[HN Gopher] Hello, I'm Mr. Null. My Name Makes Me Invisible to C...
___________________________________________________________________
Hello, I'm Mr. Null. My Name Makes Me Invisible to Computers (2015)
Author : LorenDB
Score : 25 points
Date : 2025-02-03 19:47 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| LorenDB wrote:
| https://archive.ph/PX3Lx
| calibas wrote:
| Which systems use the string "null" to represent a null value?
| That seems like a bad idea...
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I could see it happening with clumsy JSON parsing. in
| javascript, JSON.parse("null") would return null, and the
| string null would have to be JSON.parse('"null"').
| threeducks wrote:
| A common source of "NULL" strings are CSVs. I personally had to
| deal with a database that only understood NULLs correctly when
| using QUOTE_NOTNULL, which was added to Python just last year:
| https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/113732
|
| I've also heard of a fun database where the user "Geoffrey" was
| truncated to "G". I wonder why? (Hint: End of file)
| driggs wrote:
| > I've also heard of a fun database where the user "Geoffrey"
| was truncated to "G". I wonder why? (Hint: End of file)
|
| Sorry, I don't buy that one. There's no way the ascii string
| "eof" - _especially_ lower-cased - would be interpreted as
| the C macro EOF, which is typically represented as the int
| -1. Sounds like a tall tale unless you 've got proof.
| somat wrote:
| I could see a poorly coded stringly parsed interface (think
| sql) triggering on a mid span character sequence. but I
| agree, it would have to be a real mess of an interface. For
| example the client uses "eof" to separate or end queries.
| snailmailstare wrote:
| I first had to figure out why the G stayed put if it was
| being treated as last line... I've seen some terrible
| things and wouldn't doubt that a lot of pages in say the
| travel industry have a 2%+ failure rate at recording a
| signup.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| There are more than a few legacy databases where a person's
| first name wouldn't be lowercased. I worked for a
| university awhile back, this is post-2010, and names were
| stored uppercase.
| robin_reala wrote:
| ColdFusion, if I remember correctly.
| Krasnol wrote:
| We had a patient with a single letter as surname. Didn't go well
| with our patient web portal. She'll probably never be able to see
| her MRIs online since development is slow, and it seems to be an
| edge case.
| caseyohara wrote:
| Why would the length of the surname matter?
| tiltowait wrote:
| At a guess, the system mandates a minimum length.
| dylan604 wrote:
| O-muhgawdthisisstupid would be my next attempt
| quantified wrote:
| Well, challenge question "secret answers" also have
| similar stupids. Mandating five-letter answers mean that
| first pet Fido, favorite teacher Zak, honeymoon
| destination Fiji, etc all cannot be used. Though honest
| answers to those questions are the worst idea.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| This is a really good example of how limits on name fields are
| entirely arbitrary.
| not2b wrote:
| Is the name "O"? That's a common Korean surname, though many
| Korean Americans spell it "Oh" to avoid the problems computers
| and bureaucrats have with it.
| julian_t wrote:
| I have several Indian coworkers who have a single name. Our
| company systems insist on first and last names, so they either
| end up with '.' as a last name, or the same name twice.
| the_real_cher wrote:
| would just make one up at that point.
| aaplok wrote:
| This works until someone asks you to produce identity
| documents matching the computer records.
|
| I've seen people put a single period (".") instead of a
| last name.
| briffle wrote:
| first real job was at a 2-year rural college.
|
| We had 2 systems, one for students, one for staff. Sometimes
| people would forget to properly reference the 'other' account
| when a teacher took a class, or a student taught a community
| education class, etc. We were in the process of consolidating
| into a single DB, and didn't want a bunch of duplicates.
|
| We had a person Leslie that kept getting duplicated in the
| systems. Same address same age, same birthdate. Only difference
| was different gender, and last 2 digits of social was 21
| instead of 12.
|
| So our dba deleted one, and linked them.
|
| Month later, same thing. So our DBA fixed it. Shaking his head
| at the people up front not following data entry procedures.
|
| Next week, both Leslie's were in our office. They were born on
| same day, but hospitals in nearby towns. Back then socials were
| handed out sequentially by region. They had different last
| names until they married 40 years before.
|
| They were laughing and said this happens more often then most
| people would think.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| I lived in a 2 letter town. For the longest time I couldn't
| order stuff off of websites as they required a 3 letter city.
|
| Ah-well, I saved some money because of this.
| poobear22 wrote:
| Sometimes you can call 1-800-dev-null to get this fixed.
| dylan604 wrote:
| i now know the phone number that i will use whenever some form
| wants a number and i don't think they really need it. 555-1212
| is my go to, but 338-6855 is so less obvious.
| quantified wrote:
| Who's at the other end of that number. No one who had the
| number appreciated the pop song's 867-5309 but at least one
| day with the radio on told them why they were getting all
| these crank calls.
| pnemonic wrote:
| obligatory mention of Little Bobby Tables
| djmips wrote:
| He should have an advice blog called Null's pointers.
| kmoser wrote:
| Related: How a 'NULL' License Plate Landed One Hacker in Ticket
| Hell https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-
| ha...
|
| And: What Happens When Your License Plate Says 'NO PLATE'?
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/auto-no-plate/ (including a
| mention of a "VOID" plate)
|
| A bit of a tangent: I know someone whose last name is "Tester"
| whose medical records were always getting filled with wild
| diseases and eventually they figured out that the doctors-in-
| training were practicing entering medical records using her
| account.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-02-03 23:02 UTC)