Eric/Odes

Eric's Odes

Eric's Odes

• The ode is an example of the lyric poem.
• A poem expressing the thoughts and feelings of an individual speaker.
• Like lyric poems, the ode was originally designed to be sung to music.
• Odes can take three forms: Pindaric, Horatian, and Irregular.
• The following odes come independently from the mind of Eric Alan Christiansen. Any duplication of pre-existing odes from other sources is unintentional and will be corrected if discovered or reported.
• Eric hopes these odes will stimulate thought and illuminate insights.
• More about Eric available at:
  • https://motleybytes.com/w/User:Eric
  • https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericchristiansen/
• See also Eric's Doggerels.
  

Computer Science

Ode to Binary

Wikimedia

Zero or one, that's it,
Binary is just the right fit;
Two possibilities inside each bit.
A clear and sturdy info blueprint.
 
A binary switch is the simplest switch,
Two ways only, no more and no less,
Perfect for a transistor mesh,
Electronic flesh enriched.
 
George Bool saw algebra differently,
the way computers needed.
Therefore, logic gates computed,
And harnessed data meaningfully.
 
— Eric Alan Christiansen (2025) ⇒⇑

Ode to Poor Programming

Wikimedia

A job is what I think I need,
Something to placate my meagerly greed.
Rent is high and cars cost loads,
I want to see France before it explodes.

I played the game and went to school,
My diploma says I'm not a fool.
But scholarly debts are hella huge.
Sometimes I think, I was a stooge.

Nobody seems to want to hire,
A liberal arts major for the corporate quagmire.
And plumbers make more than English professors,
Though plumbing does seem harder than ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’.

I must change directions to get out of this mess,
and learn a new skill and escape this duress.
Programming seems to offer some hope,
How hard can it be, I'm sure I can cope.

— Eric Alan Christiansen (2025) ⇒⇑

Technology

Ode to the Smart Phone

Wikimedia

When humanity first found its voice,
Countless messages on earth did flow.
But olden paths were far too slow,
Yet people had no other choice.
 
Then modern science enlarged its reign,
And engineers forged new miracles.
Empowered by the digital,
Thus smart phones merged with human brains.
 
— Eric Alan Christiansen (2025) ⇒⇑

Ode to RFCs

Wikimedia

The mighty worldly web
Would quickly have dropped dead,
Without some mighty standards
To organize computer nerds.
 
Requests for comments, called RFCs,
Forged consensus with friendly decrees.
Plain English somehow specified
what needed to be clarified.
 
HTTP, SMTP, FTP, UDP, TCP, and IP
These and more protocols had to be
Defined by and for those software cats
Who coded early internet apps.
 
And so the world and culture changed,
The new invented, the old rearranged,
Because of something most never see,
An ocean of cyber RFCs.
 
— Eric Alan Christiansen (2025) ⇒⇑

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