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People with names that break computers

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Re: People with names that break computers

#151

Post by imron »

formula1 wrote: post #42
tzs wrote: post #24

Breaking computers can be useful. Isaac Asimov had a series of short stories written in the form of conversations between the writer and a friend named George. George claims to have discovered how to summon a demon, and the conversations are about that demon. The demon is not allowed to directly help George, but he will do favors for George's friends. These favors invariably do not turn out good for the friend. Each…

This story is great, I want to checkout the author now! The demon seems less of an actual evil being and more as a person who gets excited about awesome stories, uses ying yang guide the vine of destiny. Maybe half expecting a smile only to see horror. I know this is now the best place for poetry, but this story was very fun to read

You want to check out the author? .... Isaac Asimov...

Yeah, you should probably do that.

Re: People with names that break computers

#152

Post by tgb »

martincmartin wrote: post #120

My legal name is Martin C. Martin. This has only been a problem for computer systems 2 or 3 times. Once or twice on some no-name web site, which rejected names where first and last were the same. The other time was when the company I was working at was bought by Oracle. Oracle's internal email system simply refused to create a user with the same first name as last name. (For the curious, I was born Martin C. Hilgerde…

Why did you change your name?

Re: People with names that break computers

#153

Post by randallsquared »

martincmartin wrote: post #120

My legal name is Martin C. Martin. This has only been a problem for computer systems 2 or 3 times. Once or twice on some no-name web site, which rejected names where first and last were the same. The other time was when the company I was working at was bought by Oracle. Oracle's internal email system simply refused to create a user with the same first name as last name. (For the curious, I was born Martin C. Hilgerde…

Heh. My name is Randall R. Randall. I have had quite a lot of pushback from humans ("No, sorry, I need your LAST name..."), but I can only remember two systems that ever really caused me issues: Facebook and Google+.

Re: People with names that break computers

#154

Post by rexreed »

subway wrote: post #64

A 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…

I've always wanted a license plate I1II0O0O just to mess with the automated license plate scanners and video tolls

Re: People with names that break computers

#155

Post by m-i-l »

I know someone who had no idea why their surname was being removed from posts to the internal social media system. It was because their surname was on the list of blocked words, but I don't know how far this was explained to them. We were also unable to post anything about welly wanging or Numberwang.

Re: People with names that break computers

#156

Post by hibbelig »

Grishnakh wrote: post #89
ryandrake wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be an entire college course dedicated to all the various "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Xxxx" lists. I've seen so much horribly bad code that's supposed do handle times, dates, names, addresses, etc. The spec says "Store the user's name in the database" and the programmer simply allocates a string for First Name and a string for Last Name and calls it a day. What's needed is good unit tests and a…

For the database at least, I don't see why you need unit tests or any testing at all. Assuming that you're going to require at least two names (no single-name names allowed), then a string for First Name and a string for Last Name should be sufficient. If this is a decent database, where the string can have any Unicode character, including a space, and you don't set a limit on the string length (modern databases don'…

Say you have first name "John" and last name "Doe", then the software will print "John Doe" or "Doe, John" or "Mr. Doe".

For Ai Weiwei, "Weiwei Ai" doesn't make sense, "Ai, Weiwei" is odd, and it has to be "Mr. Ai".

Re: People with names that break computers

#157

Post by mikeash »

randallsquared wrote: post #153
martincmartin wrote: post #120

My legal name is Martin C. Martin. This has only been a problem for computer systems 2 or 3 times. Once or twice on some no-name web site, which rejected names where first and last were the same. The other time was when the company I was working at was bought by Oracle. Oracle's internal email system simply refused to create a user with the same first name as last name. (For the curious, I was born Martin C. Hilgerde…

Heh. My name is Randall R. Randall. I have had quite a lot of pushback from humans ("No, sorry, I need your LAST name..."), but I can only remember two systems that ever really caused me issues: Facebook and Google+.

I have to ask. Does the R also stand for Randall?

Re: People with names that break computers

#158

Post by randallsquared »

mikeash wrote: post #157
randallsquared wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh. My name is Randall R. Randall. I have had quite a lot of pushback from humans ("No, sorry, I need your LAST name..."), but I can only remember two systems that ever really caused me issues: Facebook and Google+.

I have to ask. Does the R also stand for Randall?

No, it's Reginald. You are in good company in wondering, though. :)

Re: People with names that break computers

#159

Post by Anechoic »

bagels wrote: post #101
HoopleHead wrote: post #62

It doesn't even have to be an "edge case", as stated in the article. My first name has a single accented vowel and breaks tons of online forms. What annoys me is not so much having to re-enter my name with the unaccented version of the vowel, it's when the form throws up an error message saying "Enter a Valid Name" [or suchlike]. I find that insulting. At least make your error text put the blame where it belongs: "So…

I once sent a package to Curaçao. I bought postage online from USPS. The package was delivered to Australia, as my local post office showed me on a printout, and lost forever. The best I can figure out it, it was because I dared to use the accented 'ç' character in the country's name, and their computers were not able to handle this.

I once sent a package to Curaçao. I bought postage online from USPS.

Click-N-Ship used to be able to handle Unicode characters but for some reason that was removed a few years ago. I always had success with it, but there must have been enough situations similar to yours that they decided to do away with it.

It's a shame. Every time we get an order from Spain and the customer uses the superscript "o" in the address, I have to substitute (normal) "o" and pray that the package actually arrives.

Re: People with names that break computers

#160

Post by david-given »

silveira wrote: post #28

I have a first name composed of two names, and one of them with an acute accent. This is enough to cause some of my credit cards to be printed with a repeated name because they assume my "second first name" to be a middle name too. The acute accent results in encoding problems once in a while. But nothing compares the problems that people with names longer than 30 characters have to face. Creating a SSN card, or driv…

That list makes me very sad. Not because it's not interesting, which it is, but because it'd be so much more interesting if it discussed each item as it went.

This one, for example:

    People’s names are assigned at birth.
    OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
    Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
    Five years?
    You’re kidding me, right?
Don't leave me there! Tell me which culture assigns names more than five years after birth!

I'd love to see an annotated version.

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