From the Wayback Machine [0] it seems they had a normal "open" set-up. They wanted to be indexed, but it's probably a fair concern that OpenAI isn't going to respect their image license. The article describes the robot.txt [sic] now "properly configured", but their solution was to block everything except Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo. That seems to be the smart thing these days, but it's a shame for any new search engines.
The argument about image/content licensing is, I think, distinct from the one about how scrapers should behave. I completely agree that big companies running scrapers should be good citizens — but people hosting content on the web need to do their part, too. Again, without any details on the timing, we have no idea if OpenAI made 100k requests in ten seconds or if they did it over the course of a day.
Publicly publishing information for others to access and then complaining that ~1 rps takes your site down is not sympathetic. I don't know what the actual numbers and rates are because they weren't reported, but the fact that they weren't reported leads me to assume they're just trying to get some publicity.
> Publicly publishing information for others to access and then complaining that ~1 rps takes your site down is not sympathetic. I don't know what the actual numbers and rates are because they weren't reported, but the fact that they weren't reported leads me to assume they're just trying to get some publicity.
They publicly published the site for their customers to browse, with the side benefit that curious people could also use the site in moderation since it wasn't affecting them in any real way. OpenAI isn't their customer, and their use is affecting them in terms of hosting costs and lost revenue from downtime.
The obvious next step is to gate that data behind a login, and now we (the entire world) all have slightly less information at our fingertips because OpenAI did what they do.
The point is that OpenAI, or anyone doing massive scraping ops should know better by now. Sure, the small company that doesn't do web design had a single file misconfigured, but that shouldn't be a 4 or 5 figure mistake. OpenAI knows what bandwidth costs. There should be a mechanism that says, hey, we have asked for many gigabytes or terrabytes of data from a single domain scrape, that is a problem.
Not so amazing, you're essentially earning money by helping people bully others anonymously. Probably some collateral damage (i.e. delivery) as well. Its just mean. OPs product is much better in that it can be seen by the recipient as funny, and edible at the least.
Why would Ninestar sell off Lexmark, is it just that they got a good price? I thought the pantum and printer business was an interesting move, but maybe they just couldn't make it work.
Ninestar was already having problems in the US. In 2023 they got an import ban by the DHS [0] and Lexmark had to find a new supplier for whatever Ninestar was sending them. Lexmark had to sell some assets this year to add a bit of liquidity [1].
I guess this is Ninestar "just" getting rid of Lexmark because it was getting a bit messy for them.
1. To allow the merger, Congress imposed some pretty onerous restrictions on any collaboration between the two companies. There is a Lexmark board of former US generals who are supervising the divison.
2. Nine star is the owner, but a lot of the preferred equity used to fund the deal came from PAG, an asian private equity firm. Their investment accrues at a pretty high interest rate and eats into Ninestar’s returns.
3. The whole thesis was that Ninestar would be able to control the amount of counterfeit ink for Lexmark printers. But with another Trump term, and lack of ability to integrate the two, the thesis is broken.
Yes exactly, my point was that it works the same in English and Dutch. But other comments mentioned how its based on a French paper, where they do place the currency after the amount.
I like it! By being novel, it effectively pitches the product of the website. Others mentioned how its a bit scroll heavy —I also found myself scrolling for the pricing (should be the second question, perhaps)— but all the info is on the page, so you'll get there if you're interested. Some feedback to consider:
- Is the strict refund policy really necessary? Since you screen clients I'd expect you rarely (<1%) deliver a product the client hates. Perhaps a more traditional 'satisfaction guaranteed' would make the sale easier, and highlight your expertise. But I get that it introduces admin work.
- The portfolio is really nice, I'd find a way to break the format a bit to include a carousel of latest work. Could also be higher-up, the third message even.
- On mobile it switches the response bubble to the left?
- Consider centering the logo; adding some padding-top for mobile.
- It's not clear where you are doing business from, in the EU this can be helpful to know for tax reasons.
- Not having a contact-form in the style of a composing a message at the bottom feels like a missed opportunity!
I've noticed the switch on mobile and I cannot figure out why yet (the wonders of CSS), it will come around eventually, I didn't want to hold back just for that, you know how many things never see the light of day due to misplaced perfectionism. Been guilty of it myself "back in the day" and it's part of the growing pains.
In terms of the refunds/revisions, when one does this for 25 years, one starts to see patterns, my best designs were when the customer was not "playing designer" with requests that often don't make sense from the design point of view and let me do my job, that puts me in the mindset of "what would I do if this was MY business" and thus leads to a better design.
Basically, I positioned myself to be able to provide my best, thus remove the concerns around refunds and revisions, unleash one's true potential is in the best interest of my customer.
- The name of the site is not a necessity, the url makes it clear. Weird recommendation if you aim for a "pure reading experience".
- Having a comment section doesn't detract from the reading at all. It's after reading your content, and can then enhance the discussion. Fine if you want to leave it out, but encouraging discussion on Twitter instead isn't
'minimal'.
- Minimal images isn't something to strive for, visuals can greatly enhance your content.
- Short urls look nice, but just `w` as your slug is just confusing. No harm in normal length urls.
- Medium.com is used as an example, that site is 80% popups. Paul Graham's site is also awful to use (especially on mobile). Great content, hidden behind bad websites.
- Why would related posts, or even tags, be bad? Navigation doesn't have to distract, and is a tool for the user.
The author makes some fair points, nobody likes the bloat of the modern web. But you don't have to go "full minimalist" either, your website would be greatly improved if you change the #ffffff background with #000 text. It's the same with motherfuckingwebsite.com vs bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com; small changes can greatly increase the appeal, which will help your content get seen and spread. Like others mentioned, prioritizing a good user experience is probably what you want, not striving for minimalism.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20221206134212/https://www.tripl...