404: Page Not Found

August 2, 2011 1:53 PM

The most exciting and ridiculous 404 page you'll ever see [via]
posted by Blazecock Pileon (51 comments total)

A very expensive one-liner.
posted by The Giant Squid at 1:58 PM on August 2, 2011

Yeah, but I am always *quite* impressed when somebody goes this far for a joke. It almost manages to restore some faith in humanity to my tiny, black, and shriveled heart. Well done, lads!
posted by Because at 2:01 PM on August 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by web developers, to collect a bill.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 2:01 PM on August 2, 2011 [15 favorites]

And I was impressed when Tux waved an Under Construction flag.
posted by spasm at 2:02 PM on August 2, 2011

And I was impressed when Tux waved an Under Construction flag.

The retro version was a Java applet that showed an animated construction worker.

Or, I think it did, as my browser crashed.
posted by Dark Messiah at 2:03 PM on August 2, 2011

What does 212 R(omeo) stand for? It's not on the lists and definitions of HTTP messages I've seen.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:06 PM on August 2, 2011

Awkward.
posted by eyeballkid at 2:08 PM on August 2, 2011 [15 favorites]

4oh4
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 2:10 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best 404 pages ever (well, maybe, if you count flash files of animations poorly synced with songs the best)
posted by filthy light thief at 2:11 PM on August 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

If people wanted to keep posting cool 404 pages like the one in the FPP then I think I'd be just fine with that.
posted by codacorolla at 2:11 PM on August 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

filthy light thief: Never heard of 212, but Wikipedia has a more comprehensive list - including Status 418.
posted by uncle harold at 2:12 PM on August 2, 2011

> A very expensive one-liner.

I'm guessing just a saturday morning with some friends who work in the ad business, and some of their gear. Just three guys plus cameraman and some now 'cheap' fire fight effects and generic sound track (possibly from counter strike?).
posted by mrzarquon at 2:13 PM on August 2, 2011

Without looking at the rest of it I imagined that a site called nosh.me would be about something very different, and I'm kind of sad that I was wrong.
posted by Lucien Dark at 2:14 PM on August 2, 2011

Is this something I'd need an advanced computer to see? Cos all I'm seeing is a page with three logos on it
posted by infini at 2:15 PM on August 2, 2011

I am reminded of Groupon's "smack the intern" on the unsubscribe page.
posted by mkb at 2:16 PM on August 2, 2011

Github has a 3D star wars reference:

https://github.com/adfh

I'm sad that the tumblebeasts are gone.
posted by poe at 2:19 PM on August 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

My favourite thing about it is that in many parts of the UK, "Nosh me" means "I'd like a blow job, please."
posted by rhymer at 2:20 PM on August 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Strongbad won this a long time ago. 404'd!!!
posted by jcruelty at 2:26 PM on August 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

HTTP/1.1 218 Pornographic Content
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 2:30 PM on August 2, 2011

Twitter wins the non-standard HTTP response codes contest: "420 Enhance Your Calm: Returned by the Search and Trends API when you are being rate limited.".
posted by lantius at 2:35 PM on August 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

I think there's a typo in the FPP.
posted by schmod at 2:37 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

...I could have used that during the interminable Livejournal downtime of last week.
posted by Salieri at 2:38 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Man, I'm suddenly having really bad flashbacks about that time that I helped to clean out that nest of insurgent 404s that had been orphaned when a retail site changed around their indexes.

The horror, man, the horror. So much good html died that day. Too young.
posted by quin at 2:40 PM on August 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

Nosh Me

(so the please is already implied? I don't want to be rude here)
posted by mannequito at 2:53 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I love the smell of 404s in the morning. Smells like...victory. Someday this web page is gonna be found...
posted by kirkaracha at 3:03 PM on August 2, 2011

It's alright. I guess I can't get that excited because I'm cynical enough to realize this is a viral way to get the site in front of social networks and agreggators without being costly direct advertising or spam.

With that in mind, it's a pretty cheap ad, no?
posted by panaceanot at 3:05 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the internet. I'm here a week now... waiting for a web page... getting softer. Every minute I stay in this browser, I get weaker, and every minute Al Gore squats in the bush, he gets stronger.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:08 PM on August 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

The best 404 page, on the other hand, is one that grabs your query, figures out the most likely page to direct you to, and if it cannot determine it via mapping or keyword search, does a local site search to present you with information that might be what you're looking for.

why yes i do work for a large internet company why do you ask
posted by davejay at 3:11 PM on August 2, 2011

I'm not sure they're properly attired: Tactical Internet Pants.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 3:19 PM on August 2, 2011

I'm guessing just a saturday morning with some friends who work in the ad business, and some of their gear. Just three guys plus cameraman and some now 'cheap' fire fight effects and generic sound track (possibly from counter strike?).

Wow, this thing is going everywhere. I can't speak very much to the exact production of the spot, but as I'm a good friend of the dead web page guy, let me tell you that this was just a handful of geeks with a prosumer camera and some nice California scenery in the background. Bang up on everything, basically, except the ad business part, at least, none of them work for an agency right now. :D
posted by cavalier at 3:27 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure they're properly attired: Tactical Internet Pants.

I have a pair of those pants. They were recommended in an AskMe I posted for pants for geocaching. I did not, however, make a video of them but I have eaten tacos while wearing them.
posted by tommasz at 3:31 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow, this thing is going everywhere.
posted by cavalier

I thought it was pretty well done for a one-liner. I was impressed by the effort made at being tactilol (one guy dropping on his back to reload, the other guy sweeping the horizon as they approached, the silly radio chatter, etc). The muzzle-flash effect and sound engineering was pretty well done, too.
posted by jpolchlopek at 3:34 PM on August 2, 2011

I searched for a page on the Internet, and, for my sins, I was given one.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:40 PM on August 2, 2011

The best 404 page, on the other hand, is one that grabs your query, figures out the most likely page to direct you to, and if it cannot determine it via mapping or keyword search, does a local site search to present you with information that might be what you're looking for

How do you live with yourself? Do you kill kittens also?
posted by ennui.bz at 3:41 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think this pretty much capped off my night nicely. Also:

Best 404 pages ever (well, maybe, if you count flash files of animations poorly synced with songs the best)

Still my favorite.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:47 PM on August 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

The history of 404

In an office on the fourth floor (room 404), they placed the World Wide Web's central database: any request for a file was routed to that office, where two or three people would manually locate the requested files and transfer them, over the network, to the person who made that request.

Is this true?
posted by unliteral at 4:48 PM on August 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure it's Arma 2, not Counter-Strike. The helicopter sounds cued me in even before they used the callsign "Hitman".
posted by jjwiseman at 5:14 PM on August 2, 2011

Of course not?
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 5:44 PM on August 2, 2011

ok...call in an airstrike.
posted by clavdivs at 5:52 PM on August 2, 2011

Is this true?

Um, no.
posted by mark242 at 6:08 PM on August 2, 2011

Seems incredibly stupid to try and flush a page from its hiding place with absolutely no cover for yourself. I would recommend at least building a blind and laying down some bait.
posted by jfwlucy at 6:35 PM on August 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Um, no.
Yes, I now see this was answered years ago.
posted by unliteral at 6:51 PM on August 2, 2011

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten blah blah blah....
posted by eyeballkid at 11:16 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I like leaving stuff in directories where people shouldn't really be. Stupid little animated gifs, maybe a line of poetry.
posted by maxwelton at 2:15 AM on August 3, 2011

Seriously, availible?
posted by wachhundfisch at 2:25 AM on August 3, 2011

My favourite 404 is this one.
posted by Happy Dave at 6:55 AM on August 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thank you wachhundfisch. That was driving me fucking crazy, but I thought it would be petty of me to comment on it. Then again...
posted by Sophie1 at 6:57 AM on August 3, 2011

That was some good viral marketing, yo. I thought the video/idea was "cute," but without it I might not have ever heard of the app, which was interesting to me.
posted by Kimberly at 7:14 AM on August 3, 2011

The University of Oslo revamped their web pages recently, and inserted some humor into their 404s:

- University Library
- The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
- The Faculty of Medicine
- The Faculty of Educational Sciences
- The Faculty of Humanities
- The Faculty of Theology
- Natural History Museum

Plus some where they've dropped the ball on the English version:

- University main page ("This page has failed")
- The Faculty of Law ("This page has been repealed")
- The Faculty of Dentistry ("You have found a hole (= cavity) in the web site")
posted by Bukvoed at 7:29 AM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I couldn’t stop watching the "awkward" one. Funny guy.
posted by bongo_x at 7:33 AM on August 3, 2011

unliteral: The history of 404

I love real-life internet stories. I'm good friends with the guys who answered the phone when you dialed "1-800-INTERNET." Doug Humphrey, the guy who started DIGEX (the company who invented webhosting, if you ask me) is a bit of a phone geek and had the foresight to grab that number early on. The company was still called "Digital Express Group" when they had that number.

DIGEX in those days was made up of a bunch of University of Maryland students/drop outs who had spent their days hacking in the unix labs and playing on MUDS. Most of them met each other in the SciFi convention scene. So, it was a room full of longhaired leather jacket wearing misfits taking those calls.

"Is this this the internet?"
"Yep, whatcha need?"
posted by frecklefaerie at 7:50 AM on August 3, 2011 [3 favorites]