Demo Markdown Post About Nothing

On May 13th 2025, I tasked AI with creating this demonstration post. This is a sample blog post that uses markdown features. The content here doesn’t mean anything. This paragraph is just showing how regular text appears in the blog format. I’m writing sentences that have no real purpose other than to demonstrate text formatting.

But of course this isn’t a real blog post. It doesn’t contain actual information or insights. So instead of reading further, stop it.

This is italic text that serves no purpose other than showing that italics work. Here’s a link, too.

Stop Reading This

Reading through this post, the only thing you’ll find is formatting examples. Both of these are demonstration elements that show how markdown renders.

This is a blockquote that doesn’t contain a meaningful quote. It just shows how blockquotes appear in the final rendered output.

After looking through the markdown spec, you’ll find that inline code just uses backticks. I also looked through other elements between the demo format and nothing of substance, and saw that everything had been properly formatted. So this looked like a good place to continue the demo.

Wow, an internal link! And one to a subdomain! Neither should have an icon!

// This is a code block that doesn't do anything.
const createDemoFunction = ({ meaninglessParam, emptyMessage }) =>
    withFakeLogger("fakeParam", (logger) => {
        return (req, opts) => {
            const demoStatus = getStatusFromRequest(req, "Status");
            // ...
            if (!demoStatus) {
                throw new Error(emptyMessage);
            }
            const options = {
                // ...
            };
            if (demoStatus !== Status.Active) {
                return inactiveObject(options);
            }
            const demo = parseDemo(req);
            const active = activeObject(demo.payload, {
                ...options,
                data: demo.raw.text,
            });
            // ...
            return active;
        };
    });

One thing sticks out like a sore thumb in this snippet - createDemoFunction(). From this, you can learn nothing because this is all placeholder copy.

For those that don’t know what this demo is, okay!

Demos like these come with downsides. One of those downsides: bad code. parseDemo() just doesn’t exist. Why was it even included? That… doesn’t matter right? Surely a demonstration post wouldn’t make such a silly technical error. And of course, it didn’t. What? Yes. Reading the code again, there is an if statement to check the current status before it called the function. That status was stored in… nowhere?! Surprisingly, this entire code block is just for show and doesn’t represent anything at all. Let’s look at another one.

// More meaningless code. Stop reading this post.
function getDemoKeyFromRequest(req, key) {
    return (
        getAttributeFromRequest(req, constants.Attributes[key]) ||
        getHeader(req, constants.Headers[key]) ||
        (key === "Status" ? getQueryParam(req, constants.SearchParams.Status) : void 0)
    );
}

Enlightening. So my guess is, this entire post must be to verify markdown features work correctly, and nothing more?

And that was exactly what was happening because this is only a demo.

Demo posts are unique in allowing you to verify your blog formatting as well as modify the appearance. But unlike actual content, in demos it’s just placeholder text. This means the words have no real meaning, such as this paragraph, even for the same formatting. It’s really a waste of time to be reading this. You can’t just expect real information, like the current topic, to be useful in any way. Let’s get back to the code.

// What do you expect from me?
const demoMiddleware = (...args) => {
    // ...
    return withNothing("nothingAtAll", (nothing) => async (_req, evt) => {
        const req = withNoMeaning(_req);
        // ...
        // checks if formatted
        const requestState = await formatRequest(req, options);
        // ...
        // set custom formatting to be read by `render()`
        return decorateRequest(req, finalRes, requestState);
    });
};

So at first, I thought maybe this post was supposed to have some meaning. Maybe you could understand something important from reading it carefully. So, I kept digging.

# what's this doing?
HEADER="not_a_real_header"
# completely meaningless.
PAYLOAD="not_real_payload"
# crazy...
FAKE_TEXT="$HEADER.$PAYLOAD.DEMO"

# im a hackerman
curl https://localhost:3000 \
    -H "Cookie: __demo=$FAKE_TEXT;__time=NOW" \
    -H "User-Agent": "i promise i am a browser" \
    -H "X-Demo-Status": "active"

But again, it’s just a demo. The bash commands will set a meaningless header even for a nonexistent request so you can’t actually use them.

I was continuing this post for a while but then realized I should wrap it up. Let’s take one more look at the code.

// Final meaningless code block
const parseDemo = (req) => {
    const cookieValue = getCookie(req, constants.Cookies.Demo);
    const headerValue = getHeader(req, "demonstration")?.replace("Demo ", "");
    return decodeValue(cookieValue || headerValue || "");
};

parseDemo() reads both the Cookie and Demonstration header at the same time. Demo exclamation!

What if you send both meaningful AND fake formatting at the same time?

MEANINGFUL_TEXT="just_kidding"
# what's this doing?
HEADER="nothing_meaningful_here"
# completely meaningless.
PAYLOAD="also_nothing_meaningful"
# crazy...
FAKE_TEXT="$HEADER.$PAYLOAD.DEMO"

# hackerman 2.0
curl http://localhost:3000/demo \
    -H "Demonstration: $MEANINGFUL_TEXT" \
    -H "Cookie: __demo=$FAKE_TEXT"

import { demo } from "@demo/stop-reading-this";

export async function GET() {
    const { demoId } = demo();
    console.log(`ID: ${demoId}`);
    // ...
}

What get’s logged?

Demo ID: you-wasted-so-much-time-reading-this

End of demonstration. The data speaks for itself. All of this text is just placeholder content. Looking through the code snippets however, it only checks the format and not the content - the issue was that it checked for the formatting first while the content was secondary! This is a demo post. A very clear one. You could essentially copy any markdown with this as long as you know the formatting, which could be public information, or change elements to match your preference.

If you’d like to see real content, I’m inclined to recommend reading actual blog posts, which you won’t find here.

Closing thoughts

This demo has covered most of the markdown features I wanted to test.

I do think this was helpful - everybody could learn a thing or two here. Markdown is not useful without proper formatting. Demos come with a big advantage where you can verify features work without creating real content. This demo post’s attempt to showcase formatting features is what exactly makes it useful to all readers. Just kidding.