Zen Fun

A contest to replace the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with Haiku poetry messages led to the following beauties. (Some tiny editing done.)

(Formal Haiku poetry has strict construction rules; each poem has only 17 syllables; 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second line, 5 in the third line. They are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity.)

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
David J. Liszewski

Errors have occurred.
Look within for where and why.
Lazy programmers.
Charlie Gibbs

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen, mind, both are blank....
Ian Hughes

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Chass Whittington

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Peter Rothman

With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
Howard Korder No keyboard present
Hit F1 to continue
Zen engineering?
Jim Griffith

The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao- until
You bring fresh toner.

Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that. Margaret Segall

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
David Dixon

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

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
David Ansel

(h@0$ reigns W ! T H ! N.

rEFLEcT, repent, & reb00t.
Order SHAll return.

Suzie Wagner

First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
Simon Firth

ZEN HAIKU FOR COMPUTER USERS From Salon