Or the email server that couldn't send emails more than 500 miles:

https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html

First time hearing this story, and also just discovered `units` which I really love :)

Funny, I didn't understand what you were referring to and quickly forgot about your comment. I then read the 500-mile story, got to the end and thought "units? oh cool, new command... wait, wasn't there a comment about `units`?"

I know OP is a reddit comment, but come on, HN is turning into reddit.

(As per https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I've been allowed to say that for some time)

(FWIW, deleted_soon's comment may be a small nudge at the fact that OP's link is to a comment reply on the 500-mile-email story.)

That's how I understood it, and it's a sign of reddit culture creeping into HN

Just the kind of bug which seems ridiculous as a bug report, but turns out to be true.

Like the "OpenOffice.org won’t print on Tuesdays" bug, or the bug which crashed the computer when the general visited. Or the one when the server went down whenever a certain guy had a support ticket.

Do you have a link for the one with the general visiting? Sadly a google search just gave stories of military officers in plan crashes.

Unfortunately I can't seem to find it anymore.

It was in a military facility in the seventies, and always when the general visited the computers crashed. This happened too often to be a demonstration effect, it turned out to be the metal in the generals shoes interfering with the electronics.

Can it be found in this list? http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/lore/