Haiku Anyone??
Everyone probably remembers their brush with the form of prose called Haiku in High School or Collage. It is one of the most important forms of traditional Japanese poetry. Haiku is a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three metrical units of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. An excellent reference for the history and rules for writing Haiku can be found at [http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/]. One of the interesting rules that I had forgotten about is that every Haiku poem requires a single seasonal word called a kigo, which indicate in which season the Haiku is set. For example, cherry blossoms indicate spring, snow indicates winter, and mosquitoes indicate summer, but the season word isn't always that obvious. I noticed that in the Haiku that follows this rule is not always followed, and perhaps is treated as optional in the Western states.
In late February a fun and interesting thread surrounding Haiku was started by the email use Lodgepole. He wrote (with tongue in cheek) that 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 17 syllables; 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second, 5 in the third. They are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity.
Here are some of the best:
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.
Lodgepole reflects: Isn't that better than "your computer has performed an illegal operation?"
It was so much fun that Alyce could not hold her self back from creating some distinctly Liberty Basic and Community oriented Haiku. I know Alyce never meant it to be immortalized, but I thought it was pretty good stuff. I know her opinion differs as she said: "How can I get any real work done if I sit around constructing bad haiku?"
Connecting to 'net Does not work, to my sorrow. No wiki today. A syntax error Strangles my code, much weeping. Refer to helpfile. Sad day. Game to play? David Drake fills the emptiness. Primate Barrel Roll. Need a graph! No math! Enter Tom Nally, smiling, bearing calculus. So many questions. Where does one find the answers? Brad Moore's last issue! Who has patience To help a novice with humor? Here's John Davidson! How do I port from QBasic to Liberty? Visit Gordon's site! Neat Gui design? Look no further. Bradbury's Demos do it all. Liberty BASIC Four in alpha testing soon. Please, Carl, can I help? Frog hopping slowly, Hunger burning in his gut. Cannot find wiki.
Tom Nally contributed:
Is Spring's azure sky Radiant before my eyes? No, Blue Screen of Death.
Jerry adds:
Code, "RUN", midnight sun burns eternally over cycling endless loop
And so ends all the silliness, but not before a Liberty basic Haiku Generator surfaces. Please read all about it in the next article. Thanks for everyone's indulgence. I hope Alyce will some day forgive me. But - hey that was inspired Haiku! - Brad