Those dealing with technology on a daily basis know that it tends to be a love hate relationship. While programs and gadgets of all sorts can undoubtedly make our lives easier, they can also become the cause of repetitive headaches, especially when malfunctions are involved.
Be that as it may, some failures result in some rather amusing situations. (If not at that moment, then in hindsight, at least.) If you find that difficult to believe, try stopping yourself from giggling as you scroll through the list of software glitches waiting for you just below this text—they might not be funny when you’re the person having to deal with them, but they are when your software is running smoothly; for that brief period that they are, at least.
Below you will also find Bored Panda’s interview with an expert in computer science and electrical engineering, professor at University of Ottawa, Dr. Timothy C. Lethbridge, who was kind enough to answer a few of our questions.
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When Your Airline's Software Is Being A Misogynist
I Have No Words
Scheduling A Vaccine At Walgreens And All Of The "Yes" Options Say "Forks"
It’s no secret that nowadays we are not only used to, but somewhat dependent on technology, as it has become such an important part of our daily routines. That’s what makes software malfunctioning even more painful—something you once considered your ally has turned against you, likely at the moment when you needed it the most. (I am not sure what law it is, but technology always seems to fail us at the worst possible time.)
While glitches and failures show that there’s still room for improvement—or that it’s time to visit a repair shop—software engineering has been developing in leaps and bounds over the decades (since the 1950s, at least, when the term ‘software’ was coined), and there seems to be no end in sight.
I Overcharged My Phone
Thanks For The Warning?
In a recent interview with Bored Panda, professor of computer science and software engineering at University of Ottawa, Dr. Timothy C. Lethbridge seconded the idea that software engineering has been developing at a very rapid pace over the years.
In his opinion, some of the biggest leaps in software engineering include moments when certain new languages and 'frameworks' have appeared, when computing 'in the cloud' became dominant, when mobile software started to work well, when automated testing started to be widely used, and when software engineers could look up a certain answer on the web when they get stuck. “Now, a tool like ChatGPT can help software developers,” he added.
I Think It'll Be A Bit Cold
Where The Hell Am I Going To?
Your Speed Is What?
how fast would you actually have to be going to generate that much heat? like, hot enough that people standing nearby could feel it and be heated up on a cold day
According to Dr. Lethbridge, even the smallest errors in a software can lead to big problems, many of which tend to be safety critical. But depending on the kind of ‘glitch’ the software is experiencing, the reasons for its presence might differ.
In the expert’s eyes, software glitches could be categorized into 5 groups, the first one being freezes, slowness, and failures caused by bad network connections (either on our own device or somewhere else). The key root causes for such an inconvenience, according to him, can be inadequate or nonexistent network connection, excessive data transfer, bits of data arriving in the wrong order, or a cyberattack (overloading the network).
I Don't Know What My Car Wants
Can’t Wait For Ahsoka To Come Out In 977 Years
Solving America's Tipping Culture Problem
The second type of glitches entail slowness and freezes caused by extreme popularity resulting in overload (for example, a sports app in a major game or opening day of a big sale), which happens because of lack of planning for capacity to process all the requests at peak times.
This Could Take Forever
Man, even at work I'm only expected to hit 110% of my goals. This file has very high expectations
I Guess My Delivery Driver Is Doomed To Failure
I Burned So Many Calories, I Am Air Now
But you didn't get your steps in; Let's work on getting that number up tomorrow!
The third group of glitches include freezes or incomplete results caused by an outage at a 'server' (one of the computers providing the service over the network). It can happen as a result of a crash due to many kinds of bugs, a cyberattack on the server, or a planned maintenance or update, Dr. Lethbridge explained.
My Answers Are All Wrong, Somehow
I Am A Bit Of A Celebrity As You Can See
Apparently the entire galactic community is following this person on social.
I Think I Found Atlantis
Some glitches can also be user experience (UX) defects. “Much software is always too slow due to being built using overly complex components,” Dr. Lethbridge told Bored Panda. “In addition to that, confusing labels, feedback, and instructions leading the user to do the wrong thing, get confused or get stuck.”
Glitches based on UX defects can also be related to excessively complex user interface, making it hard to do the work or leading users to do it wrongly (for instance, too many steps, or steps that are difficult to do without making mistakes).
Then there’s also bad design making it impossible for some users to do something (for example, forcing you to enter a postal code in a country that does not use them) or bad translations when converting software to another country or language, the expert pointed out.
Power Went Out For A Second And Sent The System Spiraling At Work
The Sims Glitches Never Fail To Amuse
Today Is Flat-Earthers' Day
The last group of glitches are software’s wrong answers or outcomes, such as a Maps app sending you round and round in circles, or a product on sale being sold for free or delivered to the wrong address.
This group can also comprise glitches caused by bad data in the system entered by humans or corrupted by earlier glitches, bad algorithms (for example, mixing up imperial vs. metric units, or making excessive rounding errors in computations), the software not considering special cases or large cases or 'edge cases' (for instance, limiting the number of kids in a family to 4), or a cyberattack or hacking designed to get the system to do the wrong thing.
I Don't Know If I'm Right Or Wrong
If You Think You Are Procrastinating
Wow that was a really long day! Most days are only 24 hours but 88hrs is a hella long day.
A New Emotion
If this list made you laugh instead of crying and you would like to browse some more similar content, we have you covered—continue to our previous edition on instances of software giving up on people and delve even deeper into the wondrous world of software engineering. Happy scrolling!
Out Of Smiles
Yes... 24/7
Finally, I Can Watch All My Favorite Films In Unknown Language
As someone from an Unknown Language-speaking background, this makes me so happy!
I Don't Think That's How Time Works
clearly this person discovered time travel and just doesn't want to admit it
The Process Has
So Close
You Know The Drought Has Been Rough When Starbucks Is Like This. Thanks For Nothing Starbucks, Didn’t Realize Water Was A Seasonal Item
This perfectly represents the condition of Bengaluru. The only city facing a water shortage in our state during this heat wave. Even the hottest parts of the state have water, only Bengaluru is facing a water crisis
Being 6 Ft Does Exist
My Nothing Watch Shows Negative Step Count
Robot Vacuum Got Confused And Thought It Had Just Discovered A Lost Realm
Nice Beard
What is the training for? How to be Dali's clock?
I Think There Might Be An Error Preventing This Slide Show From Playing
maybe, just maybe, there's an error preventing this slide show from playing. idk tho, i'm no expert
Windows Moment
What Is A Democrdoes?
What Is It Asking Me To Do?
The Baby Monitor Has A Temperature Sensor. I Think It Is Time To Turn The Air Conditioning On
"Hollow Knight" Game Has Infected Every App On My Computer
Where Is It Going?
One Of These Options Are Not Like The Others
nice that they added an option for all the demonic entities out there so they can have an avatar that really represents them
I Heard The Amber Alert Sound And Grabbed My Phone Only To See This
It Appears That Windows Is... Confused
The Pyramids Were Built By Aliens Apparently
This Is The Only Way I Can Make A Warranty Claim On My Defective Mouse
My Friend Sent Me This Screenshot From A Game He Plays. “Seems Like A Good Deal” He Said
Charging At Twice The Speeds
According To My Phone, A New Ice Age May Have Begun
This Was A Few Months Back. I Don't Know If This Is Software Glitch Or That The Driver's Having A Day-Off
I Was Editing In DaVinci Resolve And My PC Had A Heart Attack
Well, This Bug Is A New One For Me
Mr. Stark I Don’t Feel So Good
I… think I prefer the glitch people got with one of the suits that turned Miles and Peter into white cubes. It looked less painful, for one (and just funnier to have a cube beat up criminals).
Samsung Health Doesn't Seem To Be Feeling Well
It's too busy taking care of everyone else's health to deal with their own... now it's busted.
I Saved A Literal Fortune On Groceries
I Think They Delivered My Package
Ah, Yes, A Perfect Pie Chart
WhatsApp In... Incognito Mode?
That Isn’t Too Long Of A Wait, Right?
Windows Is Happy With Itself
I mean, it is more than 1 window, so definitively living up to its name
I Think The School's Laptop Is Feeling Tired
That's the collage photo. Its mom wanted it to hang in the hallway when he went to university.
Uh... Ok?
I Saw This At A KFC
How Hot?
Oh, So That's Why People Say Facebook Is Always Watching
Label Printer Printed Windows Loading Cursor On Local Supermarket Sushi Label
Why though? I mean wouldn’t a worker or someone else like see the mistake and then try to fix it, because it is kinda obvious
Some Very Expensive Software For A Very Expensive Instrument At My University. I Chose Yes
Windows Really Doesn’t Want To Let Me See My Wallpaper
I Understand Now
Yes My Lord
This PC At My Uni's CS Lab Isn't Feeling So Good
That's what you get when an institution attempts to save money by buying nearly defunct IT equipment... And software.
I Opened The Samsung Files App Today And It Gave Up On Me
Broke A Broken Screen Even More
Wake Up. Grab The Phone. Check The Gallery. This
Displays At My Workplace
Let's finally practise pronouncing this letter. We started with French. Turkish and Albanian will be next.
New WWE Game Character Glitch
My Emojis Are Getting Up Close And Personal
When The Glitch Is Actually Horrifying
you can crawl back to whatever hell dimension you came from, tish. that's what you can do for me
Yep, That's Exactly How I Made My Bitmoji
Do You Guys Think I Have A Flight To Stockholm?
i dunno, kinda sounds like you should double check. that's kind of vague and ambiguous
Airplane's Map
For the first, calling the Romanian students "men of the North" in HP Goblet of Fire makes sense.
There Are Three Elephants Though
You Ok Bro?
So This Happened While Using My Quest 2
He Speaks The Language Of Gods
Try To Guess My Search History From This Picture
Gradually Making My Wallpaper Grey By Selecting Stuff. Every Time I Select Something It Makes New Grey Parts In The Selection Area
I Love Electron Apps
Happened To My Friend's PC Earlier Today. Every Time You Press F11 It Randomizes
I Don't Remember The Cat Looking Like That In The Photo
I Don't Know If This Counts, But iPhone Alarm Stops At 39 Minutes
I was bored and just kept swiping, I thought it was just an endless loop but I hit 0 so I thought about what would happen if I scrolled the other may, and after a minute, it ended at 39. I haven’t tried hours yet I’m curious though I'm going to check.
My Old Laptop Did That After I Left It On Overnight
I Opened An Old File On My Phone And Saw This
How Many Plays?
Was Getting Off Flight Of The Hippogriff And Saw That The Wait Time Was… Raspberry Pi Minutes
In the Wizarding World, I feel like "raspberry" is a legitimate length of time for one to wait Also..."I seem to do fine for a stretch, but at the of the sentence I say the wrong raspberry"
Nice Message I Just Got
Guys, I Think It's Going To Rain Tomorrow, Just A Sneaking Suspicion
My Robot Vacuum Cleaner Got Stuck On A Chair And Ascended Our Mortal Plane
What Do People Also Search For?
I Guess Goodnight Then
Why though, why do we need a WiFi enabled fridge? Washers and dryers I can understand, as you can controll them remotely, but I can't get my milk out of the fridge remotely, so why do I need it on WiFi?
My Brother's Phone Just Updated. This Update Is Looking Great
Windows 11 - You Cannot Delete This Because The File Exists
Spacewar Broke The Space-Time Balance
When Windows XP Can't Decide If It Should Use Polish Or English
Tiny AirPods
Nice Graph
I've Been Trying Out Arch Linux. Gaming Mostly Works. Mostly
Though the attention to detail is actually great, even her foot is on the gas pedal.
One Of Our Gas Pumps Is Glitching Out And It Printed This
These Captions Seem Off
Found This In My School
Friend Tried To Copy And Paste A Text Box
Behold! The Olympic Rings Of Twitter
The Walgreens' Receipt Machine Malfunctioned
Thank you for s̶͎̹͙̎͂͐̈́̋̅̍̂͆̚ḩ̷̯̟͕͎̖̘̜̩̠̫͋ō̵̗͚̲̆͗͐͂͆̊͌͘p̵̲̙̈́̊̈́́̄̅̅p̷̩͈͌̇̌i̸̡̨̡͚̣̭̜̯̹͛n̴̡̜̹̲͙͎̖͊̿̒͊́́̐̅̕͝g̶̙͙̃͌̈́̂̀͝͝ ̵̧̙̄̀̈́̍͐͐͆͑̕ą̴̡̧̨̺͇̖͎̰̘̱͆͆̑̋̚ţ̸͍̰̦̟̎́̃ W̷̛͚̲̟͍͎͓̻̗̣̿̇̍͗͆̈̿̆͗͒̉̽͜å̸̛̪̟͈̦̫͖͌͐̂͊̏͗̈̕͝l̸̗͙͓͔͈͍̻͗͛͂̈́͒̊́̆ļ̵̛͍͍͙͇̠̜̫̲̫̩͙͍̖̈́͛̀̉̊̍͌͑̌͂̌͜͜͝g̷̣̖̤̺̳̰͑́͋̈́͒̍̉͌͒̎̐͒r̵͚̼͓̖͋͐̅̿̔̐̓̈́͆̓̀̂͆̂͘͝͝͠ͅe̵̘̞̹͙͓̜̿͗̈́̾̋̊̈́̀̐̓̄͋̕͝ë̸̙̗̦̱͉͖͉̯̻̼̏̍͒ǹ̶̢̰̜̦͚̼͖͖͙͙͇̤̤͇̦̱͇͓̔̈̿̃͝'̴͖̱̫̜̺̼̘̝̔̊̂̈́́s̴̡̖̹̲͚̞̩̣̬̣̑̈́́̋̇̎̇̏̈́̅̿̋̎͛͛͛̕ͅ
Best Album Cover Ever
My App Switcher Randomly Does This (Android 13)
I'm Stuck Here For The Foreseeable Future
I Think Their Website Is Losing Its Budget
The One Drive Army Has Taken Over My Computer. Yes, I Took The Picture With My Phone Because My PC Was Frozen
My Discogs App Has Decided To Start Having Fun Replacing Text With Emoji. Instead Of "Carl", It Has Become A Car Emoji
Didn’t Know Welcome To The Internet Was In Japanese
Graphics Driver Installed Incorrectly
This Is Just Cursed
Nice Surround View, Volvo
Cloning Slow Hard Drives Be Like
This Is Definitely The Year Of The Linux Desktop
Link To Windows, It Will Be Easy
Windows 10 Calculator
Do You Wish To Continue?
Umm... I Don't Remember Ubuntu Looking Like This
Setup Will Continue After Restarting Your
Help. I Don't Know How I Got To This Point. I've Tried My Password In Both Boxes, One Box, And Tried The Username-Password Combo In Each. No Luck
My Xfinity Search Keyboard Doesn’t Have The Letter S
Mac Goes Brrr
Where Did My PC Go?
It’s Not Just Wrong, It’s The Exact Opposite Of What I Asked And Now I’m Scared
H-How Do I Even Begin?
Poll Question
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My first step with any software incident is an emergency power down, just in case.
My first step with any software incident is an emergency power down, just in case.