Verity is the pseudonym of a programmer based in the UK. She can be contacted at [email protected].
The following poems take place between when you start reading them and when you fling the magazine aside in disgust and irritation.
Fragments from a New Finnish Epic
"[Longfellow's] 'Song of Hiawatha' adapted its meter from the Finnish national epic 'Kalevala'"
—http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/long.htm
[From the prologue]
In a city called Helsinki,
Capital of icy Finland,
Where the days are dark in winter,
Where the nights are bright in summer,
Where no mother's son drops litter,
(Finns are very down on litter)
Dwelt a Swedish-speaking youngster
By the name of Linus Torvalds.
"Linus" being Schulz for blanket,
"Torvalds" simply meaning Torvalds.
[Formative years]
Teenage Linus was precocious,
He outgrew his old Vic 20,
Got himself a Sinclair QL,
Crazy, quirky Brit computer.
CPU by Motorola:
Rich in indirect addressing
Great for quick assembler hacking
And it wrote RAM big end forwards:
High byte, mid byte, low byte, bot byte,
That's the way that God intended.
[An early battle]
What of Tanebaum, the warrior?
He, a wise old Dutch professor,
Flamer like a mighty dragon,
Guardian of his precious Minix.
But he made a grievous error,
Biggest boob for 30 seasons
When the man who worked for Decca
Showed the door to Epstein's Beatles.
Tanebaum poured scorn on Linux,
Said he knew about OSes,
Said he knew where things were going.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
[Leaving Finland]
Goodbye Linus, you must leave us
Westward-ho to get a RealJobTM
Managed now by Tove Monni
Champion Finn karate lady.
Does she dance nude round each upgrade
Just as Hiawatha's missus,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water,
Did "debug" the precious maize crop?
This and other pressing questions
Are not answered in this poem,
Poem of untested Booleans,
Poem with and without Fin[n]ish.
GEE OH OH, GEE ELL EEE
I'm a Google majorette
Marching on the Internet
Techies all, come march with me
G-O-O, G-L-E!
SuSEr at your bash prompt: Hey!
Look how man gets in the way.
Stoop to Konqueror and then
Twirl those batons once again.
Microsoftie in your den
Searching through M-S-D-N
Don't wait for your CD-ROM:
Google user's been and gone.
Lesser engines: off you go!
Advert-ridden, poor and slow
Google is the one for me:
G-O-O, G-L-E!
Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy
Ev'rybody hear my cry
Fall in line and chant with me
G-O-O, G-L-E!
German language, Latin, Thai,
Nothing can your skills defy,
PDF stuff, Usenet, pics,
Kick your legs, girls! Flash those knicks!
Google, Google, we love thee
From way beyond each shining sea
Google, Google, I love you
I will never be untrue
Google, Google, Google, Google,
GOOOOOO-TWO-THREE-FOUR-
GUL!
Pompoms at ease, you may rest now.
(Note to any Yahoo exec who has dropped by: Please send no angry e-mails. Angry e-mails never solve anything. Send money.—V.S.)
Strange Occurrence in the Small Hours
When I was a-coding just last Tuesday night,
I hit on a rhythm and worked past midnight.
The code that I wrote was so good and so fine
It compiled straight off as I typed in each line.
But just as I thought, 'Time to lay down my head,'
The lights flickered once and the PC went dead.
I cried out in pain, for my work had gone bang
And a bright Cockney angel manifested and sang:
"Your program 'as gone dahn the bitsream,
Not a byte of it's sived on your disks.
It was too luverly to rahn in this bad world of ours,
Man Upstairs wasn't takin' no risks.
'E's spiri'ed your program away from you,
'E so much admired wot you wrought-
Your program 'as gone dahn the bitsream
'Ow much is tech support?"
Lullaby
In his little cradle
My little palmtop sleeps.
Suddenly he trembles
With plaintive little bleeps.
Hush, little palmtop!
Sleep on another day.
It's just a little deadline
Set by DDJ.
Verity Stob wishes to apologise to H.W. "Laughing Water" Longfellow for inflicting yet more damage on "The Song of Hiawatha," a work that might reasonably be claimed to have suffered enough already.
DDJ
