I wrote this “eulogy” for two computers that apparently got fried (as in electrical surge or something) recently in the Maclab. I intended it for fellow tutors, but I was fairly fond of it. It would probably help to know that these computers were named “python” and “ada.”

We are gathered here today to mourn the deaths of Python and Ada. They lived good, long lives as G5s. Tragically, Brian discovered their charred remains yesterday, which was confirmed today.

Ada always dreamed of being a missile guidance system, but as a G5, it was never able to fulfill its dream. It forgot its dream, and instead spent its life running word, with the occasional bit of matlab and powerpoint here and there. As it felt its final death blow surge, it visualized tracking a laser point until meeting a glorious, explosive end, it quietly whispered “I’m going home!”

Python suffered a far more tragic death. Realizing it was at its final moments, it began to question the meaning of it all:

>>> raw_input(”So this is it? Was it good? Why do I have to die? Where
I am going?”)
So this is it? Was it good? Why do I have to die? Where I am
going?Traceback (most recent call last):
File ““, line 1, in ?
EOFError

Unfortunately, its questions were left unanswered:

>>> raise UnboundLocalError, “Oh Noes!!!!”
Traceback (most recent call last):
File ““, line 1, in ?
UnboundLocalError: Oh Noes!!!!
>>> raise SystemExit
$

Unfortunately, no one was there to catch its exception.