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Tokyo, Japan - Sony has announced its own computer operating system now available on its hot new portable PC called the Vaio.
Instead of producing the cryptic error messages characteristic of Microsoft's Windows and DOS Systems, Sony's chairman Asai Tawara 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 haiku messages are just as informative as Microsoft's and cause a thoughtful pause sufficient to allow the user to put aside the impulse to put a fist through the monitor screen. The chairman went on to give examples of the error messages:
A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
You seek a Web site.
It cannot be located.
Countless more exist.
Chaos reigns within.
Stop, reflect, 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.
The presence of absence.
"June Sales.doc" not found.
Windows NT crashed.
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.
Page not found.
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky.
But we never will.
Having been erased,
The document you are seeking
Must now be retyped.
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank