>Here are 16 actual error messages seen on the computer screens in Japan.
>
>Some are written in Haiku.
Aren't these better than, "Your computer has performed an illegal operation"?!
>
>--------------------------------------------
>
>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.
>
>--------------------------------------------
>
>The Web site you seek cannot be located,
but countless more exist.
>
>--------------------------------------------
>
>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.
>
>where is MS-DOS?
>
>--------------------------------------------
>
>Screen.
>
>Mind.
>
>Both are blank.
Window's fun
http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/haiku.asp
Origins: The
"haiku error message" list is another example of a concept which began purely as a bit of creative fun, but has since been stripped of the context explaining its origins and is now proffered as a "true" piece of information.
This list has probably spread so widely not just as a humor piece but as a "real" article because the world of computers is still a deep, dark mystery to many (lots of people use PCs regularly but have no idea how the machines work, and they therefore believe just about any computer-related information coming from a seemingly authoritative source), and because the list so neatly plays into the western view of the Japanese as a poetic and fatalistic people.
The haiku list was the work of many creative minds, but they were mostly American minds, and the entries were intended simply to bring about a few chuckles. The clever messages were prompted by a January 1998 contest in Salon, which challenged readers to come up with inventive error messages written as haiku poems:
The world of high-tech has been called soulless â?? a charge that is borne out by on-screen error messages like "abort/retry/fail?" and "404 â?? file not found." Below, a modest attempt at change â?? an error message in the form of a haiku poem:
Something you entered
transcended parameters.
So much is unknown.
Readers are invited to submit up to three 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).
Salon ultimately received over 200 entries, from which they selected two winners and thirty other efforts worthy of honorable mention. The list now circulating is drawn largely from those entries as published by Salon, although different versions drop some of the original items and include entries from other sources.
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Somewhere I saw a website devoted to creative 404 error messages. I'll have to see if I can find it unless someone else gets to it first. It had some very funny messages.
here it is...
http://www.plinko.net/404/
here it is...
http://www.plinko.net/404/