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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Jackie Offline OP
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In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with Haiku poetry messages. They're used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity.

Here are 13 actual error messages from Japan......


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 one has occurred.
--------------------------
You step into 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.


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Microsoft error messages

must resist temptation...




formerly known as etaoin...
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must resist temptation...

Why?




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Pooh-Bah
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"Microsoft" is actually an ancient Navajo word for "what follows contains countless undocumented errors". Hence, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visual Basic, Microsoft .NET, Microsoft Money, yadda, yadda.,


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veteran
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I've recently been making a foray into the mysterious world of .NET (converting another programmers vba code to a C DLL).

You know that sign that Virgil and Dante saw as they entered Hell?

"ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE"

k



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Pooh-Bah
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Tell me about it. I've just been transferred to a team which is a specialist .NET development unit. I'm supposed to design the databases and configure the ADO.NET sh*te side of it. I've suggested they buy Websphere ....


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V
journeyman
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Jackie,
Thanks for the Haiku - the computer dude here loved it! And then when I complimented him on some clear and concise instructions that he emailed to me, he wrote his own haiku:

You make me smile twice
On a day that is gloomy
I will not forget


I'd like to give him credit for the poem, but I'll just say "thanks, Jeff!" and not identify him further.




What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -Ursula K. Le Guin, author (1929- )
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This establishes 'Microsoft' an adjective instead of a "brand name"... (eg. Microsoft Money)<eg>

... and I've heard .NET refered to as "Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Error Host"



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