blivet

blivet
 /bliv'@t/, n.

   [allegedly from a World War II military term meaning "ten pounds of
   manure in a five-pound bag"]

   1. An intractable problem.

   2. A crucial piece of hardware that can't be fixed or replaced if it
   breaks.

   3. A tool that has been hacked over by so many incompetent programmers
   that it has become an unmaintainable tissue of hacks.

   4. An out-of-control but unkillable development effort.

   5. An embarrassing bug that pops up during a customer demo.

   6. In the subjargon of computer security specialists, a
   denial-of-service attack performed by hogging limited resources that
   have no access controls (for example, shared spool space on a
   multi-user system).

   This term has other meanings in other technical cultures; among
   experimental physicists and hardware engineers of various kinds it
   seems to mean any random object of unknown purpose (similar to hackish
   use of {frob}). It has also been used to describe an amusing
   trick-the-eye drawing resembling a three-pronged fork that appears to
   depict a three-dimensional object until one realizes that the parts
   fit together in an impossible way.
    

blivet

   /bliv'*t/ [allegedly from a World War II military term meaning
   "ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag"] 1. An intractable
   problem.

   2. A crucial piece of hardware that can't be fixed or replaced
   if it breaks.

   3. A tool that has been hacked over by so many incompetent
   programmers that it has become an unmaintainable tissue of
   hacks.

   4. An out-of-control but unkillable development effort.

   5. An embarrassing bug that pops up during a customer demo.

   6. In the subjargon of computer security specialists, a
   denial-of-service attack performed by hogging limited
   resources that have no access controls (for example, shared
   spool space on a multi-user system).

   This term has other meanings in other technical cultures;
   among experimental physicists and hardware engineers of
   various kinds it seems to mean any random object of unknown
   purpose (similar to hackish use of {frob}).  It has also been
   used to describe an amusing trick-the-eye drawing resembling a
   three-pronged fork that appears to depict a three-dimensional
   object until one realises that the parts fit together in an
   impossible way.

   [{Jargon File}]