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Jennifer Null's husband had warned her before they got married that taking his name could lead to occasional frustrations in everyday life. She knew the sort of thing to expect – his family joked about it now and again, after all. And sure enough, right after the wedding, problems began.
"We moved almost immediately after we got married so it came up practically as soon as I changed my name, buying plane tickets," 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.
Instead, she has to call the airline company by phone to book a ticket – but that's not the end of the process.
"I've been asked why I'm calling and when I try to explain the situation, I've been told, 'there's no way that's true'," she says.
But to any programmer, it's painfully easy to see why "Null" could cause problems for software interacting with a database. This is because the word 'null' can be produced by a system to indicate an empty name field. Now and again, system administrators have to try and fix the problem for people who are actually named "Null" – but the issue is rare and sometimes surprisingly difficult to solve.
[...] "Null" isn't the only example of a name that is troublesome for computers to process. There are many others. In a world that relies increasingly on databases to function, the issues for people with problematic names only get more severe.
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 – which is 36 characters in total. In the end, government computer systems were updated to have greater flexibility in this area.
Source: BBC.
What other names have you run into that have been problematic for computers?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ShadowSystems on Monday January 02 2017, @07:50PM
I upvoted you on the general feeling of disgust I have over that damned comic.
As a totally blind person that uses a Screen Reader Environment (SRE) to interact with websites, having a comic that doesn't include any sufficient alt text or a transcription of the image means my SRE can't find anything to interact with on that point.
This means I have to visit the ExplainXKCD site to get a transcription.
What's the title of the Explain site? "Because you're stupid".
No I am not, I'm Blind & you didn't bother to transcribe your fucking comic.
I take great umbrage at the insult since it's not MY fault YOU can't be fucking bothered to do a tiny little bit of descriptive text on your own damned site.
So the comic and the explain site are now in my HOSTS file, blocked for being utter douchebags.
I upvoted you because that man, his site, & the explain site are all pustules on the ass of life.
I'd offer to lance him but I don't want to get that shit on my hands.
Enjoy your upvote & may Randal get a surprise colonoscopy with a spinning metal hedgehog.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jimshatt on Tuesday January 03 2017, @12:00AM
After some research I discovered that a lot of xkcd comics actually have a transcript. Just put /info.0.json after the comic number and you'll get a JSON file with a transcript. Not recent comics, unfortunately. ExplainXKCD is an option if you decide not to mind the title. OR you can use my handy one-liner on Linux (provided you have tidy, xmlstarlet and tesseract-ocr installed):
Replace 1780 with the number of the comic you want to read. YMMV.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday January 03 2017, @12:12AM
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:24AM
If you send a message to Randall Munroe describing your experience of his comic, he might be motivated to make changes to accommodate your needs - it might appeal to his geeky, problem-solving side.
On the other hand, if you haven't let him know, and simply fulminate on the Internet, then that might not be the most effective way to encourage change.
On the gripping hand, if you have sent a message, and he hasn't replied or done anything, then feel free to fulminate.
(I support people using screen readers, so I understand the problem. )