Errors.
The infamous Pentium error was due to bad data in a look up table. Whether this is firmware, hardware, or software kind of depends on you point of view. I will submit that it wasn't software since it was hard-coded on the chip.
My reason for bringing this up is that hardware issues are just another type of error we can see in a computer. We do not tolerate these, but we accept software that ships with several thousand bugs, some of them crippling. I see this as a double standard.
We need to apply the same criteria to software issues that we do for hardware. The reason is that as computers become more integral in our lives, it is more and more likely that these digital helpers will take some part in a life or death decision of ours. I am far from flawless, but my tools make me more than I am.
