote: post #57
camillomiller wrote: post #50

In Italy it’s quite common to go with Galileo Galilei, I would say we use name surname most of the time when we mention him. Maybe it has to do also with how it rolls out of the tongue nicely for us.

In German I think we also use Galilei more then Galileo.

Not so sure about that. For example there’s this German TV show that lasted 6000+ episodes over the last 20 years, with popular science content (at least originally). It’s known by almost everybody and it is called Galileo, not Galilei.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#84

Post by raverbashing »

dredmorbius wrote: post #56
DoreenMichele wrote: post #42

I worked in insurance for over five years. One of the more common reasons we had to send out HIPAA notification letters was due to relatives in the same city with similar or identical names getting claims processed under the wrong policy. These were very often two male relatives -- father and son, twin brothers, cousins. They sometimes even lived on the same street. There's also this story about two women with the sa…

Imposition of unambiguous, consistent and generationally persistent naming systems is a state fuction dating to Xia dynasty China (2070 B.C. -1600 B.C.), and were standardised in the Qin dynasty (221 B.C. -206 B.C.) as Xing Shi. https://21chineseculture.com/origins-of-chinese-surnames/ It's also a major theme of James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State , though he doesn't trace the practice back that far. https://en.wiki…

It's an imposition but it's more of a practical imposition needed from anyone living in something bigger than a small village.

People seem to take it as some government bureaucracy when what's really about is not getting confused with the tens or hundreds of other John Smiths living in the same neighbourhood/city as you.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#85

Post by henrikschroder »

aasasd wrote: post #73
galaxyLogic wrote: post #17

I wonder what the expression "one whose name must not be spoken" really is about. Why are there such things or people, or are there? Recently I've noticed a name which must not be pronounced in vain is "Alexa". If you talk about her she always interrupts with a lengthy diatribe. It has lead to a situation in my family where we speak like "Why don't you ask "you know who" to play that song for you?"

Afaik a name was/is believed to have the power to summon a supernatural being that it identifies. God and the devil both have a dozen or more euphemisms. (I've also heard about a rather non-Christiany belief of ‘true names’ having command over some beings, but not sure that it's not a modern fantasy invention.) Dunno about material beings, but hiccups are believed in some places to be caused by someone remembering yo…

It was absolutely a thing, and the best example is that the old Indo-European word for bear is eradicated in Northern European languages, because it was thought that the true name of the animal would summon it, and bears were not something you wanted around.

So instead of using the taboo name, everyone used the noa name for the animal, a euphemism, which is why "bear" actually means "the brown one". In Slavic languages, a common euphemism the "the honey eater" - "medved".

The original word exists in Southern European languages, "ours" in French, "orso" in Italian, coming from "ursus" in Latin, and "arctos" in Greek.

Another example is the word for wolf, which exists in that form in most European languages (wolf, ulv, vlk, lobo), but in Swedish the common word is "varg", which is a noa-name, a euphemism, meaning cattle-killer. "ulv" still exists in Swedish, but is seen as an archaic fairy-tale word

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#86

Post by lloeki »

klez wrote: post #65
DoreenMichele wrote: post #42

I worked in insurance for over five years. One of the more common reasons we had to send out HIPAA notification letters was due to relatives in the same city with similar or identical names getting claims processed under the wrong policy. These were very often two male relatives -- father and son, twin brothers, cousins. They sometimes even lived on the same street. There's also this story about two women with the sa…

Here in Italy we are given a Codice Fiscale at birth, which is a string of 13 characters derived by 3 letters of the last name, 3 letters of the first name (usually these 6 letters are all consonants, but there are exceptions for names like Anna), 2 digits, a letter and two other digits representing the birth day, one letter and the digits representing the birthplace an one last letter which is a checksum. These are…

In France the social security number has that role, in a format described here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSEE_code#National_identifica...

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#87

Post by ghaff »

aasasd wrote: post #73
galaxyLogic wrote: post #17

I wonder what the expression "one whose name must not be spoken" really is about. Why are there such things or people, or are there? Recently I've noticed a name which must not be pronounced in vain is "Alexa". If you talk about her she always interrupts with a lengthy diatribe. It has lead to a situation in my family where we speak like "Why don't you ask "you know who" to play that song for you?"

Afaik a name was/is believed to have the power to summon a supernatural being that it identifies. God and the devil both have a dozen or more euphemisms. (I've also heard about a rather non-Christiany belief of ‘true names’ having command over some beings, but not sure that it's not a modern fantasy invention.) Dunno about material beings, but hiccups are believed in some places to be caused by someone remembering yo…

> ‘true names’ having command over some beings, but not sure that it's not a modern fantasy invention.

Which made it a great title for one of my all-time favorite SF novellas by Vernor Vinge. The connection was that if you were doing stuff you weren't supposed to be doing and the authorities found out who you were in the real world, you were toast.

Really good story even if it's pretty old at this point.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#88

Post by kijin »

kgwgk wrote: post #80
kijin wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There doesn't even need to be a central database of every citizen. Distributed generation of unique identifiers is a more or less solved problem.

How does the distributed generation of unique identifiers help to keep track of who has voting rights?

State and/or municipal authorities could be tasked with generating identifiers and signing them cryptographically, so that any voting station can verify whether a given identifier is genuine. The federal government doesn't need to keep a central registry of all identifiers, only a list of public keys used by states and municipalities.

Obviously I'm not aware of any country doing things in such a convoluted way. But if Americans really don't want there to be a central registry of everyone's identity, modern computer science and cryptography could help.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#89

Post by ghaff »

kgwgk wrote: post #82
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UID per se no. Asking for it, most definitely yes. This is a hill I would die on. I have a passport and driving licence. I can be asked to produce my driving licence in limited circumstances (suspected of driving offences and stopped) at a police station within 7 days. Every other production of ID is optional, except passport at international ports. No ID needed for NHS care, dental care - there's an NHS number but I…

Note that, right or wrong, this is the kind of attitude that made Brexit happen.

And it's why, to a lot of Americans with no horse in the race, certain aspects of Brexit seem quite understandable even when they are in a different class/income level than most Brexit voters are.

Not making a political statement. But suspicion of national registration/ID/papers is much more prevalent in some countries than others.

Re: Why we don't use Galileo's last name (2009)

#90

Post by cdash »

kijin wrote: post #88
kgwgk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the distributed generation of unique identifiers help to keep track of who has voting rights?

State and/or municipal authorities could be tasked with generating identifiers and signing them cryptographically, so that any voting station can verify whether a given identifier is genuine. The federal government doesn't need to keep a central registry of all identifiers, only a list of public keys used by states and municipalities. Obviously I'm not aware of any country doing things in such a convoluted way. But i…

You expect that over a hundred years we will manage to keep all private keys used secret?
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