Serene Japanese Haiku computer error messages - not!
"Clearly, we struck a nerve. Not only do you
love to write haiku, but it appears that many have
strong feelings about losing your work, wasting your
time and rebooting." - Salon.com
The eMail arrives, claiming:
"Here are actual error
messages seen on the computer screens in Japan, where
they are written as Haiku, the brilliantly condensed
poetic statement in just 17 syllables. Compare them
with 'Your computer has performed an illegal operation' "
It transpires the email is now urban legend; they
are really from a contest run by Salon.com:
"The world of high-tech has been called soulless
-- a charge that is borne out by on-screen error messages
like "abort/retry/fail?" and "404 --
file not found." Below, a modest attempt at change
-- an error message in the form of a haiku poem:
Readers were invited to submit error messages written
as haiku poems. The haiku is a three-line poem in the
5/7/5 form (first line 5 syllables, second line 7,
third line 5).
The result? A web-email classic, still doing the rounds
seven years later.
To have no errors
Would be life without meaning
No struggle, no joy -- Brian M. Porter
The
Web site you seek cannot be located, but countless
more exist.
Chaos
reigns within. Reflect, repent, and reboot. Order shall
return.
Program
aborting: Close all that you have worked on. You ask far too much.
Windows
NT crashed. I am the Blue Screen of Death. No one hears your screams.
Yesterday
it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that.
Your
file was so big. It might be very useful. But now it is gone.
Stay
the patient course. Of little worth is your ire. The network is
down.
A
crash reduces your expensive computer to a simple stone.
Three
things are certain: death, taxes, and lost data. Guess which has
occurred.
You
step in the stream, but the water has moved on. This page is not
here.
Out
of memory. We wish to hold the whole sky, but we never will.
Having
been erased, the document you're seeking must now be retyped.
Serious
error. All shortcuts have disappeared. Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
Taste the originals at Salon.com Challenge No. 4: Haiku error messages
Haiku is not difficult to find on the Internet.
Google supplies about three million web pages in
return for a simple "Haiku".
A thicket of summer grass
Is all that remains
Of the dreams and ambitions
Of ancient warriors.
Basho
Well, I'm going to lose you here. Follow this link
to a world where nothing exists that is not serene
in seventeen syllables ~ Mark Alan
Austerhaus's Links to Haiku.
|