YouTube is full of videos that could be used for 418 error pages
January 20, 2012 8:02 PM   Subscribe

 
Warning: autoplaying music.
posted by kmz at 8:05 PM on January 20, 2012 [5 favorites]


Unless one doesn't have Flash installed, in which case it's just puzzlingly (nearly-)empty.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:06 PM on January 20, 2012 [7 favorites]


Warning: unbelievably annoying autoplaying music.
posted by planet at 8:06 PM on January 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Warning: contains Romanian.
posted by Nomyte at 8:07 PM on January 20, 2012


It might be, but it's not.
posted by Bonzai at 8:09 PM on January 20, 2012 [11 favorites]


That must be the end of the internet.


Which end, I do not know.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:11 PM on January 20, 2012 [9 favorites]


No, this is the end of the Internet.
posted by grouse at 8:12 PM on January 20, 2012 [3 favorites]


Nice. Now it's stuck in my head.

But I think I prefer Steve Lambert's 404 page.

(Many websites use this one, too, which is a great way to lose an hour just because you made one stupid typo.)
posted by rokusan at 8:12 PM on January 20, 2012 [18 favorites]


That's not Romanian.
posted by jessamyn at 8:12 PM on January 20, 2012 [4 favorites]


In Soviet Russia, web pages lose you!
posted by babbyʼ); Drop table users; -- at 8:13 PM on January 20, 2012 [7 favorites]


I like the neatly stacked bags of cement.
posted by ifandonlyif at 8:13 PM on January 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Oh man, the music keeps going! Track 2 dudes, track 2!
posted by ifandonlyif at 8:14 PM on January 20, 2012


Warning: contains Romanian.

Very Russian.
posted by rokusan at 8:15 PM on January 20, 2012 [5 favorites]


Does it still count as a 404 page if I bookmark it so I can go back to it?
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:15 PM on January 20, 2012 [3 favorites]


Now I can't get it out of my head. And that's a good thing.
posted by charlesminus at 8:18 PM on January 20, 2012


I swear to God I heard something something Uncle Vanya.
posted by angrycat at 8:19 PM on January 20, 2012 [2 favorites]


2012 is all about the 404 page. I'm looking at starting a 404 page consultancy focusing on 404 page SEO and integration into your site pageflow. A/B Studies have shown that for many sites the 404 page is the most popular page. Techcruch has said that by Q1 '13 many of the largest and most influential sites such as twitter and Facebook will have hyperoptimized their pageflow to the extent that 100% of impressions served will be 404 pages. In short, all other pages are now obsolete.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:19 PM on January 20, 2012 [23 favorites]


So far, track 3 is my favorite.
posted by ifandonlyif at 8:20 PM on January 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


This is awesome. (Especially if you have some sort of ClickToPlugin installed in your browser and can prepare yourself for Flash.)

Is it ... a Russian language polka?
posted by brina at 8:31 PM on January 20, 2012


Does it still count as a 404 page if I bookmark it so I can go back to it?

Please don't abuse the Favorites system.
posted by rokusan at 8:37 PM on January 20, 2012


That's not Romanian.

Oh?
posted by Nomyte at 8:40 PM on January 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Catchy song!

Unrelated: we have a bus here numbered 404 and everytime I see it drive by I think the electronic sign up front is experiencing some kind of error.
posted by mazola at 8:40 PM on January 20, 2012 [6 favorites]


I assume I've just been added to the Conficker botnet. Thanks.

Also, everyone knows the most amazing 404 page starts in an open field west of a big white house.
posted by gwint at 8:41 PM on January 20, 2012 [3 favorites]


Is it ... a Russian language polka?

The text on the site is Russian, but the music is in Moldovan.
posted by parudox at 8:41 PM on January 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Hello, New Ringtone.
posted by The Narrator at 8:44 PM on January 20, 2012 [2 favorites]



Put in your earplugs. Put on your eyeshades. You know where to put the ball.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:44 PM on January 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


How similar is Moldovan to Russian? I could swear I hear До свида́ния in there.
posted by Sternmeyer at 8:49 PM on January 20, 2012 [3 favorites]


Moldovan is not at all similar to Russian, it is a dialect of Romanian, which is not Slavic in origin. But given that Russian is a commonly-spoken language there, especially in the urban regions, it's not surprising that expressions in Russian can find their way into Moldovan-language pop.
posted by blindcarboncopy at 8:55 PM on January 20, 2012 [2 favorites]


No, sorry, but THIS is the end of the internet...
posted by sexyrobot at 8:55 PM on January 20, 2012 [3 favorites]


I also love 404.
Does the smaller yellow sign translate as "yes smoking"?
posted by lowest east side at 9:09 PM on January 20, 2012


Did you know that if you move your mouse around, the perspective changes?....

Joel "Spongmonkeys" Veitch has his own 404 Page that's worth seeing at least once.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:28 PM on January 20, 2012


Someone should do a Chekovian 404 page which consists entirely of fancy people whining about wanting to be at another webpage but never actually getting there.
Actually instead of people, it could be dogs wearing monocles.
posted by Dr. Zira at 9:36 PM on January 20, 2012 [5 favorites]


The small sign says "Relaxing zone". The large sign says "Attention: We're looking for work."
posted by parudox at 9:37 PM on January 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


I... I think I'm doing it wrong.
posted by gc at 9:39 PM on January 20, 2012


When is a 404 not a 404? When it's a directory, an index.php, is made entirely in Flash with autoplaying music, and has its own Like button.

Error 418, on the other hand, is hilarious. If I ever write a webserver and get really really bored, I will be sure to implement that one.
posted by the atomic kung fu panda bandit inquisition at 9:44 PM on January 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


I'm not ashamed to say I danced a little.
posted by greenland at 9:50 PM on January 20, 2012 [7 favorites]


OMG WTF LOL :P
posted by infini at 10:19 PM on January 20, 2012


Great, and just like that, I suddenly want to learn a smattering of Moldovan.

Curse you, Internet, you horizon-expanding tease!
posted by darkstar at 10:35 PM on January 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Holy crap, that 404 page poured me a shot of WODKA, gave me a shave and a haircut, shined my shoes, poured me another shot, ironed my shirt and stole my fucking wallet!!
posted by Skygazer at 11:03 PM on January 20, 2012 [3 favorites]


It appears that the page linked above is not, actually, the 404 page of that website.

This is.

It's ok though. Justin is real.
posted by eleyna at 11:13 PM on January 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Dropbox has a clever 404 page.
posted by ropeladder at 11:19 PM on January 20, 2012 [3 favorites]


More about the song initially played ("Gheaghea Vanea") and the group behind it [via last.fm]:

"The Graieste Moldoveneste band [...] melodies are a mix of popular, top-100 international music with changed lyrics played in a strange blend of highly incorrect Romanian and Russian. Their lyrics are a mocking response at the state of the Romanian language spoken in the Republic of Moldova (a language closely related to Romanian, but incorrectly named “limba moldoveneasca” - hence the “Speak Moldavian” moniker), where a large part of Russian and archaic Romanian words make most of the Moldavian vocabulary."
posted by KMB at 11:39 PM on January 20, 2012 [3 favorites]


For an absolute drongo... how would one go about capturing or buying that tune and turning it in to a ringtone? In small, slow words...
posted by taff at 12:04 AM on January 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


So there's more than one tune... and now I've discovered the existence of such as thing as an accordion drop.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:39 AM on January 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Nicolae Guta - Gigolo
posted by SteelyDuran at 3:03 AM on January 21, 2012


Apparently they didn't think about people with 3360*1050 resolutions, because if you got that the dancer in front appears behind the person sitting.
posted by ymgve at 6:48 AM on January 21, 2012


I want this added to my Dance Central song listing.
posted by jmd82 at 7:22 AM on January 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


I... never realized that the stick figure dude could dance.

Or perhaps this is only possible when he detaches his head?
posted by beryllium at 7:36 AM on January 21, 2012


Wasted a lot of my morning listening to a lot of earworms.
posted by francesca too at 8:07 AM on January 21, 2012


I... never realized that the stick figure dude could dance.

Speaking of which, would anyone know where one might get that figure as an animated gif? It doesn't seem to be a discrete item on the page that I could grab. I Google Image searched for various descriptions of Helvetica Man but so far no luck.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:25 AM on January 21, 2012


Sometimes the site is just under construction.
posted by orme at 8:29 AM on January 21, 2012


Back in the day, my dad bought a domain name (inkstain.net, he still has it) which had been used as a porn site for ages, and people had stuff bookmarked and we always had a bunch of international people coming and hitting the 404, so he put a giant "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU" image on it. I think it might've had a Shakespearian insult generator too for a while. This was way back in the early days of the intarwebs (well, maybe not WAY back, but certainly before anyone had broadband), so it was pretty clever at the time.
posted by NoraReed at 8:32 AM on January 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


A complete list of the songs played on the page according to the player controls:

Graieste Moldovenesti - Gheaghea Vanea (from Nomyte)
Florinel - Ma insor la anu-n mai
Christian Green - Live
Sergiu Vetirla & Natalita Ola - of mai Ioane tare vreu banane
Nicolae Guta - Gigoloo (from SteelyDuran)
posted by bluesapphires at 9:03 AM on January 21, 2012 [5 favorites]


Unfortunately, it appears their actual 404 page is much more boring. E.g.: http://kvartirakrasivo.ru/notadirectory/
posted by akgerber at 9:57 AM on January 21, 2012


jmd82, this is why I miss PyDDR, where you could add your own songs. Rhythm/dance games sadly went down a path away from customizeable content sometime in 2004 or so, and the world is poorer for it. Imagine if YouTube Poopers had really gotten their hands on dance trackers.
posted by gusandrews at 10:44 AM on January 21, 2012


The error messages that were used for Entropy8/Entropy8Zuper are *still* my favorite error messages ever.
posted by markkraft at 2:19 PM on January 21, 2012


so dancing baby grew up and became a stick figure! i'll be damned!
posted by kuppajava at 8:48 AM on January 22, 2012


Small cultural insight: this page is actually kind of troubling. The site itself is a job listing service for day laborers in construction, mostly immigrants from places like Moldova, who are heavily stereotyped, treated poorly, and paid substandard rates. The page shows them slacking off from their job and invites you to "throw down your work and dance with the moldovian day laborers". Kind of like inviting you to nap with the mexican laborers in the home depot parking lot.
posted by parkan at 11:04 AM on January 23, 2012 [2 favorites]


Wow, I had no idea. I never would have posted it if I knew that. I did wonder why this Russian site has Moldovan music (of course I didn't know that until the comments here).
posted by grouse at 1:22 PM on January 23, 2012


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