A "Kinder, Gentler System"

[Sonny]

A "Kinder, Gentler System"

Sony has announced its own computer operating system now available on its hot new notebook PC. Instead of producing the cryptic error message characteristic of Microsoft's operating systems, Sony's president said, "We intend to capture the high ground by putting a human, Japanese face on what has been-until now-an operating system that reflects Western cultural hegemony. For example, we have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with our own Japanese haiku poetry." The chairman went on to give examples of Sony's new error messages:

A file that big?

It might be very useful.

But now it is gone.

The Web site you seek

Can not be located but

Countless more exist

Chaos reigns within.

Reflect, repent, and reboot.

Order shall return.

ABORTED effort:

Close all that you have worked on.

You ask way too much.

Yesterday it worked

Today it is not working

Windows is like that.

First snow, then silence.

This thousand-dollar screen dies

so beautifully.

With searching comes loss

and the presence of absence:

"My Novel" not found.

The Tao that is seen

Is not the true Tao, until

You bring fresh toner.

Windows has crashed.

I am the Blue Screen of Death.

No one hears your screams.

Stay the patient course

Of little worth is your ire

The network is down

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.