How changing my name to “Spider Mann” ruined my life | Hacker News Reader

How changing my name to “Spider Mann” ruined my life

cracked.com

51 pointsChuckMcM50 comments

> "Online registrations are canceled within minutes, tables at restaurants are canceled and given to others (makes surprise dates for partners a hassle), and renting a car is even worse," Mann says. One time, "I reserved and rented a car through Enterprise online. Confirmation email and everything in hand. I thought going through Costco Travel would eliminate the usual rigmarole, but I was wrong. A few days before [my trip], I called Enterprise to verify the reservation. The woman on the other side was nice about it, but those familiar words stating that they had canceled the reservation because they thought it was a joke came."

Nice, he got the human-equivalent of "Null", the magic name that breaks certain reservation systems.

I just have to drop the obvious XKCD reference here: https://xkcd.com/327/

Can't forget the story of Mr. Null: https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/

Wow, even the URL looks funny.

The Norwegian DMV equivalent recently enabled us to order custom plates.

I promptly ordered NULL as an experiment. With any luck, the parking ticket database throws a fit.

Hope it doesn't backfire on you.

http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/noplate.asp

A classic, non-computer example of how "in-band signaling" can fail. If only they used some characters which would never be allowed on a license plate, to signify the absence of one...

Only tangentially related, but reminds me of the worst Polish driver in Ireland: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7899171....

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any language where "null" == null

I can think of a badly designed database interface. All SQL databases handle NULL as a special value, that cannot be compared by equality. But if you want compare the return value of a sql prompt in some language you can make a fallacy like:

    sqlstring = "SELECT 1 = NULL;"
    returnValue = callDB(sqlstring)

    if returnValue == "NULL"
      // here you go...
    end

A solution would be to let the database handle NULL-values:

    sqlstring = "SELECT 1 IS NULL;"

But can you think of any programmers clueless enough not to realize that there's a built in null value, and use the string "null" instead?

In Java at least, appending a null reference to another string will append "null":

      "" + null == "null"

It happens pretty quickly once you start producing database queries by manually concatenating strings, or manually parsing database response strings.

> renting a car is even worse

I can't blame them. Superheroes usually don't treat their cars well.

>"I truly believe that a name is an identity ... I am strong in my feeling that this is the name that fits me and that embodies the type of person I am."

A guy who can't admit when me made an error or stupid impulse decision?

A person who thinks two words (name, surname) define them, instead of their actions and achievements?

Something that anybody can get with $100 dollars and an application is clearly not what "embodies the type of person" they are.

My sister, when she got married to a Stevens, changed her name to First name, Second name, Even, Stevens. I won't put her full name for obvious reasons.

I agree, if you change your name to Spider Man or I.C. Weiner you kind of had it coming. But on the other hand there are people born named Harry Poter long before Harry Poter was even written and face similar problems.

The difference is a real-sounding name like Harry Potter (or Michael Bolton: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_BaMx_n2_hM) attracts comments rather than suspicion.

Even a name close to a famous one can attract attention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsp2JntuZ3c

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221925/The-real-lif...

It's daily-mail, so take it with a bit of salt.

I had sort of the same reaction, but reminding myself that the name had grown out of years of usage prior lessened the reaction for me

"I am strong in my feeling that this is the name that fits me and that embodies the type of person I am."

So did Peter Parker, and not even he changed his actual, legal name to "Spider Man". Even in a comic book universe, that would be ridiculous.

Well, that would blow his cover if he did.

In this case, it does.

I mean, he changed his name to Spider Mann and lives with it. His name is an action and achievement all by itself.

Changing ones name may be a stupid impulse decision but sticking with it is a real choice.

>Changing ones name may be a stupid impulse decision but sticking with it is a real choice.

A stupid choice -- which makes all the difference.

Sticking with something you can't change is one thing (like accepting your body if you had an accident etc).

Sticking with something you've picked yourself, can change at anytime, and was BS to begin with is another -- and not to be lauded.

At least the country version was better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHPuY88Ry4

This guy probably has it worse: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=5

...or him: http://mw.eco.br/ig/prof/ReinhardtAdolfoFuck.htm

My teacher is called Mrs Willy. Just change your name.

I was friends with an American couple in the Dominican Republic. Their names were Tim and Whitney. Dominicans often mix up the sounds of M/N and drop the T's, the Spanish word for and is "y", so it wasn't uncommon to hear Dominicans refer to them as Tin y whiney (Teeny weenie).

Ages ago I had a teacher in 7th grade named "Mr Bonar". I have to think that if that's your name, "junior high teacher" is the worst job you can pick.

There is a school teacher in Wisconsin whose birth name is Marijuana Pepsi. She has a rather interesting story: http://archive.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/40874017.html/

The worst one I've seen, a man named Hitler Mussolini: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_ZuetUzxFI

He suggests the name change caused the deterioration. Since we know correlation is not causation, I propose a more likely situation:

that one thing caused both: a personality that would choose to go through the effort of changing his name to a cartoon super hero.

If you read the article, the author cites quite a few very believable effects of having such an outlandish name. While I don’t doubt that having such an eccentric combination of puckishness and impulsivity would cause problems professionally and personally, those are not the problems directly addressed in the piece.

Do you assert that he's lying, then, about getting in all sorts of bureaucratic snafus with people who've never met him? Other than the dating thing, most of the people giving him trouble have never seen his personality.

I propose a more likely situation: that one thing caused both:

Sorry, correlation is not causation. (And unlike you, he provides direct evidence for his causative hypothesis.)

What would ever make someone think that wasn't a horrible idea in the first place?

There's a guy in Leeds who changed his name to Megatron, I didn't believe my friend when he told me but it's true https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Isn't he lucky? He has an ultrafilter for people who have certain hangups... Which is most people, but those that remain must be valuable.

You can use this as a justification for any avoidable stupid personal decision, like poor fashion or failure to bathe. I don't see why judging someone for doing something dumb is a "hangup", or why missing obvious clues to someone's personality makes them "valuable".

because it seems like the 'deeper' problems he seems to be facing are rather quotidian (not being properly valued by management? not being taken seriously by a romantic partner?) Hell, some of us should be so lucky as to get a job or a romantic partner in the first place.

Why don't we drop names entirely? I think UUIDs are much better for identification purposes.

> Why don't we drop names entirely? I think UUIDs are much better for identification purposes.

Then, with only a little snark meant, why did you choose 'ShabbosGoy' rather than a UUID as your HN identifier?

HN limits usernames to 15 characters, so a UUID won't fit.

Great idea, Mr. 8343d34b-d231-429e-9d3e-565208cf20d4

Spidey sense didn't detect these problems then?

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

A dude I used to work with changed his name to "Nobody In Particular." It was hilarious. Reminded me of the movie "My Name is Nobody. I didn't believe the rumors at first until I saw his paycheck come through the mail line.

This was on Eric Goldman's blog and I thought it nicely illustrated the notion of different contexts. Here is this guy who thinks "Wouldn't it be cool to have a name like Spider Mann?" and went ahead and changed his name.

I think any changes to the name your mum and dad gave you are suspicious. The only world this is okay in is celebrity world, authors don't take on the identity of their pen name as celebrities do.

The blogger Perez Hilton gets on fine doing the celebrity gossip stuff he does. I doubt he would get a regular job with the name. So maybe Spider Mann has got it wrong, if he went full celebrity all would be okay.

Some people get face tattoos.

Why not just change your surname too?

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