The Financial Times’ 404 page

https://www.ft.com/3lJQa6w

by ColinWright • 5 years ago

609 90 5 years ago

qnsi• 5 years ago

at least it loads fast

The old bloomberg 404 from some years ago was pretty good: https://web.archive.org/web/20160311202451/http://www.bloomb...

andylynch• 5 years ago

They used to have a bunch- this was always the best one.

mdp2021• 5 years ago

I do not understand what they meant - if they intended to mean anything - with the de-composing puppet. An in-joke?

SapporoChris• 5 years ago

My interpretation is: The artificial construct of a man striking the computer is/was running on the computer that was struck. So the artificial construct inadvertantly destroyed itself. Perhaps implying that violence is not a good solution. An odd bit of humor, but I liked it.

WGH_• 5 years ago

I understand it as a part of "crappy CGI" aesthetic.

aspenmayer• 5 years ago

Ironically, I’m getting an offline message from IA now.

https://twitter.com/aspenmayer/status/1452406960263942156

hoherd• 5 years ago

SGI used to have a random selection of crying baby faces.

codetrotter• 5 years ago

I like that 404 page.

Also, the page you were actually looking for is probably https://on.ft.com/3lJQa6w

Here’s an archive version of that link too https://archive.ph/62boB

ColinWright4• 5 years ago

I appreciate that you might think that, and thank you, but I was only interested in the 404 page.

dylan604• 5 years ago

ML fails again. They need better traning data

oolonthegreat• 5 years ago

now that is only weirder what is the meaning of "3lJQa6w" then ? surely you didn't randomly type that ?

amirmc2• 5 years ago

Interesting. That specific page is blank but others redirect to a more useful 404

https://www.ft.com/thispagedoesnotexist

Thorrez2• 5 years ago

There seems to be a bug that sometimes it responds with an empty page (0 content length) with a 404 code, and sometimes it responds with a full 404 page.

amirmc2• 5 years ago

I see. It seems that I was getting the empty page half an hour ago for just that link. Now it’s taking me to the full page.

sva_2• 5 years ago

It's a good page, but also gets posted quite often here

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

1cvmask• 5 years ago

While it has been posted many times this is the only one with a critical mass of comments.

mhh__• 5 years ago

Is a few times in the last 6 years really that often?

sva_2• 5 years ago

Maybe not. Perhaps I'm just on here too much.

Bluestein• 5 years ago

This is the kind of page tha the early internet thrived on. So quaint. Quirky.

(Now it is all just becoming a big, walled, advertising network ... sigh.)

Thorrez2• 5 years ago

Google's is a little quirky: https://google.com/foo

"Error 404 (Not Found)!!1"

Full disclosure I work at Google.

hvenev• 5 years ago

Other google domains serve different 404 pages on different URLs sometimes, for example:

- https://www.youtube.com/djhjwhfkffs

- https://www.youtube.com/varz

- https://www.youtube.com/abortabortabort

aasasd• 5 years ago

HTTP Error 4O4
404 Unfound
The Web Server cannot give you the answers you need. Please check your life to ensure the path is correct. Did you press the right keys in sequence, and click with a firm but gentle hand? Are you paying attention? This may be a message, but it's not a mistake.
Please contact the server's administrator if chaos persists.
http://www.joseph.ca

ColinWright4• 5 years ago

Edited ...

As the child of this comment points out, I got this wrong. I was multi-tasking, and didn't read carefully enough.

If they delete their comment (which is now no longer relevant) then I'll delete this one and leave things tidy.

(they probably won't notice ...)

ByThyGrace• 5 years ago

You need to pay attention. GP is quoting a different 404 page than the one linked by OP. :)

kristopolous• 5 years ago

These are all good jokes. They've got some real comedic talent somewhere in those offices.

ColinWright4• 5 years ago

It appears to be suffering the HN "Hug of Death".

Here's the version from the wayback machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20211024193418/https://www.ft.co...

mattkevan• 5 years ago

Tragedy of the commons strikes again.

wolverine876• 5 years ago

To pick on a comment probably not meant as serious economics: It is most emphatically not a tragedy of the commons. We don't commonly own FT.com or share in its use. It is privately owned and thus a tragedy for FT's owners, if it significantly impacts their profits. Probably not.

krallja• 5 years ago

The Wayback Machine seems to be suffering, as well:

Temporarily Offline

Internet Archive services are temporarily offline.

Please check our Twitter feed for the latest information.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Waterluvian• 5 years ago

I love it. So much.

Does anyone else get a ~10vh white bar at the bottom when they begin scrolling?

sellyme2• 5 years ago

No. Possibly your ad blocker is trying to get rid of the Nikkei footer and only doing half the job?

sushsjsuauahab2• 5 years ago

"The best outcome was unachievable, so you arrived here instead"

salawat• 5 years ago

Story of a surprising proportion of human existence.

sushsjsuauahab2• 5 years ago

"While you probably do have what it takes to be a doctor, which would have been an optimal outcome for many sick people (and a sub-optimal outcome for protectionist, labor-supply limiting organizations), at some point in life you were not permitted to continue attempting to become a doctor. This could have happened because you failed biochem, failed the MCAT, or ran out of money along the way. And now, by path of least resistence, you are selling medical devices."

pdpi• 5 years ago

The Rolling Stones’ site had the best (and most obvious) 404 page ever — an embedded YouTube video for You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Sadly they’ve since removed it

dixie_land• 5 years ago

Surprised no one has mentioned dogs at Amazon yet

https://www.amazon.com/dp/skdkjdh

_trampeltier2• 5 years ago

Siemens has a pong game on there 404 page.

https://new.siemens.com/de/dhhji

Anther• 5 years ago

I like this one! Rather fun to play also.

_trampeltier2• 5 years ago

Yes, not so easy and the sound, just great :-)

cbm-vic-20• 5 years ago

Somewhere, some ops engineer is being pinged because the alerting system has noticed a huge increase in hits to the error page.

justin_oaks• 5 years ago

I was thinking the same thing, but that engineer should have a really short investigation as to why it's happening.

Access logs often include the HTTP Referer header, which would make it easy to see that all the traffic is coming from Hacker News.

Even so, if I were the one to submit the URL to Hacker News, I'd probably make the URL path something like /showing_404_page_to_Hacker_News so it's impossible for someone reading the access logs to wonder what's going on.

human• 5 years ago

The engineer is already on HN and foresaw it before it happened.

divbzero• 5 years ago

This huge increase in hits is accounted for by the “Behavioral economics” explanation: “The influence of psychological factors caused you to act in a manner that would not be expected of a purely rational actor.”

i2shar• 5 years ago

Demand increased and a shortage occurred.

The engineer then sat back and smiled at how their server continues to serve this page just fine despite the HN demand :)

grn• 5 years ago

I love that kind of attention to detail. It's easy to treat the 404 page as something not needing any thought at all so it's refreshing to see some still care about such seemingly irrelevant details.

plantain• 5 years ago

The level of care and attention to detail isn't limited just to their 404's - I find the FT is the best paper out there for macro issues.

DaftDank• 5 years ago

FT is one of the few papers online that I feel is worth paying for. I agree they are good on macro issues for sure.

pauldelany• 5 years ago

I think I recall Chomsky saying something along the lines that the financial press is the most reliable because it isn't in their economic interest to mislead their audience.

pid-1• 5 years ago

One of the most eye opening experiences I've had related to press was working in a hedge fund and being able to access paid political research reports.

No BS, no childish manipulation, just crude analysis of a bunch of people competing for power.

philosopher1234• 5 years ago

It isn’t? Isn’t it in their interest to mislead their audience such that their audience puts their vast wealth towards causes the FT editors like?

NilsIRL• 5 years ago

I think this is the relevant clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsESsHZNoO4

ChrisMarshallNY• 5 years ago

Love it!

Here's mine (the site is very old -from last century): https://cmarshall.net/Error_404.html

Inspired by Douglas Adams (From HGTTG).

rpmisms• 5 years ago

Socialism If you were to get the page you wanted you might get a better page than someone else, which would be unfair. This way at least everyone gets the same.

I chuckled. FT is going to get angry tweets about their 404 page.

coder-3• 5 years ago

TIL UX designers are behavioural economists

slg• 5 years ago

It is funny that you can see the bias in FT's politics in the descriptions they use.

For example, the trickle-down description genuinely reads as if written by a supporter of that economic theory in that it frames that theory in a positive economic light.

Meanwhile the socialism one is written by someone intending to mock socialism and isn't even accurate to socialism. It is more a descriptor of communism than socialism.

bo1024• 5 years ago

That caught my eye too. The others all looked reasonable (including Marxism) but the socialism one sounds like a caricature of an ignorant facebook post.

chipotle_coyote• 5 years ago

Yeah, that one didn't quite work -- I was trying to think of what a better one would be. I think the proper tone is parodying what someone who believes this might actually say, and they're fairly on the button for the rest of them. Something about the page's utility being made redundant through common ownership? (Economic jokes are hard.)

gorgoiler• 5 years ago

My read of the trickle-down one-liner was that it was taking the piss just as much as any of the others, FWIW.

pyuser583• 5 years ago

I don’t like 404 pages. We shouldn’t be giving an HTTP Status Code to an unsophisticated end-user.

Better to just redirect to the index, and give a welcome message explaining what happened.

cblconfederate• 5 years ago

I wonder if this 404 page is still being considered by search engines for SEO purposes

weird-eye-issue2• 5 years ago

If it returns a 404 status code then search engines will generally effectively ignore it

weird-eye-issue2• 5 years ago

In fact Google even attempts to detect "soft 404s" and will not index those either. That's when it thinks the content wasn't found but the server still returned a 200 response. This can happen in any application but I think they developed it with SPAs in mind

graderjs• 5 years ago

Freakonomics: there is a surprising and commonly undervalued secondary market for 404 pages, and you just realized you purchased a bootleg, which is nevertheless priceless: https://archive.md/MzOrc

myrandomcomment• 5 years ago

The FT is well worth the cost. I read it cover to cover everyday, which is what I am doing now in the dark (PG&E). The weekend edition is always amazing, with great interviews (lunch with the FT). I still miss David Tang’s column (he died) as well as the humor of Mrs. Moneypenny. Janice Robinson wine column is worth the time if you are into wine.

davidjytang2• 5 years ago

First time seeing my name here. This is a strange personal motivation.

thicknavyrain• 5 years ago

Was OP mistakenly implying you had passed away? Or do you just happen to share the same name as the FT author?

thazework• 5 years ago

Only one of these explanations is pluasible.

Ansil849• 5 years ago

Basically a version of the two cows joke - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_have_two_cows

richardatlarge• 5 years ago

Not sure about this one

Quote:

Laissez Faire Capitalism: We know this page is needed, but we can't force anyone to make it.

Shouldn’t it be that there’s no profit in making one

I like it better because it’s true

scaglio2• 5 years ago

I too inserted a themed-joke in my personal website with short stories: https://crooked.ink/notfound

I really do like funny 404 pages, they add something unique to the browsing experience.

jammaloo• 5 years ago

That's a lovely site, the design really gives me e-book vibes.

scaglio2• 5 years ago

Thank you! That was my intention :)

Cthulhu_• 5 years ago

I remember a 404 page with the following (I don't think it was unique to that website):

Once upon a midnight dreary, While I websurfed, weak and weary, Over many a strange and spurious website of hot chicks galore,
While I clicked my fav'rite bookmark, Suddenly there came a warning, And my heart was filled with mourning, Mourning for my dear amour.
'Tis not possible!, I pleaded, But my browser, so conceited, Remained blank, I then repeated, Just a blank and nothing more.
With a scream, I was defeated, For my cookies were deleted, So i begged, no longer seated, "Give me back my free hardcore!"
Then, in answer to my query, Through the net I loved so dearly, Came its answer, dark and dreary: Quoth the server, 404

pepoluan2• 5 years ago

Half expecting "It's dark here. You're about to be eaten by a grue."

xyz11• 5 years ago

love it!XD loads fast also.

jklinger410• 5 years ago

Their fonts are great!

The Financial Times’ 404 page

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