{"id":13980,"date":"2016-03-25T10:05:51","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T14:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=13980"},"modified":"2016-03-28T11:28:27","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T15:28:27","slug":"names-that-break-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/25\/names-that-break-computers\/","title":{"rendered":"Names That Break Computers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future\/story\/20160325-the-names-that-break-computer-systems\">Chris Baraniuk<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rosyna\/status\/713299688447877120\">Rosyna Keller<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=11359915\">comments<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future\/story\/20160325-the-names-that-break-computer-systems\">\n<p>&ldquo;We moved almost immediately after we got married so it came up practically as soon as I changed my name, buying plane tickets,&rdquo; she says. When Jennifer Null tries to buy a plane ticket, she gets an error message on most websites. The site will say she has left the surname field blank and ask her to try again.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Some individuals only have a single name, not a forename and surname. Others have surnames that are just one letter. Problems with such names have been reported before. Consider also the experiences of Janice Keihanaikukauakahihulihe'ekahaunaele, a Hawaiian woman who complained that state ID cards should allow citizens to display surnames even as long as hers &#8211; which is 36 characters in total.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>But McKenzie is living proof of the fact that name headaches are a relativistic problem. To many English-speaking westerners, the name &ldquo;Patrick McKenzie&rdquo; might not seem primed to cause errors, but where McKenzie lives &#8211; Japan &#8211; it has created all kinds of issues for him.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/xkcd.com\/327\/\">xkcd<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.explainxkcd.com\/wiki\/index.php\/Little_Bobby_Tables\">Explain xkcd<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Previously: <a href=\"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/31\/falsehoods-programmers-believe\/\">Falsehoods Programmers Believe<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chris Baraniuk (via Rosyna Keller, comments): &ldquo;We moved almost immediately after we got married so it came up practically as soon as I changed my name, buying plane tickets,&rdquo; she says. When Jennifer Null tries to buy a plane ticket, she gets an error message on most websites. The site will say she has left [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[131,143,71,677,96],"class_list":["post-13980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-bug","tag-database","tag-programming","tag-sql","tag-web"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13980"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13986,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13980\/revisions\/13986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}