Terence Eden. He has a beard and is smiling.

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What are "unusual characters"

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Screenshot of a form validation error - Your first name must have at least two letters and no unusual characters.

The world is a complex place. It is tempting to enforce simplicity upon it to make things easier for computers. Gender is a boolean, no one is older than 99, all text flows left to right, and names are always in English. That makes it nice and easy for us to write computer systems - and who cares if it is dehumanising? Recently, I tried to register with phone company EE. When someone asks for…