Software bugs can be frustrating, costly, and even dangerous. But some of them turn out to be hilarious! Here is a list of some of the most interesting software bugs:
The Google Burger Emoji Scandal
The burger emoji debate has started back in October 2017 by a tweet from Thomas Baakdel, who pointed out the placement of the cheese on Apple’s emoji versus Google’s. The tweet went viral, and people passionately started debating proper burger layering. The discussion was so intense that Google’s CEO promised to drop everything to fix it, proving that even emojis need proper QA testing!
The Amazon 1-Cent Bug
A software error on Amazon.com caused the price of approximately 75 million items to be listed for a price of 1 penny on Friday, Dec. 12, 2014, between 7 and 8 pm, and affected online stores that use the Northern Ireland-based pricing service RepricerExpress to automatically adjust their prices. Small businesses suffered huge losses as customers grabbed TVs, furniture, and electronics for pennies before the error was corrected.
A seller who runs the Just Catering Supplies market, told Business Insider that hundreds of items from his inventory were purchased and already on route. Judith Blackford, owner of the kids’ clothing company Kiddymania, claimed she lost £20,000 overnight and asked for support on Twitter.
Although Amazon cancelled many of the orders, Amazon trader Dawn Calvert argues that some were processed and, three days on, are being sent regardless of their incorrect prices. She says this should not be the case.
The Flight That Takes Off In 2018 And Lands In 2017
In 2018, a New Year’s Eve flight from New Zealand to Hawaii landed before it had technically taken off due to time zone differences. Hawaiian Airlines flight HA446, from Auckland to Honolulu, was scheduled to take off at 11.55 pm on New Year’s Eve, and land at 9.45 am on the same day, due to the 23-hour time difference between the destinations. A software glitch incorrectly displayed the departure and arrival times, making it look like the passengers had time-traveled into the past.
NASA Lost a Spacecraft Due to a Metric Math Mistake
In September of 1999, after almost 10 months of travel to Mars, the Mars Climate Orbiter burned and broke into pieces. One team used metric units (Newtons), while another used imperial units (pounds of force). This led to the spacecraft burning up in the Martian atmosphere instead of entering orbit. A NASA review board found that the problem was in the software controlling the orbiter’s thrusters. The software calculated the force that the thrusters needed to exert in pounds of force. A second piece of code that read this data assumed it was in the metric unit—“newtons per square meter”. This $125 million mistake is a prime example of why proper unit conversions matter in software development!
When a Bank Sent $222 Trillion by Mistake
A German bank employee fell asleep on his keyboard and accidentally transformed a minor transfer into a €222,222,222,222.22 (about $222 trillion) to a customer’s account. The mistake happened because the employee, who was supposed to process a small transaction, accidentally held down the ‘2’ key too long before approving the transfer. The mistake was quickly corrected by the bank. But a colleague of the employee who verified the incorrect order was fired by the bank afterward.
More interesting software glitches
And here you can see couple of more interesting pictures of software glitches: demilked.com/funny-software-fails/
As we saw from all the examples from above, the software bugs can be costly, dangerous, but sometimes also funny. These incidents highlight the importance of thorough testing, proper validation, and paying attention to the little details—even when it’s just an emoji cheeseburger.
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