Imagine a computer like a PDP-11 but with more than 3 billion SP4T switches. The switches are various combinations of 'magic' and 'more magic'

the authors of the code are dead, there are no comments except for old code, and sometimes the comments run anyway

and it's wet

this is biology.

@NanoRaptor And apparently we've been abusing the various systems in so many ways that the same API is used for a dozen independent things. ­— Vi who has at least a few of those misbehaving.
@helle @NanoRaptor That part at least is familiar to programmers whether they know biology or not.