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]

    This is a blivet

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]