In 1998, Salon Magazine ran a competition challenging readers to submit error messages written as Haiku poems. These are the results.
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
- David Dixon
Everything is gone;
Your life's work has been destroyed.
Squeeze trigger (yes/no)?
- David Carlson
I'm sorry, there's - um -
insufficient - what's-it-called?
The term eludes me ...
- Owen Mathews
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
- Peter Rothman
Seeing my great fault
Through darkening blue windows
I begin again
- Chris Walsh
The code was willing,
It considered your request,
But the chips were weak.
- Barry L. Brumitt
Printer not ready.
Could be a fatal error.
Have a pen handy?
- Pat Davis
A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
- David J. Liszewski
Errors have occurred.
We won't tell you where or why.
Lazy programmers.
- Charlie Gibbs
Server's poor response
Not quick enough for browser.
Timed out, plum blossom.
- Rik Jespersen
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
- Suzie Wagner
Login incorrect.
Only perfect spellers may
enter this system.
- Jason Axley
This site has been moved.
We'd tell you where, but then we'd
have to delete you.
- Charles Matthews
wind catches lily
scatt'ring petals to the wind:
segmentation fault
- Nick Sweeney
ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have.
You ask way too much.
- Mike Hagler
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
The Web site you seek
cannot be located but
endless others exist
- Joy Rothke
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
There is a chasm
of carbon and silicon
the software can't bridge
- Rahul Sonnad
Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that
- Margaret Segall
To have no errors
Would be life without meaning
No struggle, no joy
- Brian M. Porter
You step in the stream,
but the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
- Cass Whittington
No keyboard present
Hit F1 to continue
Zen engineering?
- Jim Griffith
Hal, open the file
Hal, open the damn file, Hal
open the, please Hal
- Jennifer Jo Lane
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
The ten thousand things
How long do any persist?
Netscape, too, has gone.
- Jason Willoughby
Rather than a beep
Or a rude error message,
These words: "File not found."
- Len Dvorkin
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
- Ian Hughes
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