12.07.2022

do tables even work?

column	works?
row one	maybe
row two	i don't know. am i being detained?
three rows	fewer data

i've got to find a way to liberate parsedown from the clutches of composer. for awhile there i thought i had grokked the php ecosystem, but now i'm thinking about making the becausethe.net backend portable - and realizing it is going to be a bit more complex than stripping everything down to a drop-in solution.

damnit php

12.06.22

i truly believe the interstate system is partially to blame for our violent society. i know that sounds crazy, but let me ask you: when you're driving on the interstate - boom right there, did you just feel that tinge of anger before i finished the question? merely thinking about the interstate is a generally miserable topic. why? because it's miserable. why is it miserable? other people.

besides the folks we live and work with, alot of us don't spend alot of time around strangers. in fact, the most strangers we tend to see every day would be... on our drives to home or work. they're always in our way or slowing us down or straight up almost getting us killed. we watch them drive like such assholes that entire conversations get started, asking if it is even biologically possible to survive with such little self awareness as [the asshole who just cut you off and immediately decelerated to 65].

i think we oughta revisit the societal rules we used to (mostly) adhere to. like, when i see someone flash their lights now, it could mean anything - are you passing? warning me about a speedtrap? or wait did your 3000watt LED spotlights just blink for a split second?

but i dont think that conversation is gonna be started on this uh, blog.

just, idk. here's what i've learned driving on the interstate, and i qualify this advice by saying that i drive daily thru one of the most notorious speed traps in a state that's one of the most notorious speed trap states.

1. i think cop priorities are easy truck tickets, "worth it" speeding tickets (>20mph, clearly wealthy etc), everything else. if you and a semi pass a cop doing 85, the cop is gonna go for the semi. (any casual commuter in a car doing 80 is extremely low priority, a speeding semi truck might rack up alot of fines)

2. go with the flow. if you're going 80 passing a car going 75, and you see a cop, DONT SLOW DOWN TO 75 OR 70. if he's behind you, get out of the way. suddenly matching speeds and blocking the lanes is only going to make them want to ruin your day, lol.

...and thats it honestly. maybe...

3. pass on the left only

...even when the right lane is clearly empty and the left lane vehicle is not getting over. alot of the time it winds up being some vehicle in the right lane that you can't see (although taking 5 minutes to pass him is still a dick move, see rule 2). lots of thoughts about this but basically: most of the time, the stress of passing on the right lane, and the "gain" from it, is little to no more than your pace when you allow enough time for the traffic flow to change and get an opportunity to pass.

but i guess the final rule is...

4. break any and every single one of these rules if you feel like you need to. don't die because you refused to break some dumb rule-thats-more-of-a-guideline.

anyways i don't know if you can tell but i had an interesting drive home today.

07.15.22

more testing! greetings¹

12.31.21

just in time for the new year, because the internet has its own blogging software! still trying to think of a clever name.

it's the crystallization of what i have wanted in a blog:

• server-side: i'm not at scale and the code isn't complex, so there's no real upside to pure static-gen software.
• markdown support and rendering: the code looks for a specified directory, pulls any *.md pages, and renders them as HTML. i have implemented some very crude control over the way the code lists files and for now markdown files have to be named using a YYYY.MM.DD.md format, but doing so will result in new posts appearing at the top in descending order.
• simple - this was the biggest reason for this project: taking the things i love about Mecha CMS and getting rid of the sprawling source code. don't get me wrong! Mecha is a great piece of software, but the author has implemented a lot of extras that cover all sorts of use cases that i have no need for.

the result is a project that allows you to run a markdown-powered lightweight blog built around the use and portability that the markdown file format allows. the goal will be to keep is as barebones-simple as i can, and for now this means you can get started with 5 files and a directory for markdown pages.

the first file, index.php, is a simple php script that stitches all the following together:

• the header.html that styles the page,
• the Parsedown markup library,
• all markdown files located in post/*.md, displayed in order from new to old
• the footer.html page, which for now simply closes the HTML tags.

TODO:

• view single posts
• allow support for YAML frontmatter, to expand on the ways the parser sorts and handles posts
• refine the markdown parsing to handle more exotic markup such as footnotes¹ / granular header formatting.

12.28.21

if you can read this, i've succeeded! nothing too fancy, everything is more or less powered by parsedown. things i would like to try to implement on top:

• support for footnotes¹
• granular header control - right now all # header, ## header, and ### header lines are formatted as <h2>

11.20.21

revisited the idea of 'because the internet' and have decided that a good way to keep procrastinating would be by deciding that i need to roll my own build system.

the skeleton will be basic: using include to stitch a header and footer onto a single file. simple enough, but the real challenge will be implementing a markdown parser - allowing me to keep a single blog.md page!