I love the github guys for their attention to detail, the 500 page is also worth seeing: https://github.com/500

I like this one better than the 404.

Monkey Island, perhaps? Or am I wrong?

Looks more like Wile E. Coyote

Ah yes, Road Runner is what I was thinking

Make sure you move your mouse over the image.

Woah. How do you do it? Magic?

Looks like parallax scrolling, like we saw in some old side-scroller games:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_scrolling

Javascript.

Magic. Got it.

Black magic.

Octocat's name is Octobi Wan Catnobi (view source)

The 404 page on Blippy is worth a mention too - http://blippy.com/404

"worth a mention!?"

It gets a golden award! My cousin and I spent a good 5 minutes poking, prodding, chasing, and otherwise abusing that poor unicorn all over the screen!

Awww, it ends!

Wish it were a double rainbow.

Reddit has/had a good 404 ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/2835213914/in/set-7215... though I liked their general error report better ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/98158858/in/set-721576... "sorry broke: looks like we shouldn't have stopped using lisp..."

Actually it's far more common to get the "You broke Reddit" error message. There are a couple more in rotation. I haven't seen the "9/11 changed everything" one in a while, so they may have wisely stopped using that one.

For extra fun, type this in the address bar while on the github 404 page:

    javascript:var theta = 0; setInterval(function () { theta += 0.05; parallax({ pageX : (Math.sin(theta) + 1) * 1000, pageY : (Math.cos(theta) + 1) * 1000}) }, 50)

Their 503 https://github.com/503 collection of random github-approved youtube videos.

  window.onload = function() {
    var videoIds = [
      ...
      'Yu_moia-oVI', // rickroll
      ...

Awesome.

Wow, that takes me back. It's sad to see so many of those videos have been removed in the last three years.

this is the most awesome thing i've seen in 2011 so far

I was liking this page back in 2010, noob.

this is the most awesome reply i've seen in 2011 so far

All those creative error pages make me think that it might be a great "dear team, maybe you fancy hacking some funny or exciting non-related webdesign stuff in your free time. If you create something nice and want to, we can use it as our error page" motivation to have your programmers space out and hack as they like while still contributing to the project.

Or, you hire an illustrator to do a quick gig: http://twitter.com/#!/cameronmcefee/status/20917220263600129

This is so cool! Imagine the future of web based gaming where it detects your head movement (like the mouse). So close to 3D! :-)

So I tried moving my mouse left and right while closing my right and left eyes. Alternate fast enough and it really looks 3D!

I thought it would present some ui allowing you to enter the code for the page. "page not found? This is github, so you write it. :)"

Cute, but damn onmouseover on the iPad.... :(

I don't think GitHub markets to devices that can't run Git[Hub].

I use Git on my iPad all the time, from Cydia/Telesphoreo. Sure, it's unsupported, but it works great. (Link: http://cydia.saurik.com/package/git)

The 3d effect is achieved using JParallax

This made my day.

sorry this page doesn't seem to load for me.

... all i get is a 404 warning. =(

it's a joke. don't forget to tip your waitress.

Am I the first person to go "Woah! That's cool!" then look at the code and instantly go "WTF?!"?

  - Browser sniffing using `document.all` to test for IE

  - Browser sniffing at all!

  - Aborting `trace` rather than just removing it

  - In `init`, repeatedly calling `document.getElementById` with the same `id`
    instead of storing them in variables

  - Calling `document.getElementById` every time `parallax`, the `mousemove` event
    handler, is triggered rather than `init` storing them *once* in variables that
    `parallax` has access to