Computer Error Haiku

This was originally a contest on Salon.com at http://www.salon.com/21st/chal/1998/02/10chal2.html. Salon published a followup about how the contest report was hijacked by people who removed the writers' names and sources, at http://www.salon.com/21st/rose/1998/02/24straight.html. --EricJablow

Use the Wayback Machine to find the sources mentioned above:

Challenge: http://web.archive.org/web/20080830051532/http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/chal/1998/01/26chal.html

Haikus I: http://web.archive.org/web/20110822021515/http://www.salon.com/21st/chal/1998/02/10chal2.html

Haikus II: http://web.archive.org/web/20101211195815/http://www.salon.com/21st/chal/1998/02/10chal3.html

Followup: http://web.archive.org/web/20110818224042/http://www.salon.com/21st/rose/1998/02/24straight.html

THE ZEN OF COMPUTERS, THE ART OF ERROR--

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft Error messages with Haiku poetry messages. Haiku poetry has strict construction rules. Each poem has only three lines, 17 syllables: five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third.

Haiku is used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity -- the essence of Zen.

All but one of these are submissions for the Salon contest, but whoever put them here didn't put the author's names. BTW if someone knows the last haiku's author please fill it in.

: Your file was so big.

: It might be very useful.

: But now it is gone.

: -- David J. Liszewski

: The Website you seek

: Cannot be located, but

: Countless more exist.

: -- Joy Rothke

: Chaos reigns within.

: Reflect, repent, and reboot.

: Order shall return.

: -- Suzie Wagner

: ABORTED effort:

: Close all that you have.

: You ask way too much.

: -- Mike Hagler

: Windows NT crashed.

: I am the Blue Screen of Death.

: No one hears your screams.

: -- Peter Rothman

: Yesterday it worked.

: Today it is not working.

: Windows is like that.

: -- Margaret Segall

: First snow, then silence.

: This thousand dollar screen dies

: so beautifully.

: -- Simon Firth

: With searching comes loss

: And the presence of absence:

: "My Novel" not found.

: -- Howard Korder

: The Tao that is seen

: Is not the true Tao, until

: You bring fresh toner.

: -- Bill Torcaso

: Stay the patient course

: Of little worth is your ire

: The network is down

: -- David Ansel

: A crash reduces

: your expensive computer

: to a simple stone.

: -- James Lopez

: Three things are certain:

: Death, taxes and lost data.

: Guess which has occurred.

: -- David Dixon

: You step in the stream,

: But the water has moved on.

: This page is not here.

: -- Cass Whittington

: Out of memory.

: We wish to hold the whole sky,

: But we never will.

: -- Francis Heaney

: Having been erased,

: The document you're seeking

: Must now be retyped.

: -- Judy Birmingham

: Serious error.

: All shortcuts have disappeared.

: Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

: -- Ian Hughes

: I am the master.

: You have nowhere to run to.

: Microsoft can't die.

: -- UnknownAuthor

Some entries I wrote to amuse myself a few years ago...

: Beauty, success, truth ...

: He is blessed who has two.

: Your program has none.

: Some bugs have names

: Others inscrutable numbers

: Yours has not even that.

: Forces in balance:

: Yin and Yang, your program has

: Mistakes up the latter

: Wish to know the sound

: Of one file defragmenting?

: Hear! What? There were more?

: Who is more foolish?

: The fool who errs or debugs?

: Oh, they are both you?

: Riddle for student

: What error is so fatal

: It has no message

: Compiler error.

: Code, like wives, may still work

: Too bad, yours did not.

: Some incompetence

: Fundamentally transcends

: Mere error message.

: Cogito ergo

: sum. But I worry about

: user. Click OK.

-- KenCarpenter

: Only one user

: One application error

: All open are closed

: Voltage is ancient

: A half second power sag

: No time to save you

: MS-DOS upgrade

: Bill Gates was nice about it

: Expand and rename

: All your code pristine

: Works perfect in Mozilla

: IE knows this not

(I can keep this up all day)

-- ClintonLabombard

: There is not enough

: Memory available

: to display this err

: Before there was Tao

: There was the void known as Null

: Don't reference it

: From formless chaos

: Each thread seeks resolution

: a race condition

: A Vista appears

: Slow, annoying, unstable

: Microsoft progress

-- BrianG

: Media too old.

: Pick abort, retry, ignore

: To see the next error.

-- Anonymous

CategoryHaiku