Linux Songs Poems

Nine megs for the secretaries fair,
Seven megs for the hackers scarce,
Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs,
Three megs for system source;

One disk to rule them all,
One disk to bind them,
One disk to hold the files
And in the darkness grind 'em.

Nine-track tapes and seven-track tapes
And tapes without any tracks;
Stretchy tapes and snarley tapes
And tapes mixed up on the racks --
        Take hold of the tape
        And pull off the strip,
        And then you'll be sure
        Your tape drive will skip.
                -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes

No one likes us.
I don't know why.
We may not be perfect,                  We give them money,
But heaven knows we try.                But are they grateful?
But all around,                         No, they're spiteful,
Even our old friends put us down.       And they're hateful.
Let's drop the big one,                 They don't respect us,
And see what happens.                   So let's surprise them
                                        We'll drop the big one,
                                        And pulverize 'em.
Asia's crowded,
Europe's too old,
Africa is far too hot,                  We'll save Australia.
And Canada's too cold.                  Don't wanna hurt no kangaroos.
And South America stole our name        We'll build an All-American amusement
Let's drop the big one,                         park there--
There'll be no one left to blame us.    They got surfin', too!

Boom! goes London,
And Boom! Paree.
More room for you,                      Oh, how peaceful it'll be!
And more room for me,                   We'll set everybody free!
And every city,                         You'll wear a Japanese kimono, babe;
The whole world round,                  There'll be Italian shoes for me!
Will just be another American town.     They all hate us anyhow,
                                        So, let's drop the big one now.
                                        Let's drop the big one now!
                -- Randy Newman, "Drop the Big One"

No pig should go sky diving during monsoon
For this isn't really the norm.
But should a fat swine try to soar like a loon,
So what?  Any pork in a storm.

No pig should go sky diving during monsoon,
It's risky enough when the weather is fine.
But to have a pig soar when the monsoon doth roar
Cast even more perils before swine.

No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff --
He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough.
Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tame
And swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame.
        (refrain)
Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snails
And mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail.
All the student hackers loved that fractal Puff
But DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!"
        (refrain)
Puff used more resources than DCS could spare.
The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care.
A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end,
But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again!
        (refrain)
Refrain:
        Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
        And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
        Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
        And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.

"No program is perfect,"
They said with a shrug.
"The customer's happy--
What's one little bug?"

But he was determined,                  Then change two, then three more,
The others went home.                   As year followed year.
He dug out the flow chart               And strangers would comment,
Deserted, alone.                        "Is that guy still here?"

Night passed into morning.              He died at the console
The room was cluttered                  Of hunger and thirst
With core dumps, source listings.       Next day he was buried
"I'm close," he muttered.               Face down, nine edge first.

Chain smoking, cold coffee,             And his wife through her tears
Logic, deduction.                       Accepted his fate.
"I've got it!" he cried,                Said "He's not really gone,
"Just change one instruction."          He's just working late."
                -- The Perfect Programmer

No rock so hard but that a little wave
May beat admission in a thousand years.
                -- Tennyson

No sooner had Edger Allen Poe
Finished his old Raven,
then he started his Old Crow.

No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government.
Always hopeful, yet discontent,
He knows changes aren't permanent -
But change is.

Nothing that's forced can ever be right,
If it doesn't come naturally, leave it.
That's what she said as she turned out the light,
And we bent our backs as slaves of the night,
Then she lowered her guard and showed me the scars
She got from trying to fight
Saying, oh, you'd better believe it.
[...]
Well nothing that's real is ever for free
And you just have to pay for it sometime.
She said it before, she said it to me,
I suppose she believed there was nothing to see,
But the same old four imaginary walls
She'd built for livin' inside
I said oh, you just can't mean it.
[...]
Well nothing that's forced can ever be right,
If it doesn't come naturally, leave it.
That's what she said as she turned out the light,
And she may have been wrong, and she may have been right,
But I woke with the frost, and noticed she'd lost
The veil that covered her eyes,
I said oh, you can leave it.
                -- Al Stewart, "If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It"