• CodexArcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    12 days ago

    I’m sure folks on here know this, but you know, there’s also that 10K a day that don’t so…

    What makes this especially funny, to me, is that SSN is the literal text book example (when I was in school anyway) of a “natural” key that you absolutely should never use as a primary key. It is often the representative example of the kinds of data that seems like it’d make a good key but will absolutely fuck you over if you do.

    SSN is not unique to a person. They get reused after death, and a person can have more than one in their lifetime (if your id is stolen and you arduously go about getting a new one). Edit: (See responses) It seems I’m misinformed about SSNs, apologies. I have heard from numerous sources that they are not unique to a person, but the specifics of how it happens are unknown to me.

    And they’re protected information due to all the financials that rely on them, so you don’t really want to store them at all (unless you’re the SSA, who would have guessed that’d ever come up though!?)

    It’s so stupid that it would be hilarious if people weren’t dying.

    • senkora@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      12 days ago

      Small correction to an otherwise great explanation: SSNs are not recycled after death.

      **Q20:  *Are Social Security numbers reused after a person dies?*****A:  No. We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder’s death. Even though we have issued over 453 million SSNs so far, and we assign about 5 and one-half million new numbers a year, the current numbering system will provide us with enough new numbers for several generations into the future with no changes in the numbering system.

      https://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html

        • KamikazeRusher@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          12 days ago

          Nah. It’s worked for 50 years and if we get another 30 then it’s done its job well. Government is supposed to review and adjust things as time goes on and Social Security Numbers weren’t intended to uniquely identify citizens. They probably expected an overhaul to be done by 2020.

          They fact that we haven’t reworked portions of it and rely on SSNs to identify citizens shows that we haven’t had a forward-thinking Congress in the last 20 years at minimum.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    12 days ago

    You know, the thing that always seemed really scary about the OG Nazis is that they were competent, intelligent, put-together people that were just fucking evil. Then you look at the US Nazis and the fucking bozo density is off the charts, but they seem to be succeeding anyway.

    Three possibilities come to mind:

    • These bozos are going to find out, hard and soon.
    • The OG Nazis were actually bozos too.
    • Competence and intelligence doesn’t actually matter in running a fascist regime
      • naught101@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        12 days ago

        Is it also a case of survivorship bias? Like, I am not super versed in Nazi history, but… There are famous “smart” Nazis like Goebbels and Himmler and Speer - are they only well known because a) they slowly emerged as influential and/or b) it became clear years later that they were the ones behind the wheel?

        'Cause I do think that trump and musk are dumb as bricks, but I don’t think Steve Bannon is, and there are probably others like him…

        • parody@lemmings.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          11 days ago

          🤔 💭

          What got President Musk & his sidekick elected, or rather what made their campaign successful?

          Low IQ but high emotional intelligence or like sociopathic intelligence?

          • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            9 days ago

            Turns out when you’re born with a silver spoon in hand and are a dumb sociopath, you win in life instead of living in prison.

  • dan1101@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    12 days ago

    That’s weird, I thought I used SQL databases from government agencies regularly. Guess I was mistaken.

    • Susaga@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      12 days ago

      If you and Elon disagree about something, just assume he’s wrong about it. If you both agree on something, THEN you might be mistaken.

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        12 days ago

        If it’s tech he doesn’t know shit about it, I learned that years ago during the Twitter acquisition days

        He sounds like a CEO who “knows enough to fuck shit up, not enough to know how to fix it, but thinks they do” AKA the worst executive known to IT

  • h4x0r@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    12 days ago

    I’m sure he has an alternative, like tattooing it on the forearms of ‘undesirables’.