5 ms·

> the 0.01% outlier who has seven different names, each consisting of some kind of personal scribble that changes depending on the phase of the moon? I cannot

by TillE 13y ago

> the 0.01% outlier who has seven different names, each consisting of some kind of personal scribble that changes depending on the phase of the moon? I cannot adequately express my dislike for this kind of mockery. Seriously, fucking stop it.

jrockway 13y ago
Probably time to adjust your meds.
grannyg00se 13y ago
Did you read the link in cstross' reply? I'm not mocking anything. Some combination of those rules would actually require this type of naming situation.
- kordless 13y ago
  Did you really just rationalize this using a blog post? To quote #36 on the list you are referencing: "You’re kidding me, right?" Scribble: to cover with scribbles, doodles, or meaningless marks. Names aren't meaningless, and TMK names don't change depending on the time of month. By phrasing things the way you are, you are making generalized (and fictitious) blaming statements about something that is very personal. And you got called out on it.
  - grannyg00se 13y ago
    This entire sub-thread is a reply to part of my response that is centered around that blog post, so yes, I rationalized it using said blog post. Did you really just ask that question because you wanted to pretentiously infer some kind of unreasonable rationalization? Addressing all of the issues on the list pretty much boils down to accepting a scribble as a valid name. And if you are going to accept point 8 on the list that people's names change at any non enumerable event, then that is just as difficult as a name that changes based on the phase of the moon. Worse, actually. Moon phases are at least predictable. The point is, I'm creating a plausible scenario that fits the suggestions in the list. It is not necessarily fictitious, and it is absolutely in no way worse than the list's expectations. Please identify how I made any type of "blaming statement". If you're going to call me out then go ahead and call me out. As far as I'm concerned I've been accused, not called out.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    The "scribble" may have been given meaning by becoming this person's name, but if it's not in any character set, it probably doesn't already have meaning as a character in any known written language.
cstross 13y ago
Agreed. The real issue is that too many programmers apply their own cultural norms to the issue of naming, in ways which privilege their particular culture at the expense of others'. (You want to be able to identify people uniquely? Fine: allocate them a globally unique ID string within your own system. Then let them link this to whatever the hell they want -- be it an Anglophone forename-middlename-surname string sequence, or something entirely different that fits their cultural requirements. Once you get into designing a procrustean name storage architecture and insisting that everyone uses their true name, then you are inflicting your own culture's naming requirements on them, which is offensive at best. Especially when it isn't necessary.)
- Muzza 13y ago
  Why shouldn't my culture be privileged in my country? I understand that you British are almost done giving away your country for some bewildering reason, but I certainly don't want that where I live.
- grannyg00se 13y ago
  Sure. You go ahead and create a "culturally sensitive" system that allows people to create randomly changing names based on multiple character sets and unlimited length. On an infrastructure that was put in place in 1980 with a minimal budget just to get something running quickly because it was supposed to be temporary. Most systems aren't going to be built with infinite flexibility. Some might argue that wouldn't even be possible. And perhaps it has absolutely nothing to do with the programmer's own cultural norms, but the system they are programming on, the budget they are dealing with, and their level of competency. Not every action that is offensive to a particular group is done deliberately to offend that group or even with the knowledge that it could be offensive.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    >Not every action that is offensive to a particular group is done deliberately to offend that group Irrelevant. >or even with the knowledge that it could be offensive. Irrelevant to your argument, which is that we should continue doing it even after we figure out that it's offensive, because fuck them.
Pxtl 13y ago
The link mentions > People’s names are all mapped in Unicode code points. At this point we've gotten into absurdity. Yes, supporting Chinese people and Hawaiian people with superlong names and people with first/last vs last/first or hyphenated or non-alphanumeric or whatever... all the stuff that can be supported with a single string of UTF-8? That's all reasonable, and there's a very real progrem with programs that don't support those kinds of names. But going over the line into names that can't be expressed in any form of text known to a computer? At this point, the ludicrous exaggeration is only barely further than the silliness included in the "Falsehoods" list. He's not mocking "you have to support a half-German half-Chinese person who was raised with an Inuit nickname". I'll happily support Prof. Dr. Ms. 陳 (ᒥᓂᔅᑕ) Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenberdorft III. That's fine. But the "Falsehoods" article says that isn't enough, and is pretty much describing "seven different names, each consisting of some kind of personal scribble that changes depending on the phase of the moon". Normally I'm the first to complain about racism and those kinds of insults, talking down to people who are just too much trouble to bother with. But that "scribbles" comment is literally outlining the lengths the article describes.

by TillE 13y ago

jrockway 13y ago

Probably time to adjust your meds.

grannyg00se 13y ago

Did you read the link in cstross' reply? I'm not mocking anything. Some combination of those rules would actually require this type of naming situation.

kordless 13y ago
Did you really just rationalize this using a blog post? To quote #36 on the list you are referencing: "You’re kidding me, right?" Scribble: to cover with scribbles, doodles, or meaningless marks. Names aren't meaningless, and TMK names don't change depending on the time of month. By phrasing things the way you are, you are making generalized (and fictitious) blaming statements about something that is very personal. And you got called out on it.
- grannyg00se 13y ago
  This entire sub-thread is a reply to part of my response that is centered around that blog post, so yes, I rationalized it using said blog post. Did you really just ask that question because you wanted to pretentiously infer some kind of unreasonable rationalization? Addressing all of the issues on the list pretty much boils down to accepting a scribble as a valid name. And if you are going to accept point 8 on the list that people's names change at any non enumerable event, then that is just as difficult as a name that changes based on the phase of the moon. Worse, actually. Moon phases are at least predictable. The point is, I'm creating a plausible scenario that fits the suggestions in the list. It is not necessarily fictitious, and it is absolutely in no way worse than the list's expectations. Please identify how I made any type of "blaming statement". If you're going to call me out then go ahead and call me out. As far as I'm concerned I've been accused, not called out.
- superuser2 13y ago
  The "scribble" may have been given meaning by becoming this person's name, but if it's not in any character set, it probably doesn't already have meaning as a character in any known written language.

cstross 13y ago

Agreed. The real issue is that too many programmers apply their own cultural norms to the issue of naming, in ways which privilege their particular culture at the expense of others'. (You want to be able to identify people uniquely? Fine: allocate them a globally unique ID string within your own system. Then let them link this to whatever the hell they want -- be it an Anglophone forename-middlename-surname string sequence, or something entirely different that fits their cultural requirements. Once you get into designing a procrustean name storage architecture and insisting that everyone uses their true name, then you are inflicting your own culture's naming requirements on them, which is offensive at best. Especially when it isn't necessary.)

Muzza 13y ago
Why shouldn't my culture be privileged in my country? I understand that you British are almost done giving away your country for some bewildering reason, but I certainly don't want that where I live.
grannyg00se 13y ago
Sure. You go ahead and create a "culturally sensitive" system that allows people to create randomly changing names based on multiple character sets and unlimited length. On an infrastructure that was put in place in 1980 with a minimal budget just to get something running quickly because it was supposed to be temporary. Most systems aren't going to be built with infinite flexibility. Some might argue that wouldn't even be possible. And perhaps it has absolutely nothing to do with the programmer's own cultural norms, but the system they are programming on, the budget they are dealing with, and their level of competency. Not every action that is offensive to a particular group is done deliberately to offend that group or even with the knowledge that it could be offensive.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >Not every action that is offensive to a particular group is done deliberately to offend that group Irrelevant. >or even with the knowledge that it could be offensive. Irrelevant to your argument, which is that we should continue doing it even after we figure out that it's offensive, because fuck them.

Pxtl 13y ago

The link mentions > People’s names are all mapped in Unicode code points. At this point we've gotten into absurdity. Yes, supporting Chinese people and Hawaiian people with superlong names and people with first/last vs last/first or hyphenated or non-alphanumeric or whatever... all the stuff that can be supported with a single string of UTF-8? That's all reasonable, and there's a very real progrem with programs that don't support those kinds of names. But going over the line into names that can't be expressed in any form of text known to a computer? At this point, the ludicrous exaggeration is only barely further than the silliness included in the "Falsehoods" list. He's not mocking "you have to support a half-German half-Chinese person who was raised with an Inuit nickname". I'll happily support Prof. Dr. Ms. 陳 (ᒥᓂᔅᑕ) Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenberdorft III. That's fine. But the "Falsehoods" article says that isn't enough, and is pretty much describing "seven different names, each consisting of some kind of personal scribble that changes depending on the phase of the moon". Normally I'm the first to complain about racism and those kinds of insults, talking down to people who are just too much trouble to bother with. But that "scribbles" comment is literally outlining the lengths the article describes.