2 Cool 2 Be 404

While the folks over at Craig's List RnR keep resurrecting the question of what "420" means, we at The Truth Hurts have bigger fish to fry.

Like the raging controversy over Web litter: are dead and obsolete links garbage or artifacts?

The 404 Research Lab doesn't have the answer, but its bias is peeking out from beneath its hem. This site understands 404s. It knows how to deal with 404s. It (ahem) likes 404s.

Best of all for the likes of you and me, it collects cool 404s.

Like the tastefully tree-hugging educational 404 message at oldgrowth.org.

Or the trippy nerd-suave "Operation Failed" message at mook.org.

Or the 404 page for the fake game Zork that encourages you to talk to a machine until you're cussing a blue streak.

The fiendish mistressmind behind 404 Research Labs is Jenni Ripley, believe it or not. Her blog is here. Her photo is here. And her newest fan is here!

(but didn't she miss a golden opportunity to call it 404 United Research Labs, 404URL for short?)

Anyhoo. More 411 on 404s here.

The larger issue, some believe, is that the up-to-the-minute and in-your-face nature of the Internet really hasn't adequately accounted for the inevitable drag of memory and entropy. As with any technology ever invented, it's only a matter of time before the friction created by the engines of the Information Age will itself gum up the works.

Or is that the only way to think of it? Might people begin to collect and honor old Web sites? Already there's evidence of a new specialty: Internet archaeology.

I mean, I definitely see the reason to be fascinated by this early design for Amazon.com. And when GhostSites, a blog devoted to the best of the Web's past, ran an article on the last remaining memorabilia from the pioneer videos-and-more delivery service Kozmo.com, it brought a tear to my eye. Kozmo.com was a mainstay for me and many courageous young career girls in the big city back in the 1990s. There was no better way to ensure 100% that a good-looking man on a bike would show up on my doorstep each Saturday night with my favorite movie in one hand and a pint of Ben-and-Jerry's in the other.

Then there's the Wayback Machine, which offers access to 40 billion archived Web pages and offers a link for your toolbar so you can peer into the past of any site you happen to be visiting.

Dead cool, nah?

[all this and more via Technotes: Teaching Writing in an Online World]

categories: amusement miscellany teaching technology