While you might think this is embarrassing, and we are - a little, this happens. Especially on a site where new things are always being tried.
Yes, there could be a separate site for testing things, and there is - for major explosive, it's going to crash type changes, but not for smaller updates and that doesn't get as much action - and to be honest, better to break this site to see how things work and to make sure they'll work for you.
There's a lot invested in making sure that this error is known - from logging into a database, a text file, sending an email, updating an RSS feed and a few other tricks - this is event is not a secret.
Keep browsing, we're sorry for the detour.