[thechat] Data quality heaven...

[David Wagner]

Oh boy! More useless facts!

New Zealand has a tradition of long names, currently holding the official
(Guinness) record for the longest *place* name in common use:

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauotamateturipukakapikimaungahoro-Nukupokaiwhenua
kitanatahu

which translates as the 'place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees,
who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as land-eater, played his
flute to his loved one'. Those wacky Kiwis! Gotta love it.

Thailand has a longer city name --

Krungthep Mahanakhon Bovorn Ratanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokpop
Noparatratchathani Burirom Udomratchanivet Mahasathan Amornpiman
Avatarnsathit Sakkathattiyavisnukarmprasit

-- which means the 'City of Angels'. It's not an official record, though,
because the locals call it Krungthep Mahanakhon. We boring Westerners call
it Bangkok.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, in Wales, tries
to lay claim to the record as well, since it's an actual town and the New
Zealand place listed above is, apparently, a mostly uninhabited hill.
However, the locals apparently refer to it most often as Llanfair PG. With
good reason.

[Excerpts and references from http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A418565 and
http://www.amusingfacts.com/archives/jun2200.txt and a few other places. Use
Google.]

So, there are good reasons to be careful with your data field lengths. Keep
this in mind the next time you toss out an arbitrary JavaScript form
validation.

Totally unrelated: while poring through the Guinness World Records
online[http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/], I discovered that George W.
Bush is officially the US President with the wealthiest cabinet -- 13
millionaires on board. What a shock.

(I can't wait to send this message and see what the spellchecker does.)

--

David Wagner
dave at worlddomination.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Madhu Menon" <webguru at vsnl.net>
To: <thechat at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 1:16 PM
Subject: Re: [thechat] Data quality heaven...


> At 01:34 AM 28-09-02, Martin Burns wrote:
> >Anyone want to hazard a guess at the maximum length of the data field in
> >government systems..?
>
> Forget the data field. What were the parents smoking? Did they intend to
> raise their kid on Mars?
>
> M
>
> ___________________________________
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> ____
> I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why
don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem
solve itself?
>
>