Tiny Bug Hall of Fame
Counters that ran out, clocks that drifted, and units that disagreed. Small causes with no small errors, from Mariner 1 to the year 2038.
3 articles in this arc
Episode 33 min
The Day Gangnam Style Broke YouTube's Math
YouTube's view counter was a 32 bit integer with a ceiling of 2,147,483,647. Nobody imagined a video could get there. Then one did.
Episode 103 min
Y2K: The Disaster That Didn't Happen Because Everyone Worked
Two-digit years posed a real risk. Years of remediation helped keep the rollover quiet, leaving successful prevention easy to overlook.
Episode 164 min
37 Seconds: The Most Expensive Software Failure in Space History
Europe's new heavy rocket flew for 37 seconds before a number too large for a 16 bit variable, in code the rocket did not need, running for a reason that no longer existed, destroyed it. The backup failed identically, because it was identical.
