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posted by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link

Odd software bugs

Wikipedia has a listing of unusual software bugs — “mostly named after scientists who discovered counterintuitive things” — that are difficult to identify or fix.

A mandelbug (named after fractal innovator Benoit Mandelbrot) is a computer bug whose causes are so complex that its behavior appears chaotic. This word also implies that the speaker thinks it is a bohrbug rather than a heisenbug. Some use mandelbug to describe a bug whose behavior does not appear chaotic, but whose causes are so complex that there is no practical solution. An example of this is a bug caused by a flaw in the fundamental design of the entire system.

My all-time favorite bug is still the 500-mile email. (thx, jake)