I want my per-line code comments to line up nicely, so I’ll often add a bunch of spaces by hand to make things just so. I realized that, being Emacs, there must be an easier way to handle this. Of course there is.

Two minutes of searching revealed a short bit of lisp that does the job nicely:

;; Align comments in marked region
;; Via https://stackoverflow.com/a/20278032
(defun jab/align-comments (beginning end)
  "Align comments within marked region."
  (interactive "*r")
  (let (indent-tabs-mode align-to-tab-stop)
    (align-regexp beginning end (concat "\\(\\s-*\\)"
                                        (regexp-quote comment-start)))))

Here’s an example of what I was working on, with horribly un-aligned comments.

(setq org-roam-capture-templates
  '(("d" "default" plain "%?"
    :target (file+head "%<%Y%m%d>-${slug}.org"
                       "#+title: ${title}\n#+index: \n#+setupfile: ~/org/_SETUP/EXPORT\n#+setupfile: ~/org/_SETUP/org-roam-publish-fancy.setup")
    :unnarrowed t)
    ("P" ;; Key
     "Public (published in /public)" ;; Description
     plain  ;; Type
     (file "~/org/roam/templates/PublicTemplate.org")  ;; Template
    :target (file "public/${slug}.org") ;; Target
    :unnarrowed t)
    ("p" ;; Key
     "project"  ;; Description
     plain   ;; Type
     (file "~/org/roam/templates/ProjectTemplate.org") ;; Template
    :target (file "projects/%<%Y%m%d>-${slug}.org")    ;; Target
    :unnarrowed t)))

Then, here’s that same thing after executing jab/align-comments

(setq org-roam-capture-templates
  '(("d" "default" plain "%?"
    :target (file+head "%<%Y%m%d>-${slug}.org"
                       "#+title: ${title}\n#+index: \n#+setupfile: ~/org/_SETUP/EXPORT\n#+setupfile: ~/org/_SETUP/org-roam-publish-fancy.setup")
    :unnarrowed t)
    ("P"                                               ;; Key
     "Public (published in /public)"                   ;; Description
     plain                                             ;; Type
     (file "~/org/roam/templates/PublicTemplate.org")  ;; Template
    :target (file "public/${slug}.org")                ;; Target
    :unnarrowed t)
    ("p"                                               ;; Key
     "project"                                         ;; Description
     plain                                             ;; Type
     (file "~/org/roam/templates/ProjectTemplate.org") ;; Template
    :target (file "projects/%<%Y%m%d>-${slug}.org")    ;; Target
    :unnarrowed t)))

Much better. It’s cool because it uses comment-start so it works with any language’s comment syntax. There are probably 17 other ways of doing this that I haven’t discovered, but this works.

Every day is a new day in Emacs.

As usual, this roll contained a few self-portraits, a few of Alice, and a few of “stuff”. My favorites are the ones taken in my dad’s garage.

When I drag and drop an image into Emacs, I want the attached file to end up in ./img/YYYY/. This is how I tried configuring org-download in my setup (I use Doom Emacs):

(setq org-download-method 'directory
        org-download-image-dir (concat "img/"  (format-time-string "%Y") "/")
        org-download-image-org-width 600
        org-download-heading-lvl 1)

For some reason, org-download-method was being reset from 'directory to 'attach after loading, and this broke things. I thought maybe I needed to set the variables after org-download was loaded, so I did this:

(after! org-download
  (setq org-download-method 'directory
        org-download-image-dir (concat "img/"  (format-time-string "%Y") "/")
        org-download-image-org-width 600
        org-download-heading-lvl 1))

That didn’t work. At startup I was seeing this error:

Error (org-mode-hook): Error running hook “org-fancy-priorities-mode” because: (void-variable org-download-image-dir)

Huh. I guess not everything can be set after org-download, so I tried only setting org-download-method

(after! org-download
  (setq org-download-method 'directory))

This worked. The other settings are done in the (after! org block.

It feels like I have to fight Doom too often, but the details and refinement of Doom is worth the trouble.

I’ve settled on WordPress for this blog. (“settled” is a fluid word for me, but let’s assume I mean it for now). However, I prefer to do most of my writing in Emacs and Org mode. To help with this, I’ve configured org2blog and I’m writing this post with it.

I’m using org2blog pretty much right out of the box. Just a single blog configuration with the following tweaks:

<div class="org-src-container"><pre id="nil" class="src src-emacs-lisp"><span style="color: #4078f2;">(</span><span style="color: #e45649;">setq</span> <span style="color: #6a1868;">org2blog/wp-track-posts</span> <span style="color: #a626a4;">(</span><span style="color: #b751b6;">list</span> <span style="color: #50a14f;">"~/org/baty.net/.org2blog.org"</span> <span style="color: #50a14f;">"wordpress"</span><span style="color: #a626a4;">)</span><span style="color: #4078f2;">)</span>
<span style="color: #4078f2;">(</span><span style="color: #e45649;">setq</span> <span style="color: #6a1868;">org2blog/wp-default-categories</span> <span style="color: #4078f2;">'</span><span style="color: #a626a4;">(</span><span style="color: #50a14f;">"Misc"</span><span style="color: #a626a4;">)</span><span style="color: #4078f2;">)</span>
<span style="color: #4078f2;">(</span><span style="color: #e45649;">setq</span> <span style="color: #6a1868;">org2blog/wp-default-tags</span> <span style="color: #4078f2;">'</span><span style="color: #a626a4;">(</span><span style="color: #50a14f;">""</span><span style="color: #a626a4;">)</span><span style="color: #4078f2;">)</span>
<span style="color: #4078f2;">(</span><span style="color: #e45649;">setq</span> <span style="color: #6a1868;">org2blog/wp-show-post-in-browser</span> <span style="color: #4078f2;">'</span><span style="color: #986801;">ask</span><span style="color: #4078f2;">)</span></pre></div></code></pre>

I haven’t figured out how to use authinfo.gpg for logging in automatically yet, so for now I’m typing my password in each new emacs session.

There’s a nice “which-key”-like UI for everything.

It’s been years since I’ve done this. It seems to have gotten quite capable. I’ve yet to exercise things but so far, so good.

If you’re reading this, everything worked.

One downside is that this workflow suffers from some of the same issues as static blogs. Specifically, if I’m reading a post and find something I’d like to edit, instead of just hitting the “Edit” button, I need to go find the post in Emacs, make the change, and re-publish. We’ll see if I hate it. Maybe I’ll use Emacs for initial drafts and first edits and then simply live in the WordPress editor for future edits.

I’m feeling twitchy about owning the Leica M10-R.

The M10-R is an astonishingly good camera. World-beating build quality, timeless design, and a fantastic 40-megapixel sensor, all in a small, beautiful package.

Still available new in 2022 for an eye-watering $8,995 (I bought mine used), the M10-R is also a ridiculously expensive camera. Buying one is a big deal and a significant investment.

I am fortunate enough to also own Leica M film cameras, and being able to share lenses between those and the M10-R is very handy. And OMG those Leica lenses! The control layout and handling are the same as well. It’s like having both a digital and film platform for using 70 years of tiny, wonderful Leica lenses. I can carry a full film and digital arsenal with 2 bodies and lenses in a tiny bag.

So, why am I feeling twitchy?

I worry about having such expensive, relatively delicate equipment swinging about around my neck. It makes me nervous. It’s hard to relax and make photographs when I’m so worried about losing or breaking the camera I’m carrying.

Unlike film Ms, digital M cameras depreciate steadily in value. Not as quickly as other digital cameras, perhaps, but still, the trend is downward.

But mostly, I feel guilty having such a fine camera because I’ve barely used it. I’ve been shooting mostly film for the past month or so, leaving the M10-R idling in the bag. I can justify the expense for something I’m using all the time but to have the M10-R sitting in the bag “just in case” is hard to stomach.

Still, I love the camera and I’m keeping it. At least for now. I know me, and I know that the digital-film pendulum will swing back the other way soon enough, and when it does I’ll be glad I have the M10-R.

My wife bought an awful, kitschy plastic lamp and set it on one of the floor speakers. I, of course, balked.

That was a week ago and somehow the lamp is still there. I hate the lamp, but I don’t mind the light that it throws against the wall, and my wife loves it and thinks “it’s adorable”. Who am I to judge?

I took a photo of it. It’s just another boring snapshot by a film photographer looking for excuses to finish the roll. It’s exposed the way I intended and it’s composed nicely, but it’s not a great photo. I love it anyway.

I love the photo because it makes me smile. It makes me smile because I love my wife and it reminds me of one of the many reasons why. That’s the best kind.

TiddlyWiki is a single static HTML file. It does not generate an RSS feed of new entries. It doesn’t generate anything.

I treat my wiki at wiki.baty.net more like a blog than a wiki, so not having an RSS feed feels like an omission. Most of the time I consider this to be a feature. I like that I can write any old nonsense and it doesn’t actively go out and bother anyone. It’s my little secret, that you can read if you want.

On the other hand, I find it annoying when I’m interested in someone else’s writing and they don’t provide any feeds. So, I’ve decided to make it easier to follow me. I suppose if you deliberately subscribe to the wiki’s feed, you want to be bothered by the stuff I write there.

My solution is based on this article. The short version is that I created a new tiddler named “RSS Feed” containing the following:

\define MyFilter(MyTag,domain)
[tag[$(MyTag)$]!sort[created]limit[10]]
\end

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?><br />
<rss version="2.0"><br />
<channel><br />
     <title>
{{$:/SiteTitle}}
</title><br />
     <link>{{$:/discoverfeed!!serverdomain}}</link><br />     <description>
{{$:/SiteSubtitle}}
</description><br />
     <lastBuildDate><$list filter="[!is[system]get[modified]!prefix[NaN]!sort[]limit[1]]" variable=modified><$list filter="[!is[system]modified<modified>]"><$view field="modified" format=date template="[UTC]ddd, 0DD mmm YYYY 0hh:0mm:0ss GMT"/></$list></$list></lastBuildDate><br />
<$set name="MyTag" value=Feed>
<$set name="domain" value={{$:/discoverfeed!!serverdomain}}>
<$list filter=<<MyFilter>>>
<item><br />     <title>
<$view field="title"/>
</title><br />
     <link><<domain>>#<$view field="title" format="urlencoded"/></link><br />
     <guid><<domain>>#<$view field="title" format="urlencoded"/></guid><br />
     <pubDate><$view field="modified" format=date template="[UTC]ddd, 0DD mmm YYYY 0hh:0mm:0ss GMT"/></pubDate><br />
     <description><![CDATA[<$view field="text" format=htmlwikified/>]]><br />     </description><br /></item><br />
</$list></$set></$set>
</channel><br /></rss><br />

This tiddler runs a filter finding the last 10 tiddlers tagged with Feed and renders them as RSS-formatted XML.

Extracting the rendered text from that tiddler out to an RSS file is done using my Makefile using the TiddlyWiki node.js module. The command is as follows:

tiddlywiki --load index.html --render "[[RSS Feed]]" "rss.xml" text/plain

This generates a file at ./output/rss.xml containing the rendered RSS text/xml. Later in the Makefile, I rsync rss.xml up to the server along with the rest of the wiki files. Here’s the complete Makefile:

SERVER_HOST=server01.baty.net
SERVER_DIR=/home/jbaty/apps/rudimentarylathe.wiki/public_html
PUBLIC_DIR=~/Sync/wikis/rudimentarylathe/
TARGET=server01.baty.net

.POSIX:
.PHONY: checkpoint deploy

build:
        tiddlywiki --load index.html --render "[[RSS Feed]]" "rss.xml" text/plain

checkpoint:
        git add .
        git diff-index --quiet HEAD || git commit -m "Publish checkpoint"

deploy: build checkpoint
        git push
        @echo "\033[0;32mDeploying updates to $(TARGET)...\033[0m"
        rsync -v -rz --checksum --delete --no-perms $(PUBLIC_DIR)index.html $(SERVER_HOST):$(SERVER_DIR)
        rsync -v -rz --checksum --delete --no-perms $(PUBLIC_DIR)output/rss.xml $(SERVER_HOST):$(SERVER_DIR)
        rsync -v -rz --checksum --delete --no-perms $(PUBLIC_DIR)files $(SERVER_HOST):$(SERVER_DIR)

All this means is that you can now subscribe to the daily posts at wiki.baty.net using the following URL: https://wiki.baty.net/rss.xml.

The odd thing is that I normally create each daily post first thing in the morning and update it throughout the day. I’m not sure how different RSS readers will handle this, but it’s a start.

I haven’t added the discovery links yet, but should. I also don’t think the RSS tiddler needs all those non-breaking spaces so I may play with that later.

Update March 11, 2022: Saq Imtiaz sent a link to his experimental plugin for generating RSS and JSON feeds. Worth a look!

I hate making fiber-based silver gelatin prints in the darkroom. But I love having them to hold and to hang.

Fiber-based papers have this deep, magical sheen, and the surface is smooth yet has a distinct, subtle texture that is missing from resin-coated (RC) papers.

Compared to RC papers, fiber-based paper takes twice as long to process. It requires additional washing and optional toning steps. It eats up fixer and takes more trays than I have comfortable room for. It must be washed for up to an hour. And then there’s the curling, so I have to press the prints under heavy books for a few days before I can do anything with them

Just look at this example. It’s ridiculous.

I gave up on fiber a few years ago, but have been having second thoughts. A fiber print feels so good in hand. Heavy, smooth, and solid, somehow. And there’s no escaping how great they look. I’ve been asking myself if maybe it’s worth the trouble after all. I made a few prints this week and yes, it is definitely worth the trouble.

Derek Sivers suggests, in a much-linked-to post, that all your stuff should be in plain text files, and I (almost) agree with him.

Most of my notes are in some form of plain text format, but not for the reasons Sivers lists. My notes are in plain text because I prefer editors that use plain text by default. I suggest you use the tools and formats that are most useful to you now. If that’s plain text, then great.

The fear of not being able to open or otherwise read files, someday in the future, is overblown. File formats last a long time. Email, PDF, even Word documents can be opened decades later. Mine can, anyway. But what about in 100 or 200 years? My response is, “Who cares?” I mean, c’mon. My digital notes are going to be tossed in a dumpster along with the rest of my shit by my family like 20 minutes after I die, anyway. Your notes may be more important to the world than mine.

The thing I worry about isn’t “lock-in” or lack of portability or any of those. What I worry about is losing the actual files. This happened to me recently. I try to keep methodical backups, but I was careless with a folder full of Markdown files that were used to render a blog and they are all gone. Hundreds of them. I thought I knew where they were and I thought I’d made backups and a combination of cleaning up and switching machines and poof! All gone. Fortunately, I have the rendered HTML files but my point is that, whatever their format, all files are useless if you lose them.

So, back up those Word docs and PDFs and Mindmaps and Powerpoints. And back up your plain text files, too. At least that way you stand a chance of having them “someday in the future”. You can worry about how to open them then.

There are things that I dislike about shooting film, but processing isn’t one of them. I actually enjoy it.

I shoot a roll or two of film each week and process it in my bathroom darkroom. Developing black and white film is quite simple. I have gotten to a point where the process is muscle memory. I shoot mostly the same type of film (HP5 Plus) and develop it in HC-110. I know the dilutions and I know the time, temperature, and agitation schedule.

It takes me about 20 minutes to develop a roll of film. I have to pay attention for five minutes in the developer, one minute in stop bath, then five minutes in the fixer. After that, it’s a hands-off ten-minute wash, a quick dip in Photo-flo, and that’s it.

Standing at the sink during the processing steps is meditative. I can stand there and just let my mind wander. It’s usually silent, but sometimes I have music playing. And there’s nothing like seeing the images unfurl when taking the roll off the reel. Magic.

Scanning, on the other hand, is 🤬.

My dad called me from Florida and said that one of his neighbors had died and left a bunch of camera stuff to be given away or sold. He mentioned there was “some old Kodak” and wondered if I was interested in it. I said “Sure, why not” and he said he’d send me a box with the camera and some other stuff that came in the box.

The box arrived yesterday and I was thrilled to find a working Kodak Retina IIIC inside. I didn’t know much about the Retinas except they were around for many years and were very high quality cameras, which isn’t something Kodak is known for.

The last of the Retinas, the “Big-C” IIIC was made from 1957-1960. I assume that mine was made somewhere late in that range, based on the serial number. It doesn’t have the absolute latest changes, so let’s guess 1959.

I was surprised by how nicely the camera is built. It’s dense and feels very solid. All the movements, from focusing to folding the lens, are smooth and dampened well. It’s not quite Leica-level build, but much closer to it than I expected, especially considering the price.

I put a roll through it immediately and everything appears to work perfectly. Not bad for a 60-plus-year-old camera. Here are a few snaps taken around the house from that test roll.

One of the lauded features of the IIIC is the 50mm f/2 Schneider-Kreuznach Retina-Xenon lens. I haven’t shot enough to get a good feel, but even after one quick roll I can see that it’s no slouch.

For more details about the camera, there are a few good resources. I enjoyed this Retina IIIC review by Kurt Munger. For everything you need to know, Chris Sherlock has a ton of info on the Retina series.

I don’t know yet how often I’ll use this new camera, but it’s certainly not going to spend the rest of its days on a shelf.

Here’s the camera’s page on my wiki

TL;DR: daily.baty.net.

You see, I have a nice wiki, and for a couple of years, I have written a new entry in it (nearly) every day. These “daily notes” have been interspersed and interlinked with the rest of the wiki’s content. It works, but I don’t love it.

Writing in TiddlyWiki is fine. It’s super easy, but it’s also a little clunky, which quickly becomes friction. And the experience for visitors is weird if you’re not familiar with TiddlyWiki. Also, there’s no RSS feed. I sometimes consider this a feature, because it’s nice writing freely and knowing it’s not “going anywhere”. On the other hand, if I were someone wanting to follow along with me, I’d want a damn RSS feed.

So, I periodically waffle between writing my daily posts on the wiki and on a “real” blog. One thing that has kept me in the wiki is that I can easily link things from my daily notes posts to the more permanent entries. This helps build a network of links. I love the idea of all this linking back and forth, but in practice, it’s not as useful as I’d hoped. TiddlyWiki works better when each distinct idea or thing is created as a separate “tiddler”. I’ll create a new tiddler about something, link to that something, and then transclude the tiddler in that day’s daily. And then I almost never actually take advantage of all that work. So why bother? I mean, it’s not as if I’m trying to build some sort of Zettlekasten here.

I love writing in Emacs and keeping everything formatted as Org-mode files. I like Hugo for blogging and I like the way the rendered site looks. TiddlyWiki is easier overall but Emacs/Org/Hugo is more fun for me and I believe it results in a nicer experience for visitors.

All that to say I’m once again back to using a “real” blog for my daily notes. I’ve committed enough to this that I’ve added a link in the navigation here. You can follow along at daily.baty.net.

An RSS feed for daily.baty.net is available both on its own and as part of my Everything Feed.

One valid criticism of using paper for notes is that searching through notebooks is rather difficult. With my poor handwriting, scanning for certain information in a wash of squiggly lines can be painfully slow.

For a couple of months now I’ve been going back through my notes periodically and highlighting key words and phrases. I’ve found that if I emphasize the most relevant bit of each note, I can find most things fairly quickly. It also helps when simply perusing old notes. Usually, I want to skip anything “meta” like which pen I’m using or the regular “Why am I still using paper?” fluff. Zipping over the highlighted phrases makes quick work of it.

Someday this could also help with building an index. If I ever decide to bother, that is.

So yeah, highlighting my paper notes is useful and I recommend it. I wish I’d thought of it sooner.

There’s a shutter speed dial with “A” as an option. There’s a numbered ISO dial (so you can see where it’s set even when the camera’s off). There are apertures on a ring around the lens. You focus the camera and the focus stays where you put it until you change it.

All you really need.

Mike Johnston

This is why I love the Leica M so much. Everything is right there, all the time. I never futz with settings or customizing dials or wondering which sub-genre of focus modes I need and how I get them.

I also love that I can pop the tiny, jewel-like lens off my 2021 M10-R and slip it on my 1960 M3 and everything works exactly the same. It’s a beautiful, underappreciated thing.

All too often someone on a forum or blog will claim that the only reason to even have a Leica is to use Leica’s lenses. Hogwash! While certainly a fine reason, it’s nothing close to the only reason. The idea that one should never use non-Leica lenses on their Leica is nonsense.

I have a few very nice Leica M lenses. I love them and they are my favorites. But I also have some non-Leica lenses in both LTM and M mounts. They’re fun and interesting and unique. They offer a different look than the Leica lenses. Mine are old, and nowhere near as technically capable as the stuff Voigtlander has been putting out recently. I don’t want those, anyway. I already have all the sharpness and micro-contrast and “pop” I can handle. I put older lenses on my M because it gives the photos a different feel. It can be nostalgic. Sometimes an image works better when it’s a little softer and has a smidge less contrast.

Whether you also own Leica lenses or not, go ahead and slap whatever you want on your camera and have fun.

See also: Don’t listen to this guy. Use any lens you want with a Leica

I ran a roll of TMAX-100 through the Olympus OM-2n. As always, I had the lovely 85mm Zuiko attached. This time, I also strapped on the flash.

It was not a successful roll. Maybe three images were salvageable. Why did it have to be shots like this?

Or this one of Charlie, which was typically mis-focused. I may need to try a new focusing screen.

Remember when all I planned to do was to put all of my blogs under one domain and that was it? I’d still have all the same blogs, but they were going to live under a bunch of something.baty.net subdomains.

Well, I got carried away. I brought back baty.net as a blog (WordPress) and migrated all of my recent Write.as posts and imported everything from Copingmechanism.com. I am once again living at baty.net.

I’ll copy anything useful over from baty.blog and daily.baty.blog. I plan to shutter baty.blog but I may keep the daily blog around, just in case.

So let’s see, I now “only” have this blog at baty.net, a microblog at jack.micro.blog, and the wiki (aka Rudimentary Lathe) at rl.baty.net. It’s possible I may have just set a new personal record for having the fewest blogs at once.

Oh, and I moved my “Everything” RSS feed here too. Subscribe at baty.net/everything.

I’ve been feeling a need to simplify things and I’ve decided that one of those things is my domain names. My days of hoarding domain names, just in case, are drawing to a close. I don’t want the hassle of managing a bunch of zones and I don’t need the fees.

To that end, I’m working toward moving everything to subdomains of baty.net.

I’ve already moved my wiki from rudimentarylathe.wiki to rl.baty.net. I considered wiki.baty.net and may still use that instead.

Next up is baty.blog. Not sure if I’ll use blog.baty.net for that or not, yet.

And of course the website you’re reading now, baty.net, is once again a blog (WordPress) rather than a static landing page. I plan to move my “everything” RSS feed here, so keep an eye out for baty.net/everything

There are several others to move, and I’ll be sure to leave permanent redirects up and running at least until the domains expire. That should give Google time to catch up.

The domains I’m not sure about are the hosted services. This Write.as blog, for example. Currently, I’m thinking I’ll leave them where they are, without custom domains. That makes things simpler. I lose the opportunity to “own” the URLs but, as we all know, I’m prone to breaking links. Not my greatest feature, but it’s proven true.

The idea is to have as few moving parts and dependencies as is reasonable.

This roll was mostly me plinking around the house trying to get through a roll in the M6 before the MP is back from Leica. I love the 50mm Summilux very much.

Which is right for me, streaming or buying my music?

TL;DR: Both

Phil’s recent note about streaming vs “owning” caused me to review how I think about it. My attitude about “owning” music continues to evolve.

One advantage I may have is that I don’t think of streaming services as music that I “rent” and that can be ripped out from underneath me any time. To me, streaming services are $10/month commercial-free radios that let me play DJ. I never worry that, if they disappear, I would no longer have access to that music. The most I’d lose would be my playlists and an educated AI. That doesn’t concern me at all. I don’t make playlists. I almost always listen to albums, as god intended.

I use Roon for music. Roon is (far and away) my favorite way to browse and manage my music library. It can also hook into Tidal or Qobuz and magically combines my local library with one (or both) of those streaming services.

Roon doesn’t work outside my LAN, so when I’m not home I use Apple Music. It’s fine, and it comes with my Apple One subscription, so it’s likely I’ll keep it.

Speaking of subscriptions, Roon costs money. And the service I choose, Qobuz, also costs money. Subscription Fatigue is real, and I’ve been evaluating the things I’m paying for every month.

The good news is that I paid for a lifetime license to Roon years ago, so that’s no longer costing me anything. Qobuz is around $11/month. I like the service, but it might be the least “necessary”. What if I were to cancel? I’d have to rely on music I own, on my hard drive. I’ve decided that this is OK. Preferable, even.

My digital music collection is sparse, and it sucks. Mostly bad CD rips from 90s. Can’t get too much Chalk Farm, right? But then, in comes Bandcamp, and kind of changes the game. I can buy great new music in a way that gets me immediate, permanent FLAC copies that don’t cost too much. Also, the artists get an average of 82% of every purchase. Everybody wins.

This means that if I buy one or two albums a month on average from Bandcamp, I’m about even with what I was spending on Qobuz. And I “own” the music. And I get to use Roon.

I have two modes when it comes to music. The first is that I just want to have some music on. For that, I can stream Apple Music. The other mode is deliberate listening. I want this to be high-quality and under my control. Purchased music that I own and manage is perfect for that.

And don’t forget, for when I’m all-in, I have a nice vinyl collection.

So, I’ve settled into a comfortable combination of both streaming and owning my music.