Popular Mechanics:
It’s the bane of every web surfer, the internet’s version of fingernails on the chalkboard. Click almost any link that dates back to pre-2005 and brace for the inevitable: “HTTP 404 Not Found.”
Anyone who’s spent time near an internet connection is familiar with the 404 error, a webserver’s way of saying you’ve reached a dead end. What’s less well known is that this very error is what allowed the World Wide Web to exist in the first place.
I didn’t realize the number 404 actually stood for something.
Surely this piece is satire? Yes, it is useful to know a link is broken. But to call it brilliant innovation is a reach for Jesse Dunietz.
This one’s in the Top Five for sure:
https://meh.com/404
At AT&T park in San Francisco, it’s 404 feet from home plate to center field (probably not a coincidence). I don’t know if it’s still there but there is/was a Yahoo sign on the center field wall next to the 404.
It is brilliant in the same way that packet routed networks (the internet) and the TCP protocol were brilliant: letting go of guaranteed availability and 100% accuracy. It seems obvious now, but back then people were mostly focused on trying to get computers to actually work reliably; embracing unreliability is what allowed the systems to scale.