BW TechBeat Haiku Contest: Calling for Entries

Posted by: Steve Hamm on January 03

Rather than doing something conventional like post my predictions for 2006 (Sorry, Rob ;-)), I have decided to kick off the new year with a tech haiku contest. The inspiration: This blog collecting haikus about mainframes.
The rules: Write a haiku in some way related to the tech world and send it in as a comment. Assuming people actually write poems and send them in, anybody else can vote for their choice as the best BW TechBeat Haiku by sending in a comment/vote. The prize is blogosphere fame. The winner—again, assuming people actually send in poems—will get her or his picture published on TechBeat along with the appropriate kudos.
For those of you who have forgotten how to write a haiku, here’s a refresher. I’m going with the less-strict “free-form haiku” definition, though, when I vote, I’ll give extra points for more formal poems.
To get things rolling, here’s a haiku. I thought of this while crossing the Avenue of the Americas in a sleetstorm.

Those smart Google guys
Everything they touch
Turns to—Google

Here are some of those mainframe haikus:

Less a lumbering
Dinosaur as is believed
Big iron is speed
-- Haiku by Brian Capps of Portland Community College

New world discovered
Mainframes are a legacy
In old lies future.
-- Ezra Fernandez, SUNY Binghamton U.

The wind blows softly
Through the leaves of autumn. wait,
That's just the mainframe
--Van Landrum, U. of South Alabama

EBCDIC, ASCII
Which of the two is preferred?
Either way, convert
--Frank Migacz, Northern Illinois U.

Thousands of options
Stable like the mountain peak
Can it play Starcraft?
-- Ian Penney, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Mainframe, desire
But not too much, or it will
Surely overheat
--Aaron McMahan, West Virgina University at Parkersburg

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Reader Comments

Heather Green

January 3, 2006 04:15 PM

Ok, ok, here we go.

Blogs, oh, bloggy blogs
ever changing, ever new,
Now video, blog

Eric Sohn

January 3, 2006 04:49 PM

Comment spam on blog
Compares unfavorably
To Blue Screen of Death

B.L. Ochman

January 3, 2006 05:12 PM

want to blog, compulsively
growing your reputation
or get a real job?

Jim Turner

January 3, 2006 06:27 PM

Companies should blog
It's the wave of the future
If not wave goodbye

anon

January 3, 2006 06:29 PM

popular post hits home

my site dies fast and quiet

in monster blogswarm

June Klein

January 3, 2006 06:30 PM

Mainframe architect.

Needs evolution museum.

Global money biz.

Sarah Lacy

January 3, 2006 06:57 PM

Overachiever that I am, I wrote two. Actually three, but I was told by a reliable source that the first one was "hopelessly nerdy."

Open source software/
Getting more mainstream every year/
Sorry Microsoft

Software IPOs?/
Where are they? 2005 only had a few/
And few on tap for 2006 :(

Eric Sohn

January 3, 2006 07:04 PM

PortalPlayer chip
The heart of 5G iPods
Keeps boredom at bay

Alex Bellinger

January 3, 2006 07:05 PM

Stop it RSS
Simple yes, but a thousand
feeds give me nosebleeds.

Eric Sohn

January 3, 2006 07:05 PM

Let's use AJAX for
A haiku generator
Web 2.0 rocks!

ari fay

January 3, 2006 07:43 PM

green technology

frogs master. when they rule the world

they use it wisely

Eric Sohn

January 3, 2006 09:53 PM

Gosh, this is fun...

Wikipedia
Curry rewrites history
"Podfather", indeed!

John R.

January 3, 2006 10:14 PM

Eric Sohn's haiku
about Web 2.0 is
the best so far.

Phil Gomes

January 4, 2006 12:29 AM

Tech haikus? Pshaw! ...

I've been pitching in haiku ...

For quite a long time ...

http://www.philgomes.com/blog/2004/08/tip-for-keeping-your-pitches-brief.htm

David Singer

January 4, 2006 01:20 AM

Haiku about tech?
Syllables: five, seven, five.
Don't quit your day job.

BlogContestSite.com

January 4, 2006 04:27 AM

Web 1.0 - Bursted
Web 2.0 - Bloated
jane

Rob Weisman

January 4, 2006 10:47 AM

A Google PC --
No more climbing through Windows
to compute?

Kit Robinson

January 4, 2006 11:57 AM

Torrent of data
Forest of zeros and ones
I am on my way

Dave Clark

January 4, 2006 12:28 PM

P.C.: Boot daily --
The solid, humble mainframe
keeps running for years.

Klim

January 4, 2006 04:15 PM

Blogosphere fame. Ha. Guaranteed? ;)

Anyhow, I'll contribute (hope the breaks work because they don't show up in the preview):

1)
i'M a sPaM comMenT
AwEsomE blOg, cLicK herE, wIn cAsH
WhY yoU hAte mE sO?

2)
No spam post blocker?
Thanks for helping my S.E.O
Link, Link, Link, and Link.

3)
RSS is great!
Instead of surfing for news,
I get drowned in it.

And to top it off:

4)
I'm tech haiku
for business week contest
I think I will win!

Ari's Grammy

January 5, 2006 09:55 AM

Latest technolo
gee, it's not just for the young.
Grey heads get it too!

Bob Van L

January 5, 2006 03:44 PM

would love to haiku blogs
what is the format again
five six seven blog

steve hamm

January 5, 2006 06:23 PM

Here are some submissions from the folks at Salesforce.com:

From CEO Marc Benioff

There is no software.

Live or Dead. Microsoft decides.

There is only software.

From PR man Bruce Francis:

Bill’s future is Live

Dead code fills today’s coffers

Microsoft’s tough choice

Life at Oracle


Old software must rest

Bingo games, chamomile tea

Larry’s Shady Pines

Life at Oracle


Old software must rest

Bingo games, chamomile tea

Safra cashes checks

Redwood Shores Elegy


Old software winds down

Bingo games, chamomile tea

Oracle’s grand plan

thedurst

January 6, 2006 01:58 PM

(taken from correspondence about three months ago)...

But first, I digress --
I've been reading this ev'ning
ASP.net

I'm going to training
and it helps to be prepared;
edumacated

But this book is [yawn]
Microsoft Press equals bad
Read and grind your teeth

No more interface,
handler class, context and module...
No more acronyms

Justifications.
Inconsistencies built-in
and then defended

As if it's designed!
As if it's the coming of
sliced bread, the sequel

But the best part is
An example given, then
Cited as "don't do"

Yeah. That's instructive.
Or the pipeline diagrammed
in OO form. Swell.

And they wonder why
people resist their bloatware
and monopoly

Rhizomantic

January 9, 2006 06:53 AM

wet interfacing
the idiots playing at life
myspacing lovers

Bill Warriner

January 12, 2006 06:32 PM

An entry for Ye Olde Tech Haiku contest:

No breath of fresh air
comes from the open windows
on my computer.

- Bill Warriner

Aaron Walker

January 20, 2006 08:50 AM

Run your big web app
On some sorry Linux box?
That's ridiculous

Don't know where to turn?
RTFM
The mainframe kicks ass

Once old but now new
Possibilities immense
Learn it, grasshopper

What's your response time?
Eh? What? How many seconds?
Meet your SLA

Don't teach it at school
Experience is required
Sorry. Please try again.

What this means to you
If you aren't hip to the old
You're behind the times

If data matters
Then mainframe is your sole choice
Open your wallet

Mainframe is z9
Used to be called zSeries
Nothing else will do

It is so simple
I don't know if you can hang
Please just step aside

Steve

November 15, 2007 07:49 AM

whats up with that mac
restart and such jibber jab
coolio laptop

Alicia Newsome

November 28, 2007 10:15 AM

computers are here
children are surfing,wait
stop them, right now, danger

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BusinessWeek writers Peter Burrows, Cliff Edwards, Steve Hamm, Rob Hof, Olga Kharif, Steve Wildstrom, Catherine Holahan, and Spencer Ante dig behind the headlines to analyze what’s really happening throughout the world of technology. One of the first mainstream media tech blogs, Tech Beat covers everything from tech bellwethers like Apple, Google, and Intel and emerging new leaders such as Facebook to new technologies, trends, and controversies.

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