All in the <head> – Ponderings and code by Drew McLellan –

Oh look ...

Anyone recognise the design of this site? It reminds me of something, but I can’t quite place it. This was discovered courtesy of an interesting looking blog I can’t read. Can anyone translate?

Unrelated, look what comes up when you go to Google and search for find a guy. Google adjusts its results constantly, but at the time of writing, this site is coming up as the number 1 result.

(Can you tell I’ve been searching through my referrer logs?)

– 24 July 2003 –

18 Responses

24 Jul 2003

tarantulz

translation:

Where have I seen this (saved)? I wondered and I wondered… And remembered! I have seen it here (saved)!

nothing special actually, kinda violated copyright notice :)

24 Jul 2003

Drew

Thanks! Sorry to sound ignorant, but which language is it in?

24 Jul 2003

Drew

Wow, I didn’t even realise Latvia had its own language. That’s too cool. (Also shows that I’m an idiot).

24 Jul 2003

skalpelis

Now THAT sounded somewhat ignorant :)

24 Jul 2003

Drew

As I say, I’m an idiot :)

But at least now I’m an idiot who has learned something.

24 Jul 2003

Drew

Cool site to read more about Latvia: http://www.lv/. (Latvia’s beautiful)

24 Jul 2003

zlog

Drew: That guy is asking some very good questions though;

”Where is the matrix?”

-http://www.raksta.lv/index.php?s=eng

;)

25 Jul 2003

Lonnie

I would think you would be flattered to have your great design copied. I know I would. But my designs suck rocks.

25 Jul 2003

Drew

Lonnie – you’re right, it is a form of flattery. However, there’s right ways and wrong ways of going about it.

Case it point: plasticbag.org takes its design routes from kottke.org, but Tom went about it in the right way. He added his own creative ideas and moved the design to something that was his own. He also credits the original, and I’m sure he would have spoken to Jason about it first. The result is two great looking sites, not one design with two different sets of content.

25 Jul 2003

Nathan Pitman

Errr… if you use the ’browse’ drop down on the left it translates for you. ;)

http://www.raksta.lv/index.php?s=eng

25 Jul 2003

Nathan Pitman

Oh, your talkin about the blog you linked to ’HomoLupus’ from, I see. Sorry, yet again I submit a comment before engaging my brain. sorry! :)

25 Jul 2003

skalpelis

Actually, the ”eng” in the dropdown just lists the articles that are in English. As far as I know, the one about the Matrix is the only one.

31 Jul 2003

jason hoffman

But it’s not a similar design that takes its ”routes” or inspiration from you site: it’s the same design.

I think the difference here is that you do this for a living, and have a vested interest in the design of your site.

His only defense would be ignorance and if a guy also does this for a living then that can’t really be a defense either. You can put a notice on your html and css source (like csszengarden’s notice) in order to educate the ignorant but a notice isn’t legally required in any country that adheres to the Berne Convention (including Latvia).

There is also a consequence to mentioning this in a public way and then doing nothing about it, and that is that you have now licensed your design to this individual. I could even take it now and argue that you’re ”giving it away”. This is why there is generally a knee-jerk reaction to put someone on notice when they’ve violating a patent, trademark or copyright.

13 Aug 2003

christina weisbard

Hey! For an entertaining spin when you need to avert your eyes from work, you can always see who else has been ripped off over here.

http://www.pirated-sites.com/

’mazing that people don’t even feign changing the code, no?

13 Aug 2003

christina weisbard

OK. Let’s try that link again.

http://www.pirated-sites.com

22 Oct 2003

HomoLupus

I stand up and proudly say that I’m Sorry.

In fact the design similarities were created because I was just playing with css and found out that allinthehead has really nice design I wanted to be able to replicate and textpattern’s default templates sorta encouraged this. And it wasn’t intented to become the main design – once I finished I liked it and put it live.

I’m sorry for all the incoviences I may have caused (looks like this little experiment have become one of widest discussions about me worldwide ;D).

Whoopsie…

24 Oct 2003

Drew

Thanks, HomoLupus. I see you’ve taken the site down. No hard feelings.

:-)