I am convinced that the programmer interviewed in this article by BBC is the same Patrick McKenzie(patio11).
People with names that break computers
131–140 of 288 posts
Re: People with names that break computers
#132I wasn't able to buy tickets once because "your name cannot include numbers, special characters, or the words 'select', 'drop', or 'user'". I (don't really) apologize for having a name containing one of the magic words your programmers aren't competent enough not to care about. -- In the 90s, I worked for an ISP. Our very first customer was "Joe Test". We had well-meaning customer service people delete his account a…
So.... Change your first name. It's called your legal name for a reason. Can you get away with your nickname in a number of systems? Sure, but when you run into issues you really don't have anyone to blame but yourself. Your complaint boils down to "I want to abuse the legal name system and everything should just work for me" > And yet, so many institutions are incapable of handling the situation and insist on callin…
My dad also goes by his middle name - he has a first name that is incredibly common in his nation of origin, so it's almost useless as a way of referring to him. You're the first person i've ever heard suggest that he's wrong to do that, and you are mistaken to do so.
Re: People with names that break computers
#133Has anyone created a public data set for testing names? People publish lists of exceptions (e.g. [1] and [2]), but it would be great to have actual examples in a simple format that can be used for automated testing. The first (and most difficult) step would be to create a universal name schema.
[1] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b...
[2] https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names
Re: People with names that break computers
#134A few years ago I ordered a custom license plate 'NULL'. What should have been a 2-3 week process lasted 8 months, with the order being canceled multiple times, and at one point a blank plate being shipped to the county clerk's office. More recently I've gotten out of a parking ticket in a certain municipality when a frustrated meter maid told me they saw my plates were valid, but the handheld device used to issue ti…
That is amazing. Not that I endorse criminal activity or anything, but I imagine the amount of power you now have to evade traffic violations, get away with jewel heists etc, must have made the wait well worth it
Re: People with names that break computers
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
These kinds of limitations are fascinating because they reveal the cultural biases (and I don't mean bias in the negative sense) of their creators. A Western, American system might not be designed to accept names with accents and vowels because who has those in the States? Anecdotally, I also heard of a female games journalist who had trouble using a VR headset because she wore mascara. It threw off the eye tracking…
Wasn't there a thing that happened a while back where a fitness tracker was found to not work with darker skinned individuals?
We had some face-tracking Sony pan/tilt cameras in the mid 1990s. They were also racist - they worked fine for me but wouldn't track an Indian friend of mine at all.
Re: People with names that break computers
#136I received a Dutch surname as a second middle name. I can never use it -- the "Van" alone is enough to break things. But even without "Van", having two middle names usually does not compute. I've seen people who lack middle names entirely have the opposite problem and insert the middle initial "X" just to satisfy the system.
Assuming you're American, that shows that American norms are no longer even the same as in Britain. No middle name isn't uncommon, perhaps one in five people. One middle name is most common. A second middle name isn't at all unusual. Having three suggests an aristocrat — not common, but certainly understood. I remember a Christian friend choosing his second middle name, which I thought was weird: https://en.wikipedia…
Try eight:
http://www.onwhichsubject.com/piran/press/
We used to rely on this guy to break systems. Not using his name, mind; he's just a really devious programmer.
Re: People with names that break computers
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
So.... Change your first name. It's called your legal name for a reason. Can you get away with your nickname in a number of systems? Sure, but when you run into issues you really don't have anyone to blame but yourself. Your complaint boils down to "I want to abuse the legal name system and everything should just work for me" > And yet, so many institutions are incapable of handling the situation and insist on callin…
> False, you may not consider that your first name but it IS your legal name and at the end of the day that's really the only thing that matters. See, this is one of the misunderstandings from the article. Don't feel bad: many people make this mistake. But it is a mistake. Your legal name is the one you conduct business with. In my case, I conduct all business using my middle name. The fact that I was born with it do…
Legal Name = Name on your birth certificate, pure and simple. Something isn't so just because you say it is. I can say my SSN is 123-45-6789 but that doesn't make it so.
Re: People with names that break computers
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
So.... Change your first name. It's called your legal name for a reason. Can you get away with your nickname in a number of systems? Sure, but when you run into issues you really don't have anyone to blame but yourself. Your complaint boils down to "I want to abuse the legal name system and everything should just work for me" > And yet, so many institutions are incapable of handling the situation and insist on callin…
My dad also goes by his middle name - he has a first name that is incredibly common in his nation of origin, so it's almost useless as a way of referring to him. You're the first person i've ever heard suggest that he's wrong to do that, and you are mistaken to do so.
I'm not saying he is wrong to do so but that he has to deal with the consequences of doing so. Your legal name is what is on your birth certificate/green card/etc not what you say it is. You can make it whatever you want it to be by legally changing your name but until you do so your legal name is your legal name no matter what you want to say it is.
Re: People with names that break computers
#139I guess that you need to hire Portuguese or Brazilian programmers to write programs handling names. They have both accents and long names. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_name:
"It is not uncommon in Portugal that a married woman has two given names and six surnames, two from her mother's family, two from her father's family, and the last two coming from her husband. In addition, some of these names may be made of more than one word, so that a full feminine name can have more than 12 words. [...] For the sake of simplicity, most Portuguese people have two surnames"
Those Portuguese/Brazilian programmers will not forget to accept short names they may use a nickname. Examples from football are Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé), and the various Ronaldo's and Ronaldinho's. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/brazil/78105...:
"Back when Ronaldo, he of the record for most goals scored in the World Cup, joined the Brazilian team, the squad already had a Ronaldo, a defender. So Ronaldo became Ronaldinho. Then another Ronaldinho came along, and they called him Ronaldinho Gaucho, for the area in Brazil where he was from. When the first Ronaldo was done playing, Ronaldinho became Ronaldo again and Ronaldinho Gaucho lost the Gaucho. (For everyday use, that is. He's often listed as Ronaldinho Gaucho in squads, and his official website is www.ronaldinhogaucho.com.)"
Re: People with names that break computers
#140There's an amusing short story from the 1960s called "Computers Don't Argue" which this reminds me of: http://atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=133