SO Home

Passing Parade Contents


Hoaxes
R50RD Robot
Text Humor
Haiku Messages
Steven Wright
Computer Beer
Endearing Images
Quaint Places
Peopel of Time
Who said that?



Google
Web
SheepOverboard



text size - links to article

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.

 


  

Google
SheepOverboard
Web



Don'tPassGas.org website opens in new window
 
  
  

SheepOverboard Home
Latest NewsBlue PlanetDextre's SpaceDextre's BlogBrud's MoviesBrud's LiteratureWar Washington WashupPassing ParadeDark SideScience & Tech Site Map Other Places
... and those Sheep