Closing tabs

[undyingking]

A few miscellaneous things that have caught my eye just lately:

• Cold case cards -- playing cards depicting unsolved crimes issued to prisoners, in the hope that repeated playing with them will release clues. "I've got King high -- and yes, by the way, that was one of mine, since you ask."
• Singh if you're winning -- Canada refuses to admit people surnamed Singh or Kaur (which are pretty much mandatory male and female surnames for devout Sikhs). "There are too many of them, officials say, pointing to difficulties in maintaining a database with similar names." This sounds to me like someone getting the wrong end of the stick, but you never know I guess.
• Aardvark beats Zzitz -- people with surnames near the beginning of the alphabet do better than those near the end. I'm sure you can all testify to the truth or otherwise of this, from your own experience. (Unless, like me, you have one from around the middle.) Maybe more interesting though is the finding further down that people whose initials spell "good" words like ACE, HUG and JOY live longer than those who spell PIG, BUM or DIE. Do any of you have initials that spell a nice or nasty word, and do you plan to live longer or shorter because of it?
• Useful hotkeys -- Smashing Magazine is generally very useful if you work in Web design / devpt, gathering together good practice and techniques on a regular basis, but this issue is of more general use - there were quite a few things on here I didn't know.

And with that, I can close those tabs and go on holiday with a clear conscience...

Comments

[thecesspit.livejournal.com]

Singh/Kaur.

This has been floating around over here for a few days. The CIC (delightful people, love them to bits... now can I have residency please) have said that it helps in the New Delhi office if those people with such surnames provided a third name to help identification. They say this is common practice in India anyways (I have no idea). A letter was sent to someone's wife expressing this request in such terms as 'your surname is all wrong, please give us another one'.

The Sikh community have been a little put out by this. One pointed out even if this is correct and sensible, why don't they ask for further ID names from Brown's, Smith's, Kumar's and Lee's?

I doubt this is racial profiling per se, more a case of idiocy in the Bureaucracy and brain not being applied. Institutional Racism, or inability to consider a different view point in different culture to names.

[dr-bob.livejournal.com]

Having just had to deal with students, and because I'm a bitter W, I make a point of doing anything alphabetical in reverse order - now at least I can point to 'research' to back me up when I claim it's redresing the balance :o)

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

I married into a bitter W family! T had to do everything last at school, except a French (or could have been German) oral test, when the teacher decided to redress the balance! Talk about holding a grudge... ;)

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

I'm a bitter W and my mother considered reverting to her maiden name because the list of supply teachers in Hampshire was in alphabetical order and schools would just phone through it from the top...

[zengineer.livejournal.com]

People with surnames beginning with letters earlier in the Alphabet are better. When He created the world in 4004 BC he named people in descending order and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Sympathy to the Z's but it is His will.
B

[thefon.livejournal.com]

I don't know about surnames, but having an 'A' first name means that I get a lot of accidental texts and mobile calls (due to being first in address book, and a surprisingly common failure to keylock).