Frankly... visual  Bug

A small disruption in just the right place can completely paralyze a whole system. The effect can be represented visually more effectively than in words, so it’s ideally suited for this column.

It’s unclear how the term “bug” came to mean a system or software malfunction, but it was popularized by the American computer scientist Grace Hopper. According to her logbook whilst working on the large Mark II computer at Harvard University in 1947, her associates once found an actual insect stuck inside the computer. The computer used punchcards, the first form of data carrier, which were initially developed to automate the operation of looms, then for computers. Rows of holes are punched into long strips of paper: certain sequences of holes serve to translate arithmetic operations, for example, into binary code. So it’s easy to imagine a small adventurous creature causing far-reaching problems there. The bug – it was actually a moth – was later pasted into the logbook and is now on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Moth in computer | Illustration: © Susi Bumms The same principle is used in setting up roadblocks, for example, as recently proved by the Aufstand der letzten Generation (“Uprising of the Last Generation), a group of climate activists in Germany. It only takes a few members of the group to stage a sit-in that blocks access roads to urban motorways in Berlin. Their object is to draw attention to food waste, which exacerbates CO2 pollution and, consequently, climate change. Unlike most other forms of protest, a roadblock is disruptive and can bring an entire network to a standstill. It’s an obstructive element at a critical node, a small intervention with far-reaching consequences. So without meaning to sound disrespectful, it becomes a bug for the road system.

Roads blocked | Illustration: © Susi Bumms In the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea, a princess is recognized as being true royalty, unlike a bunch of “fake princesses”, because she’s the only one with the sensitivity to feel a single pea under a whole stack of mattresses that disturbs her sleep. I’ve always visualized the scene as a mountain of mattresses that reinforces the small bump caused by the pea to such an extent that the princess ends up lying almost upside down – how else is she to feel a little pea at the bottom of the stack? Well, I'm not a princess and the whole thing is a fairy tale, but in my imagination it's the same picture: a small intervening element that impacts a whole system.

The Princess and the Pea | Illustration: © Susi Bumms

February 2022