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)
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