Fred and Loathing on The Internet

__init__ to win it

2023-Feb-15

The idea of using an actual database server to handle my app, rather than the database-in-a-file approach that comes with SQLite, came to me when I realized a lot of the changes I want to make to my website would be done on the data side. Lots of SQL. ALTER TABLE is not robust at all with SQLite. I will sidestep the issue by making a new blank database and migrate in my existing data.

The new stuff since my last blog post includes the proper use of whitespace in my blog posts. Before they were getting smushed together at the line breaks. I am using a somewhat hacky trick in the templating to translate the backslash-n characters that were being ignored in HTML. I figure my next update will have the blog section look like it ought to, like with an occasional image that will be saved with each post as a BLOB type in the database.

Finished The Weapon Makers by A. E. Van Vogt. Big letdown. I knew it was not exactly hard science fiction. The writer has a big golden-age SF reputation so I hoped for the best. It should not have bothered to say this was science ficiton at all. It was pulp adventure writing with invisible laser guns used to battle evil space queen’s guards. I was hoping for some political examination about empires that span immense distances, but not even that. I might have skipped past what little there was about the subject when I rooted through some tawdry action scene.