136 lines
8.1 KiB
HTML
136 lines
8.1 KiB
HTML
<html lang="en">
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<title>vore microcomputers development blog - Introducing askLyphe!</title>
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"/>
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="/microsoft.css"/>
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<link rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.ico">
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</head>
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<div class="container">
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<div class="container-item">
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<a href="/"><img src="/assets/logo_typeset.svg" alt="vore microcomputers logo"/></a>
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<h1>Introducing askLyphe!</h1>
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<span>(pronounced "ask leaf")</span>
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<h5>2024-09-05</h5>
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<h4>written by Niko Chow-Stuart (Founder)</h4>
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<img src="/blog/posts/introducing_asklyphe/asklyphe.png" alt="drawing of the askLyphe mascot next to the vore microcomputers mascot."/>
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<p>
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so! here's the project we've been working on for quite some time!
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</p>
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<p>
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as many people are probably well aware of at this point, basically every modern search engine sucks.
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they're always full of either ads or spam, give you a billion of the most basic seo-pandering results, and
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generally don't care as much as they should about their users, as they know that you really don't have much
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choice when it comes to how you search the web.
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</p>
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<p>
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the little hope i had left for just sitting around and living with this mostly vanished with a certain
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other search engine's higher-ups' decision to collaborate with another unnamed company well known for
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being run by homophobes, not to mention their platform being filled with practically useless ai stuff.
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</p>
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<p>
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at the very least, i figured that the world would be better off with an alternative.
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</p>
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<p>
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it was sometime in spring this year when we started working on a new search engine. the most common method
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of making a search engine platform today is by aggregating results from multiple different search engines
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(known as a "meta search engine"), with probably one of the most well known of these being searx.
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</p>
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<p>
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however, with what we were making, i wanted something that would last longer and allow us to expand, even if
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it would potentially take years for it to pay off. which is why our first step with askLyphe, was to build
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a heavily-optimized web crawler and start building our own index of the internet.
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</p>
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<p>
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since it's been long enough for the patents to expire, we referenced a <a href="http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf">certain stanford paper written by
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the creators of that one car company</a>. after some weeks of scraping, using some slightly smaller catalyst
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websites (such as neocities), we managed to reach just over 1 million sites in our database.
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</p>
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<p>
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now while it still may be a huge amount, 1 million is nowhere near the actual true size of the internet. hell,
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that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google">car company</a> mentioned earlier started their search
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engine with around 2 million sites indexed with much lower-end hardware.
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</p>
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<p>
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however, this is only the beginning. we've had our crawlers turned off for a bit while we work on things
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behind the scenes to make sure that everything works perfectly and our databases aren't filled with garbage.
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and as such, with this announcement we plan to bring our crawlers up once again to truly index as much of
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the internet as we can.
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</p>
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<p>
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that being said, even in its early state, we've managed to get askLyphe to the point at which both i and
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my wife can easily daily drive it without losing out on our previous ability to search.
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</p>
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<p>
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that's mainly as, since we plan for this to be very long-term, we've build askLyphe as both a standard and a
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meta search engine. currently, we're integrating results from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bing">xbox's search engine</a>,
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however we may expand or change this in the future.
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</p>
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<p>
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now there's plenty of other things we have already implemented or planned for askLyphe, such as our "complications" system,
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a ton of fun themes (of course a very important feature to have early-on), and of course our own website database
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which we're very much focused on building our search engine around; however, because we're still very early
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in this project, unfortunately in its current state <strong>askLyphe is in an invite-only alpha.</strong>
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</p>
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<p>
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in the near future, we plan to allow anyone who <a href="https://liberapay.com/voremicrocomputers/donate">donates for a short period to our libera-pay page</a>
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access to the alpha; however our main plan for release is to charge around $5USD a month for access.
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</p>
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<p>
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through this subscription model, we hope that we will be able to keep askLyphe ad-free and user-first for its
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entire lifetime. and to ensure that it stays that way, <strong>we have a policy to refuse any investors or VC funding.</strong>
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</p>
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<p>
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while it's already the (albeit somewhat un-serious) subtitle, we truly do want askLyphe to be the best search engine.
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and while i wish we could say that it's a finished and perfect product already, i'm very excited to walk
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the path of developing this into something amazing, no matter how long that might be!
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</p>
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<p>
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we will probably setup a better system for this in the future, but for now, feel free to send over an email
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to <a href="mailto:devnull@voremicrocomputers.com">devnull@voremicrocomputers.com</a> and we'll email you
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updates on askLyphe as they come out!
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</p>
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<p>
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also, feel free to check out <a href="https://asklyphe.com">asklyphe.com</a> to see what we have! at the very
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least, you'll be able to see how many sites we've indexed :D
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</p>
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<p>
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for now, i hope that everyone else is as excited as i am for the future of askLyphe!
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</p>
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<p>
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happy voring!
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</p>
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<script src="https://liberapay.com/voremicrocomputers/widgets/button.js"></script>
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<noscript><a href="https://liberapay.com/voremicrocomputers/donate"><img alt="Donate using Liberapay" src="https://liberapay.com/assets/widgets/donate.svg"></a></noscript>
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<hr/>
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<p id="footer">
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<br>contact us at <a href="mailto:nikocs@voremicrocomputers.com">nikocs@voremicrocomputers.com</a> <a
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href="/pgp.asc">pgp key</a>
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<br>
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for abuse, copyright, or other legal issues, contact <a href="mailto:devnull@voremicrocomputers.com">devnull@voremicrocomputers.com</a><br>
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<!-- or, call at <a href="tel:1-888-519-0437">+1 (888) 519-0437 (toll-free)</a> or <a href="tel:1-507-767-9433">+1 (507) RMS-YIFF (local)</a> -->
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(our phone system is currently down, sorry!)
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<br><br>
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Vore Microcomputers is an unregistered trademark of Real Microsoft, LLC. all references to "the company"
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are in reference to Real Microsoft, LLC and the name Vore Microcomputers is only a reference to the
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hardware/software focused development project held under Real Microsoft, LLC. Real Microsoft, LLC is
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in no way associated with the Microsoft Corporation or its products/projects.
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<a href="https://climate.stripe.com/4MO1d9">Our Carbon Footprint</a>
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<div class="credit">
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<img src="/xenia.png"
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alt="image of xenia, an anthropomorphic fox who was a contender for the linux mascot"/>
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<span>image made by <a href="https://twitter.com/cathodegaytube/">@cathodegaytube</a>!</span>
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