Into Every Malformed URL A Little Haiku Must Fall

November 4, 2005 5:47 PM

File Not Found Philosophical Haiku
The Motley Fool site
Offers quiet Haiku, for
others' "File Not Found."
(via)
posted by mmahaffie (16 comments total)

Like seasons turning
Thread fills with many haiku
Thanks to mmahaffie
posted by loquacious at 5:59 PM on November 4, 2005

Does 'mmahaffie' have three syllables? I can't tell.
posted by painquale at 6:03 PM on November 4, 2005

Yes, I was (and am)
Afraid that many Haiku
Will fall like fall leaves.
posted by mmahaffie at 6:04 PM on November 4, 2005

Aside to painquale: Yes. The "mm's" simply lengthen the first.
posted by mmahaffie at 6:05 PM on November 4, 2005

Which sound is louder

A solitary hand clapping

Or a file not found?


Is that 5-8-5?
Or is that legitimate -
8 in the middle?
posted by jikel_morten at 6:08 PM on November 4, 2005

I am worried that
Someone will link to that awful
Thread on rape haiku
posted by psmealey at 6:19 PM on November 4, 2005

Haiku is the most annoying asinine bullcrap ever to cross an ocean.
posted by HTuttle at 6:37 PM on November 4, 2005

I hope HTuttle
Appreciates it's not just
Prose with line breaks--more!

But yeah, count me in the sonnet or villanelle camp. Three phrases just don't cut it.

Anyway, 'easter eggs' like those are always nice to find. The corporate web sorely misses a sense of humour. Although so does corporate anything, I suppose. Poetry almost always works for creative 404s, more at the 404 Research Lab.
posted by Firas at 6:59 PM on November 4, 2005 [1 favorite]

Ironically,
The post's code, in Safari,
Breaks the RSS
posted by aaronetc at 6:59 PM on November 4, 2005

Haiku error messages were the topic of a 1998 competition at Salon.com. It's trivial to whip up a script to insert one at random in a 404 page.
posted by dhartung at 7:03 PM on November 4, 2005

The BeOS web browser, NetPositive, had stupid haiku error messages back in 1999.

These Motley Fool people are certainly not breaking new creative ground here.
posted by cmonkey at 7:27 PM on November 4, 2005

cmonkey:
I looked and I saw
There is nothing new under
Mean ol' Mr. Sun.
posted by kenko at 8:25 PM on November 4, 2005

a file firefly
flits, flowing ones and zeroes
always out of reach
posted by kjh at 9:36 PM on November 4, 2005

Too quickly move your
Fingers across the keyboard
Errors have been made
posted by cali at 11:53 PM on November 4, 2005

Haiku's inventor
Must have had seven fingers
On his middle hand
posted by aws17576 at 11:25 AM on November 5, 2005

Is that 5-8-5?
Or is that legitimate -
8 in the middle?

'Solitary' can be
Pronounced with two syllables
In some dialects
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:22 PM on November 5, 2005