
This website has a lot of unclosed h3 tags - austenallred
http://www.sewingandembroiderywarehouse.com/embtrb.htm
======
glifchits
This is an example of a page that begins talking about sewing and embroidery,
and eventually becomes about typography.

~~~
aaren
I felt like I was watching a visual in an art gallery commenting on the human
condition. If you Ctrl+- out all the way and linger on some of the choice
phrases you get a better show.

~~~
siddboots

         Improper 
         Timing 
         the 
         bobbin 
         hook 
         won't 
         catch the 
         loop

~~~
aaren

        will bend 
           and 
        eventually 
          break

------
jtchang
That page loaded ridiculously fast.

Maybe flat HTML _is_ the way to go.

~~~
rachellaw
yeah, reminds me of this other website:

[http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/)

should we be hard-coding our styles into html and stop making stylesheets
though? seems like a balance is needed

~~~
peterkelly
That's awesome - what framework did they use?

~~~
vacri
Digitally authentic, minimalist, grayscale... it's hitting all the fad
buttons...

~~~
laumars
And responsive too

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
And flat.

------
hayksaakian
This website handled HN traffic like it was nothing, i'm taking notes

~~~
ronyeh
It's a new technology called "static HTML page"... I hear MS FrontPage can
export this newfangled format.

~~~
gamegoblin
At my uni there were a large number of profs with websites that, if you viewed
the source, showed that they'd been creating in MS Word. This was a CS
department. Slightly depressing.

~~~
roel_v
Yes, because if you design a new alloy for improved performance of an f1
engine cilinder, you need to do your own oil changes too, right?

~~~
dwightgunning
True. However this is more akin to having your dietician change your oil.

------
bananas
I think half the people here haven't seen the ultimate crime:

[http://fabricland.co.uk/](http://fabricland.co.uk/)

The service in the shop is just as bad as the web site as well!

~~~
cmbaus
I think there is a trend in UK web design:
[http://www.lingscars.com/](http://www.lingscars.com/)

~~~
vacri
Ling's Cars is intentionally bad. It's part of her brand. At one stage she had
a site map which was laid out like a concentration camp, with the various
visitors to the site shown in different sections with a stick-figure whose
head was the relevant browser logo.

~~~
Angostura
It's a fantastic site. My favourite is the office Web cam page

[http://www.lingscars.com/webcams.php#models](http://www.lingscars.com/webcams.php#models)

complete with 'press button to annoy staff'

------
lupin_sansei
It actually renders fine without increasing the font sizes in IE 8. The
creator maybe only tested it in IE?

See TIFF export here
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1388427/__www.sewingande...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1388427/__www.sewingandembroiderywarehouse.com_embtrb.rar)

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Sounds like ie default header font size is absolute whilst other browsers go
with relative. Each approach has benefits, but support for highly nested
headers is pretty low on the list :-)

------
eob
This is almost as wonderful as Subway's old website. I think that one had
something like five HTML tags and a few BODY tags sprinkled randomly
throughout.

~~~
alkonaut
I'd like to have a word with the person who decided that "something" should
show up in a browser regardless of how broken the markup is.

~~~
peterkelly
Writing a HTML parser to handle everything that's out there on the web is
almost as hard as writing a C compiler that tries to produce the "most
accurate" executable code based on what it looks like you probably meant.

------
paullew
This might explain it:

<META name="generator" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">

~~~
yeukhon
Yeah, except that the site owner didn't forget to add Facebook page and the
page seems quite active.

[http://www.sewingandembroiderywarehouse.com/index.html](http://www.sewingandembroiderywarehouse.com/index.html)

It was created on August 14, 2013. I am just glad small business like this
continues to run and use technology. We should send an email and tell them to
fix it. I am also glad the site didn't go down after all this traffic...

~~~
anigbrowl
_We should send an email and tell them to fix it._

If you do that I will come to your house and hit your computer with a hammer
until it breaks into tiny tiny pieces.

~~~
yeukhon
I just did.

~~~
anigbrowl
I'll pop over around tea-time, then. Make sure to back everything up first!

~~~
yeukhon
lol i'm ready for ya. Best comment ever.

------
madiator
Hilarious! Initially I was thinking "poor fellow who made this mistake" and
eventually I felt like I got trolled, this almost feels like its not a
mistake! PS: There are 38 <h3>s and 2 </h3>s.

------
andrewliebchen
I thought it was a result of nested <font> tags with font-size defined by em
units. Since the each <font> tag is 1.75 times larger that it's parent.

------
quahaug
Every single troubleshooting tip is of greater urgency than the last!

~~~
einhverfr
Nah, they are just mimicking the frustration of the users when the
troubleshooting is not having the desired effect.

------
einhverfr
There's a subtle brilliance here. The font starts out reasonably small and
increases in parallel with the frustration of the individual doing the
troubleshooting.

------
egwynn
Matt Gemmell described it pretty well:
[https://twitter.com/mattgemmell/status/301735038733676546](https://twitter.com/mattgemmell/status/301735038733676546)

~~~
chilldream
What the...that tweet is over a year old!

------
MattBearman
That's actually beautiful, I'd never considered this as a possible outcome of
nesting tags with em font sizes. By the bottom of the page one letter was
about 3000px high.

------
chris_wot
I haven't laughed this long for ages!

~~~
JacobAldridge
Yes - it had me in stiches.

~~~
anigbrowl
ಠ_ರೃ

~~~
zimpenfish
[snaffled for future use]

------
shangxiao
Oh god the h3manity

------
izolate
In college, one of my professor's syllabus page had this exact problem. It
wasn't so bad at first, but half way through the course you had to scroll so
far down the page that the syllabus was barely legible. So I downloaded the
page, cleaned the markup and sent him the refactored HTML page, much to his
delight.

------
Intermernet
I don't know why, but I liked this... It sort of reminded me of some of Monty
Python's publications.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brand_New_Monty_Python_Bok](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brand_New_Monty_Python_Bok)

------
mcherm
Right at the very top of the page, they explain that. in case of "Thread
Breakage" you should "try re-threading the machine", and also "make sure the
thread goes through all guides".

It appears that their web designer has taken this advice to heart.

------
Orangeair
Dear God, the entire source is on one line. There aren't even spaces between
tags. From looking around the website a bit, this doesn't appear to be a joke,
so I'm seriously wondering how this could happen without anyone noticing.

~~~
roryokane
Since the site was made in FrontPage, I’m guessing that the FrontPage WYSIWYG
view showed the site as looking fine, so the author didn’t bother to visit
every page on the site after mass-uploading the pages.

------
devinmontgomery
This feels like a mashup between "If the moon were only one pixel" and Spritz.

~~~
dreamer305
You.win

------
thomasfoster96
It also uses <center> tags. But I'm not here to judge, obviously.

~~~
buzzkills
so does hacker news ;)

~~~
cmbaus
I just did an 'Inspect Element' on HN. That's some state of the art 1999 web
design there.

~~~
gamegoblin
Yyyyyep HN is formatted almost entirely by tables...

But it does look good!

~~~
iSnow
No, it looks like something from 1999. And it completely sucks on mobile.

Actually, it is a disgrace.

------
vsviridov
If you create a stylesheet through dev console and change h3 font-size it's
funny to see how it gets re-rendered in slow-mo :D

------
ironash
Renders perfectly in IE8.

~~~
brokenparser
Renders perfectly in IE4, too.

~~~
grahamel
Seems like it's IE being a bit loose with the spec (the doctype is html 3.2
after all) or just catering for the likely hood of a rule for one element
being used for another.

For headings, on [http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-
html32#headings](http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32#headings) it says "You always
need the start and end tags" but for block elements underneath it says that:

    
    
        <P>This is the first paragraph.
        <P>This is the second paragraph.
    

is perfectly valid - presumably why it's fine in IE8

------
nanch
Reference since we seem to have broken it:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20130723081436/http://www.sewinga...](http://web.archive.org/web/20130723081436/http://www.sewingandembroiderywarehouse.com/embtrb.htm)

------
rileyjshaw
8000px at the bottom of the page.

------
cauliturtle
> If a problem persists, we recommend that you contact > Sewing and Embroidery
> Warehouse

finally

------
tomrod
It's hauntingly beautiful.

------
cinitriqs
Anyone actually using frontpage... or dreamweaver visual editor... just
saying...

You can say: "gotta start somewhere" but... make that "somewhere" be "notepad"
... please... thank u...

------
pimpl
This is an art.

------
GnarfGnarf
For the ultimate (and entertaining) list of bad Websites, check out:

[http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/](http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/)

A veritable "How not to" of design.

------
spullara
Looks like modern browsers aren't rendering the page correctly.

------
eclipxe
Great viral marketing!

------
cellover
I like how elements are nested for an even more optimal web experience!

[http://imgur.com/1LgIPjl](http://imgur.com/1LgIPjl)

------
hoprocker
I think I felt my pulse quicken as I started to scroll.

edit: Actually, it has a bunch of unclosed h3 _and_ h2 tags.

------
NicoJuicy
This made me realize how h3 and em works... Awesome (didn't expect that from a
site like this :P)

------
softbuilder
We've all had a laugh but I hope whoever found this is helping them correct
the problem.

------
achairapart
What do you expect from a website that starts with SEW SEW SEW SEW SEW SEW?

------
ForFreedom
Thank you for the link... I just got my eye checked for sight and its fine.

------
esdailycom
Looks like a neat linkbait. Unlikely the owner never noticed this..

------
lucasnemeth
Superb, a work of art.

------
ageyfman
even my non-programmer wife found this page to be hilarious

~~~
acchow
Wonderful! Usually when I find something hilarious, I share with my non-
programmer friends who stare at me like I'm some sort of freak; and I am
surprised every time.

~~~
Moru
Yeah I get this too. If you try to explain they go "No don't tell me, too much
info!"

------
angelortega
It's hipnotic. I absolutely love it.

------
hk__2
Unclosed h3 tags _are_ valid HTML.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
This page is possibly the best argument for XHTML I've ever seen.

------
hipsters_unite
Wow, that's almost a work of art.

------
state
It's perfect.

------
rajeemcariazo
makes me understand more how h3 tag works

~~~
manachar
It's better at showing how ems work. As the h3 is set to show at 1.17em each
nested h3 is slightly larger than the last.

------
notastartup
this page would be tough to scrape with an xpath to get to "Dull Needles" text
node.

    
    
        /html/body/center[3]/a[2]/font/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/font/h3/font/font[2]/font/h3/font/font[2]/font/h3/font/font[2]/font/h3/font/font[2]/font/h3/font/font[2]/font/h3/font/font[2]/font/h3/font/font[2]/font/h3/font/font[2]/font/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[2]/h3/font/font[1]/text()

~~~
garethadams

        //text()[contains(.,'Dull needles')]

