Related:

• wave a dead chicken v. To perform a ritual in the direction of crashed software or hardware that one believes to be futile but is nevertheless necessary so that others are satisfied that an appropriate degree of effort has been expended.
  I'll wave a dead chicken over the source code, but I really think we've run into an OS bug....
• ain dance: n. 1. Any ceremonial action taken to correct a hardware problem, with the expectation that nothing will be accomplished.
  This especially applies to reseating printed circuit boards, reconnecting cables, etc....
• voodoo programming: [from George Bush's "voodoo economics"] n.
  The use by guess or cookbook of an {obscure} or {hairy} system, feature, or algorithm that one does not truly understand....
• wizard: n. 1. A person who knows how a complex piece of software or hardware works (that is, who {grok}s it)
  esp. someone who can find and fix bugs quickly in an emergency....
• dead code: n. Routines that can never be accessed because all calls to them have been removed
  or code that cannot be reached because it is guarded by a control structure that provably must always transfer control somewhere else....
• wizard n. 1. Transitively, a person who knows how a complex piece of software or hardware works (that is, who groks it)
  esp. someone who can find and fix bugs quickly in an emergency....
• dead adj. 1. Non-functional; down; crashed. Especially used of hardware.
  2. At XEROX PARC, software that is working but not undergoing continued development and support....
• ain dance n. 1. Any ceremonial action taken to correct a hardware problem, with the expectation that nothing will be accomplished.
  This especially applies to reseating printed circuit boards, reconnecting cables, etc....
• heavy wizardry: n. Code or designs that trade on a particularly intimate knowledge or experience of a particular operating system or language or complex application interface.
  Distinguished from {deep magic}, which trades more on arcane *theoretical* knowledge....