eli5: What are glitches and how do they happen?
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Assuming we’re talking computing, a “glitch” usually occurs when a certain sequence of information is expected, but a different set of information happens. Whether it be receiving, writing, whatever, some amount of incorrect data happens.
So to speak of a few specific glitches we might see in our daily lives, a graphical glitch can occur when the monitor expects, say, <draw red on the left, green in the middle, and blue on the right at this brightness> but receives <what the hell is a left, draw red in the middle, draw blue on the right, draw green… Somewhere off screen? Uhh… Where am I supposed to put this brightness data?> With all of those draw commands shifted one over you might have anything from a strangely colored image to graphical garbage.
Of course in computers, this would be more seen as <1,1,1,1> to use a decimal 1 to 0 range. if we’re talking about a single pixel, that is full red, full green, full blue,with full brightness or just a white pixel. If you shift those to be <0,1,1,1> the last 8-bit set gets lost and now you’re only drawing green and blue at full brightness. Whether the data just didn’t send or, as suggested in the example, got sent incorrectly, you get a temporary, unexpected effect. A glitch!
Since everything in a computer is binary – that is off or on, 0 or 1 – if a 1 appears where a 0 is expected or a 0 at a 1, that can be all it takes to cause data to misalign and have something funky happen.
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