i gave you the wrong link! or i just haven't made this page yet!

now, i should've said "error 404", right? but have you ever actually stopped to wonder why it's 404 and not some other random number? well i have. and after precisely 30 seconds of googling, i can tell you what the digits stand for:

• first 4: this means the issue is on your end, not the server's. they say it's your fault. but i don't believe in blaming the user! you're probably gonna be on this page either because it's my fault for giving you a bad link, or because you tried to type the URL yourself (obviously in an evil attempt to URL-hack me), in which case i commend your effort.
• the 0 and the 4: this tells you specifically that the page you requested simply doesn't exist. it's not on this site. but it may exist in the future! who knows! (surprisingly, there are error codes that distinguish between pages that may or may not be available in the future)

this 30-second google led me on a multiple-minute tangent reading about HTML error codes, and to my surprise, the 404 error code has babies and, besides that, it also has funny siblings like 418: I'm a teapot, defined as an april fool's joke, and 451: Unavailable for legal reasons, chosen in reference to Fahrenheit 451.

the guys at CERN sure had fun. good on them