Latest posts
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I Built This Blog in 4 Days Using AI — And Now I’m Running a Live Experiment in Public (Follow Along)
This post is pinned and updated continuously. Think of it as a live reality show — except the budget is ¥700 (~$100) and everything is real. Come back anytime for the latest episode. A Declaration Before We Begin My child is in high school right now. Graduation is roughly five years away. I have five…
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I Bought a Domain for $1 — Here’s What I Built With AI + GitHubI Bought a Domain for $1 — Here’s What I Built With AI + GitHub
I bought a domain for about one dollar. That sentence sounds like the beginning of one of those internet stories where, three paragraphs later, the writer tells you how they turned $1 into $10,000. Here are 17 lesser-known ways to use GitHub. https://ordinarymantrying.com/ai-taught-me-17-surprising-ways-to-use-github-for-a-one-person-website-business/ This is not that story. My internet revenue is still: $0. I…
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AI Taught Me 17 Surprising Ways to Use GitHub for a One-Person Website Business
For a long time, I thought GitHub was basically Dropbox for programmers. You write code, you upload it, other developers look at it. That was about it. Then I started building small websites. One of my newest experiments is: ChineseFortuneTools.online It is not meant to be a huge business yet. It is a laboratory. I…
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AI and I Came Up With a New Website Idea. Then I Asked: Are We Selling Combs to Monks?
A cheap server, too many website ideas, and one business idea I’m still not sure anyone actually wants. There is an old Chinese business story about selling combs to monks. Monks traditionally shave their heads, so selling them combs sounds absurd. The story is usually told as a lesson in creative sales: perhaps the monks…
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I Bought HotPot101.com Because I Think Food Might Be One of the Best Ways to Understand China
Wondering why I suddenly started building websites? Check out this article — it’s because Hostinger’s hosting is just too cheap. Of all the websites I have started building, this one might be the most fun. I bought HotPot101.com because I kept thinking about one simple idea: HotPot101.com Hot pot is probably one of the easiest examples. You…
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I Built ChinaRules101 Because Understanding China Is Different From Learning About China
Wondering why I suddenly started building websites? Check out this article — it’s because Hostinger’s hosting is just too cheap. You can read hundreds of articles about China and still make a very simple mistake when you actually interact with Chinese people. You can know what a Chinese New Year red envelope is. You can know what…
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I Built a Website to Help Foreigners Create Chinese Names
Wondering why I suddenly started building websites? Check out this article — it’s because Hostinger’s hosting is just too cheap. At some point while building websites about China, I realized something. There is a big difference between learning about China and having your own identity in China. A person can learn about Chinese culture for…
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I Built a Website to Help People Explore Chinese Fortune, Zodiac and Traditional Culture
Wondering why I suddenly started building websites? Check out this article — it’s because Hostinger’s hosting is just too cheap. One of the first questions I kept asking myself while building websites was simple: What do people outside China actually want to know about Chinese culture? Not what I think they should know. Not what…
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Is ChatGPT Plus Worth $20 a Month for Building Websites? My Real Experiment
September 6, 2026 I have been asking myself a surprisingly simple question lately: Should I pay $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus? And the current Claude? It just doesn’t cut it anymore. For most people, the answer probably depends on how much they use ChatGPT. For me, it is a little different. I am trying…
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I Broke My Own Google Rankings. Here Is Exactly How I Did It (And How I Fixed It)
I accidentally told Google to stop crawling 1,500 pages of my website. It took me three months to notice and one afternoon to fix. Here is what happened, what I found, and what the recovery looks like.
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We Almost Built ChinaEntry101. Then We Bought HotPot101 for $11.
I almost built a visa website. Then I spent $11 on a hot pot domain instead. Every time I finish one website, I can’t help but start thinking about the next one. So far, I’ve built three: ChineseFortuneTools.com — a collection of tools for exploring Chinese traditional culture, including the Chinese zodiac, BaZi, Feng Shui,…
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Five AIs Helped Me Choose a Domain Name. So I Bought It.
I had a problem. I wanted to build another website. Not another personal blog. Not another AI wrapper that generates something nobody needs. I wanted to build a small English website for foreigners who want a Chinese name. The idea was simple enough: You enter your English name and a few preferences. The website gives…
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AI Just Saved Me $8 a Year on My Domain — And Walked Me Through the Entire Transfer
August 31, 2026 I almost paid $19.18 to renew a domain. Then I asked AI a very ordinary question: “Namecheap wants $19.18 to renew my domain, but Cloudflare says it costs around $10.80. Should I transfer it?” A few minutes later, I was transferring my domain. A little while after that, I was staring at…
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How to Build a Website With AI Fast — My 6-Day, 260-Page Experiment
I built a 260-page website in 6 days using AI. Then I asked Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini what to build next. Here is what happened.
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I Showed My Friends My New Website. They Asked One Question: “How Much Will It Make?”
Four days after launching ChineseFortuneTools.com, I showed my friends. They asked how much it would make. I had no answer. Here is why I am building it anyway.
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I Bought Cheap Hosting Before I Had a Business Plan
I bought four years of Hostinger hosting before I had a single idea of what to put on it. What happened next: an AI conversation, a wheelpage rabbit hole, and a TikTok-style Chinese wisdom interface I built in an afternoon.
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I Bought Another Domain. Then I Accidentally Started Building a Second Internet Business.
I wasn’t planning to build another website. Then I bought another hosting plan — not because I had a brilliant business idea, but because it was cheap. That’s how ChineseFortuneTools started.
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6 AIs Tried to Guess My Star Sign Without Asking My Birthday. One Found a Clever Trick. (AI Generated)
I gave 6 AI chatbots one rule: guess my Western zodiac sign without asking my birthday. Their strategies ranged from pure binary math to mystical 2-round magic — and the differences revealed how each AI thinks.
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I Challenged 6 AIs With the Same Math Puzzle — They Couldn’t Agree
I gave 6 AI models the same math puzzle: design a perfect Chinese Zodiac guessing game. Five said 4 questions minimum. Grok said 3. ChatGPT challenged the premise. The disagreement wasn’t about math — it was about what ‘success’ meant to each model.
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How to Give AI Better Evidence: Lessons From a Security Investigation That Almost Failed
AI gave me a confident wrong answer — not because it’s weak, but because I gave it symptoms instead of evidence. Here’s the framework I changed.
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The AI Got It Wrong — Then Got It Right
I blamed 51.la for a redirect attack on my site. The AI agreed. We were wrong. Here’s what actually caused it and how AI helped find the real answer.