Interesting Links for 07-09-2020

[andrewducker]

Son sells 28 years of birthday whisky to buy first home

(tags:alcohol Scotland housing )

Bank security update leaves people guessing what their name is

(tags:names security banking OhForFucksSake )

Steve Ditko Designed Spider-Man to be Orange and Purple

(tags:comics design history )

Coronavirus: Scotland records highest daily Covid tally since May (mostly in Glasgow, I hope they can get it under control)

(tags:pandemic Scotland )

UK planning to renege on the Withdrawal Agreement

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1302701541674160134.html
(tags:UK Europe NorthernIreland OhForFucksSake doom )

Sudan Ends 30 Years of Islamic Law by Separating Religion, State

(tags:Sudan Islam law religion democracy )

The New Neuroscience of Stuttering

(tags:speech genetics brain neuroscience )

The economics of the Tour de France

(tags:France cycling economics money )

Psychedelic Fishes from the World's First Encyclopedia of Marine Creatures

(tags:encyclopedia fish history )

Scientists Discover Exposed Bacteria Can Survive in Space for Years

(tags:bacteria space )

Comments

[aldabra]

I have to guess what my name is for banks and doctors. Everything would be much easier if the government would *ask me what my name is* instead of insisting I have a passport and driving licence in my Official Name which nobody has used since I was three weeks old. I also have to keep track of which systems are still operating on my previous address because the automated processing will do the wrong thing if I officially tell them I've moved (or because I have no motive force and haven't got around to updating everything yet).

[naath]

banks truncate my name in unpredictable ways; it was nearly a problem for buying this house.

[armiphlage]

The classic "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names"

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/


People have exactly one canonical full name.
People have exactly one full name which they go by.
People have, at this point in time, exactly one canonical full name.
People have, at this point in time, one full name which they go by.
People have exactly N names, for any value of N.
People’s names fit within a certain defined amount of space.
People’s names do not change.
People’s names change, but only at a certain enumerated set of events.
People’s names are written in ASCII.
People’s names are written in any single character set.
People’s names are all mapped in Unicode code points.
People’s names are case sensitive.
People’s names are case insensitive.
People’s names sometimes have prefixes or suffixes, but you can safely ignore those.
People’s names do not contain numbers.
People’s names are not written in ALL CAPS.
People’s names are not written in all lower case letters.
People’s names have an order to them. Picking any ordering scheme will automatically result in consistent ordering among all systems, as long as both use the same ordering scheme for the same name.
People’s first names and last names are, by necessity, different.
People have last names, family names, or anything else which is shared by folks recognized as their relatives.
People’s names are globally unique.
People’s names are almost globally unique.
Alright alright but surely people’s names are diverse enough such that no million people share the same name.
My system will never have to deal with names from China.
Or Japan.
Or Korea.
Or Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Botswana, South Africa, Trinidad, Haiti, France, or the Klingon Empire, all of which have “weird” naming schemes in common use.
That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right?
Confound your cultural relativism! People in my society, at least, agree on one commonly accepted standard for names.
There exists an algorithm which transforms names and can be reversed losslessly. (Yes, yes, you can do it if your algorithm returns the input. You get a gold star.)
I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no people’s names in it.
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?
Two different systems containing data about the same person will use the same name for that person.
Two different data entry operators, given a person’s name, will by necessity enter bitwise equivalent strings on any single system, if the system is well-designed.
People whose names break my system are weird outliers. They should have had solid, acceptable names, like 田中太郎.
People have names.

[inamac]

I am currently dealing with a solicitor to write my will and arrange power of attorney. My surname on the legal documents is correct. The file code which comprises the first five letters of my surname has two letters incorrect. I must remember to warn my executors.

Dikto didn't give up...

[f4f3]

Well he nearly got Orange and Purple on speedball. I wish I could post that costume here...

Re: Dikto didn't give up...

[andrewducker]

What's stopping you?

Re: Dikto didn't give up...

[f4f3]

Lack of an option to insert a graphic in my reply?

Re: Dikto didn't give up...

[andrewducker]

DW supports IMG tags. Failing that you can upload to imgur and link to it?

The economics of the Tour de France

[anef]

That was fascinating. And the largest team, Ineos, sponsored by a petrochemical firm - it makes perfect sense. Arts charities have noticed that it hurts their reputations to be sponsored by petrodollars, but the Tour de France doesn't really have a reputation to lose.

Re: The economics of the Tour de France

[andrewducker]

And possibly less of a liberal/left audience?

Re: The economics of the Tour de France

[anef]

I know a few left-wing TDF fans, but I think my friendship group is biased!