“There was a Space,” quoth he.
David J. Scholl
tl;dr:
If you make a mess, clean it up.
Being a poem hacked on the occasion of i3 Detroit's Summer Cleanup/Potlock. (Any resemblance to actual persons, places or events is purely coincidental.)
The Rime of the Ancient Hacker
(In admiration of Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
It is an Ancient Hacker and
He stoppeth one of three.
“By thy long grey beard, and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?”
“The Game Night's door is opened wide,
And I go there to frag,
The players met, the LAN is set:
Don't stop me now to nag!”
He holds him with his skinny hand,
“There was a Space,” quoth he.
“Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!”
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
He holds him with his glittering eye -
The maker l33t stands still
And listens like a three years' child;
The Hacker hath his will.
The maker l33t sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
So bright-eyed and sincere.
* * * * *
“God-save thee, ancient Hacker!
From the fiends that plague thy kind –
Why looks't thou so?” – “I hacked all night --
And left the mess behind!”
“On band saws, I left broken blades.
My scraps? Dropped far and near.
Three soldering irons left on High,
The laser cooler boiled dry,
And not a bench was clear.”
“Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of a tag, a garbage bag
Around my neck was hung.”
“Day after day, day after day,
I sat, nor make nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”
“Clutter, clutter, everywhere,
No tool was in the rack;
Clutter, clutter everywhere,
Nor any room to hack.”
“The garbage cans throughout the space
That had so long o'erflowed?
I dragged one out and tipped it
In the dumpster by the road.”
“The self-same moment I could hack;
And from my neck it slid;
That garbage bag, it disappeared
Beneath the dumpster's lid.”
“Then silence; then the members all,
First one, then two, then more,
Drove up, got out, and greeted me,
And filed in through the door.”
“The dust collector turned and roared.
True measurements were marked.
The serger cut and hemmed a seam.
The wire-welder sparked.”
“Each band saw blade was welded and
Annealed until it glowed.
The Arduinos booted and
Went cycling through their code.”
“The laser cutters three did glow,
Their beams now sharp and strong.
The Whirly Tubulator spun,
And sang a wavering song.”
* * * * *
“Forthwith this frame of mind was wrenched
With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.”
“Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.”
“I pass, like night, from space to space;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that each face I see,
I know the ones that must hear me:
To them my tale I teach.”
What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The Game-Night guests are there.
They see the LAN, the screens, the lights,
The fans that stir the air.
They don't see how the Game-Night hosts
Worked hours to prepare.
“O sweeter than a Game-Night frag,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To clean and to improve the space,
With helpful company.”
“To meet together in the space,
And all together plan,
When each one aids a neighbor's goal,
Curmudgeons, newbs, and all enroll,
Each one the space's fan.”
“Farewell, farewell! But this I tell
To thee, thou maker l33t!
He hacketh well, who cleaneth well,
Till bench and tools are neat.”
“He hacketh best, who cleaneth best,
All things, both great and small,
The bench, the floor, supplies and scraps,
The tool rack on the wall.”
“LFMF! Your makerspace
Will dazzle and enthrall!”
And with his ancient rooted phone,
He tweets the news to all:
“#maker_l33t: he hath been pwned,
And is of sense forlorn.
A sadder and a wiser man,
He'll rise tomorrow morn.”
Andrew Meyer
> tl;dr: If you make a mess, clean it up.
--
Andrew G. Meyer
<agm...@gmail.com>
If there are two or more ways to do something,
and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe,
then someone will do it.
--Edward A. Murphy, Jr., 1949