yesterday, as various big companies experienced technical problems with their computer systems, the word was all over the news. adam chandler

major glitches caused delays and suspensions across the airline, financial, and media industries.

a glitch is a fault or failure.

a glitch with a router led to delays for united flights (gettyimages, keith myers)

united was the airline that suffered these problems, and

the culprit was later determined to be a router that “degraded network connectivity”

culprit refers to the guilty party or what was responsible for an incident.

the new york stock exchange on a normal day

in the financial industry

another glitch caused trading in all securities to be suspended on the new york stock exchange.

the new york stock exchange (nyse) is located on wall street in manhattan (new york city).  investors can buy and sell securities there.

NYSE, SEC Suspect Software Update Triggered Trading Halt

triggered means caused.  the sec is the securities exchange commission (u.s.). one of their responsibilities is monitoring the new york stock exchange.

finger on the trigger. pulling the trigger causes the gun to discharge (hellinahandbasket.net)

the media company affected by a glitch is also located on wall street: the wall street journal. their website was down, but as chandler explains

by early afternoon, the site was back up, featuring stories about all the other glitches.

several famous video game glitches are documented on youtube

wreck it ralph’s good buddy vanellope

vanellope, one of the main characters in the movie wreck it ralph, has glitch issues that prevent her from being able to participate in the races on her fictional video game, sugar rush.

in this scene from the matrix, trinity informs neo that his deja vu is probably a glitch

while glitch is often used to refer flaws in technology, it can also be applied to other faults.

listen at 1:55 for this lyric from mobb deep‘s track thug muzik

one little glitch and your plan gettin hit

and this series from the abc network in australia is named after a metaphysical glitch between the worlds of the dead and the living

speculation will probably continue that the coincidence of computer failures yesterday were not actually glitches, but hakcers intentionally doing damage to highly visible targets. what do u think? share your thoughts under leave a reply