Related:

• unspots: n. 1. Notional cause of an odd error. "Why did the program suddenly turn the screen blue?
  Sunspots, I guess." 2. Also the cause of {bit rot} --- from the myth that sunspots will increase {cosmic rays}, which can flip single bits in memory....
• cosmic rays n. Notionally, the cause of bit rot.
  However, this is a semi-independent usage that may be invoked as a humorous way to handwave away any minor randomness that doesn't seem worth the bother of investigating....
• bit rot n. [common] Also bit decay. Hypothetical disease the existence of which has been deduced from the observation that unused programs or features will often stop working after sufficient time has passed
  even if `nothing has changed'. The theory explains that bits decay as if they were radioactive....
• bit rot: n. Also {bit decay}. Hypothetical disease the existence of which has been deduced from the observation that unused programs or features will often stop working after sufficient time has passed
  even if `nothing has changed'. The theory explains that bits decay as if they were radioactive....
• flag n. [very common] A variable or quantity that can take on one of two value
  a bit, particularly one that is used to indicate one of two outcomes or is used to control which of two things is to be done....
• flag: n. A variable or quantity that can take on one of two value
  a bit, particularly one that is used to indicate one of two outcomes or is used to control which of two things is to be done....
• pam vt.,vi.,n. [from "Monty Python's Flying Circus"] 1.
  To crash a program by overrunning a fixed-size buffer with excessively large input data....
• bit bucket n. [very common] 1. The universal data sink (originally, the mythical receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end of a register during a shift instruction).
  Discarded, lost, or destroyed data is said to have `gone to the bit bucket'....
• ad-hockery /ad-hok'*r-ee/ n. [Purdue] 1. Gratuitous assumptions made inside certain programs, esp.
  expert systems, which lead to the appearance of semi-intelligent behavior but are in fact entirely arbitrary....