This is the most ridiculous URL I’ve ever seen. And yes, it’s from a government website.
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/!ut/p/c5/lZC9DoJQDIUfqb1w4eKoFwIEEAZ-hMWgQUJAcCAY3l6MgyzG0i5N-vX0tFDAkn05NXU5NkNfdnCCQj9HRpCmfqwyPMQMXRk4zDRNJiOE7D2xJhJrIbyIC9c2ET3x6eOP2CMcneFeQQ6F-KrYwpfLHsvfhWGsYKhB3lV1eZ0h6f-gOhnldFVb0FG6Kuf0szagdK8GHeX0v-pIN7BBVVmjj7a9SbWb_CozRu0yr8rnC5jKQRk!/dl3/d3/L0lJSklna2tra0EhIS9JTmpBQU15QUJFUkNKS28hLzRGR2dzbzBWdnphOTJBZyEvN19QOE1WVkxUMzFHN0xDMElDRUw5T09UMjBPNS9zYS5yZXRyaWV2ZWNvbnRlbnQ!/?PC_7_P8MVVLT31G7LC0ICEL9OOT20O5005915_contentid=2010%2f09%2f0490.xml&PC_7_P8MVVLT31G7LC0ICEL9OOT20O5005915_parentnav=LATEST_RELEASES&PC_7_P8MVVLT31G7LC0ICEL9OOT20O5005915_navid=NEWS_RELEASE
I cut and paste that monstrosity out of my browser. It’s a link to “Release No. 0490.10” which is actually the announcement of something cool: the winners of the Apps for Healthy Kids competition, a $60,000 contest that has been the flagship of the new Challenge.gov platform.
There must be upper limits on the lengths of URLs, right? Some point where either your browser says “Screw this” or the web server starts sobbing uncontrollably?
Apparently there are, and three years ago Alexei White (then at Nitobi) chased them down.
