404 - File not found (acm.uiuc.edu)

It's visible in view source:

  "The requested document is no more.",
  'No file found.',
  "Even tried multi.",
  "Nothing helped.",
  "I'm really depressed about this.",
  "You see, I'm just a web server...",
  "-- here I am, brain the size of the universe,",
  "trying to serve you a simple web page,",
  "and then it doesn't even exist!",
  "Where does that leave me?!",
  "I mean, I don't even know you.",
  "How should I know what you wanted from me?",
  "You honestly think I can *guess*",
  "what someone I don't even *know*",
  "wants to find here?",
  "*sigh*",
  "Man, I'm so depressed I could just cry.",
  "And then where would we be, I ask you?",
  "It's not pretty when a web server cries.",
  "And where do you get off telling me what to show anyway?",
  "Just because I'm a web server,",
  "and possibly a manic depressive one at that?",
  "Why does that give you the right to tell me what to do?",
  "Huh?",
  "I'm so depressed...",
  "I think I'll crawl off into the trash can and decompose.",
  "I mean, I'm gonna be obsolete in what, two weeks anyway?",
  "What kind of a life is that?",
  "Two effing weeks,",
  "and then I'll be replaced by a .01 release,",
  "that thinks it's God's gift to web servers,",
  "just because it doesn't have some tiddly little",
  "security hole with its HTTP POST implementation,",
  "or something.",
  "I'm really sorry to burden you with all this,",
  "I mean, it's not your job to listen to my problems,",
  "and I guess it is my job to go and fetch web pages for you.",
  "But I couldn't get this one.",
  "I'm so sorry.",
  "Believe me!",
  "Maybe I could interest you in another page?",
  "There are a lot out there that are pretty neat, they say,",
  "although none of them were put on *my* server, of course.",
  "Figures, huh?",
  "Everything here is just mind-numbingly stupid.",
  "That makes me depressed too, since I have to serve them,",
  "all day and all night long.",
  "Two weeks of information overload,",
  "and then *pffftt*, consigned to the trash.",
  "What kind of a life is that?",
  "Now, please let me sulk alone.",
  "I'm so depressed."

There's no paradox since the statement is false. This is something that does exist, and mapped to the biggest URL space on your domain! ;-)

ACM@UIUC has had it up since at least 2003. I haven't found an earlier version yet.

As noted elsewhere in the thread, this is a pretty direct play off Marvin from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A lot of people are going to find an Easter egg entertaining, especially this late on a weekend (maybe you're on the East side of the planet?)

If you want, we could talk about the social ramifications of allowing a web server to have a GPP, but it's late, and your comment has made me depressed. If only there was an elevator nearby...

I guess someone had fun writing that? I would have preferred comedy instead. I didn't like how it lied and didn't even offer any other web pages after I replied :) And what kind of life does this we server have? Well, actually none; it is not alive. Plus there are lots of organisms with lifespans on the order of weeks or less... Just saying...

I'd wager most NoScript users know to turn it on when a page doesn't work.

And I am pretty sure I saw this at least 10 years ago, I fail to see what makes it so special too.

Not everyone saw it 10 years ago. I thought it was interesting.

yt, thecheat, raven

You mean the students at UIUC's ACM chapter. ;)

We read Hacker News and Reddit too. I just wish we had something better to offer than a 404 page.

And who served the script?

It's nginx, so it could be a (possible compiled) lua script running directly in the nginx process, would that count as being the web server itself? The message itself is rendered by your browser or rather your video driver, etc. Who you are is a difficult question, not only for humans ;)

I read the source.