http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=11130963

                                                                           to my father, sure of his pardon :)


As a middle age hacker I found me lost
where no route to internet in ARP is,
in an orrorific and awful dark web host

It's hard to say how much it was bugged
this damned cloud based outpost
that even now recalling it I'm troubled

So lost and empty of meaning as is /dev/null
but I found in it some Pearls of Wisdom
so I'll tell you my journey in that hull.

I dont know which port I used to get in,
as with big effort I was coding drunk,
when I lost my trustful path to /bin.

I telenetted lower ports, all inspiring fear
but reached the one hundred twenty three
I've been aware of the hour and the year:

the Dawn was rising in my own timezone
enligthening our dear planet and all beings,
born from a mother or in good Earth grown.

With a mind refreshed as after a clean boot,
after a night fearing failing regression tests,
without the dread sensation of not being root,

as the coder, exhausted and doing “pant pant”
who finally see 'OK all tests are passed',
happy to avoid another manager's rant

in the same way I glanced back at that host,
with my spirit still howling for the fear,
that cloud service where every hope is lost.

So I climbed the so called net, but is a tangle,
after a short rest just to play with it nicely,
I adventured myself again in that inter jungle

And all of sudden, coming from the switch uplink
a feral four legged window spreading bugs
of various shapes, but all with the same old stink.

So obtrusive it was, blocking my escape path,
with license agreements, EULAs and costs
that I was temped to return to the host in wrath.

The real-time clock read the early morning
and the Sun was rising with the company
of stars as when, with his first 'use warnings',

the Mighty Divine 01 moved all those syntactic
goodies, blessing the whole serie of drives
with the logic kindness of his holy 'use strict'

so the hope rose in my poor programmer mind,
but I was terrified by the sight of giant octopus
wearing so huge glasses to appear as blind.

The beast approached me, with his orrendous googles,
lasciviously rubbing its tentacles on my secrets
and rummaging in my pockets without scruples.

Also a stinking cloud, a yellow smile of falsehood,
was there, carrying all craving in its leanness,
it provoked despair to many and it is so misunderstood.

That cloud with its unseizable stack of complex layers
made me abandon the hope to be free again in the net:
I'd have been blocked not by one but by three slayers.

As the startup suddenly become famous and rich
who lost its appeal, popularity money and founders
and now seeing the future way darker than the pitch,

in the same way the window, octopus and this ghost
made me feeling lost and all together stalking me
they drove me hopelessly back to the dark web host.

While retreating down, fleeing such crave of dollars
my eyes perceived the silent shape of somebody,
long mustache and even longer his shirt collars

as in sixties and seventies was the rare fashion
“Help me please! Programmer or not” I cried
“drive away these beasts! Show for me compassion!”

“Not only programmer”, he said, “but language creator
from the New World discovered by your Columbus,
they gently say of me: a programming innovator.

I born there, in the angels town, we were under Ike,
I bet you are younger, eighteen years at least,
so you born under the great liar and the alike.

I'm a programmer, early known for patch
then to parse some logfile I planned Pearl,
the name was taken; I did Perl from scratch.

But why do you insists in this dark place?
Why not climb up the switch uplink and router,
to the land of GNU and free software space?”

“Gee..! Cant believe! You must be that Larry,”
I answered him, blushing a bit, “Author of
the genial tool now tasting of strawberry!

“O light and honor of all other geeks,
it serve me now the lovely read of your
volume, which lead me in higher peaks.

You are my master and my author, you,
the only inspiring me with your Perl,
my language, well, the only one I knew..

Do you see that feral beasts I was fleeing:
save me from them and let me escape,
'cause they made me shudder up to peeing”

“If they reach you they'll made you psychopath”
he answered when he saw my tearfulness,
“so I suggest you, listen: follow another path

because these beasts causing your outcry,
no one let pass behind them, they kill you
also if you are so fool to insist, so: dont try.

They never sate their dollars greedy will
and after an aquisition they have more room
for more ones, in an ever growing bank bill

they copulate with every kind of business,
not caring if workers have to piss in bottles,
but a GNU is told will kill them with wiseness.

This antelope will never eat secrets nor cookies
but science, freedom, wisdom with no throttles
and it will be good for hackers and also rookies

and the GNU will restore digital rigths of poor,
avenging many who suffered and died for them,
and this will be accomplished with no more war.

The GNU will chase them up to /dev/null
where they started their malicious path one day
and every town will see of these beasts the skull.

Therefore I'll help you to avoid bad tricks
so follow me and I shall route you, taking
your character through this living Matrix

where you shall see the howling desperation
of living avatars projected here in pain
without be aware they suffered amputation

of their senses, and also you'll see coders
happy to make PHP but with the hope to
be in the number of better tool uploaders.

But if you will ascend more, another companion
more worthy than I am, will guide you because
I need to prepare yet another State of the Onion

and also because the Divine 01 who reigns above
got irritated for my hubris to do better than C
even if He understand I made my Perl with love.

The Divine 01 the whole Matrix rules
from top to bottom and all avatars destiny
holds, of wiser ones but also of fools”

And I replied: “Thanks Larry, if I'm permitted
the confidence: I'll happily accept your guide,
with your tools I feel by far better outfitted

to avoid these beasts and even worst dangers,
that I may see the gateway of the wise Knuth
and those avatars I feel I'll found as strangers.”

So he set out with a happy follower behind him.

L*

There are no rules, there are no thumbs..
Reinvent the wheel, then learn The Wheel; may be one day you reinvent one of THE WHEELS.