As I get more into the analogue life with my field journal, I’m beginning to understand the appeal of moving away from a pure digital lifestyle. I like the balance that doing some things outside of the computer/smartphone brings my life. I want to add more of that.

But some people take this too far. Now, people can do what they want to do, just as I can judge them for it. My judgment really means nothing, so it should be easy for all of us to just move on. Some people are reverting to dumb phones. I get the idea here: less distraction from Android and iOS, and your life is better. Seems like a good idea, right?

I haven’t always had a clear opinion on this question. Back when I worked in the real world or even further back when I was at school, laptops were really the best way to go. It’s hard to heft a desktop, monitor, keyboard, and mouse to the library on campus so you can write that paper that’s due at midnight. Obvious when you think about it.

Of course, it’s easy to choose laptop when, in my case, the Michigan State University Computer Store had “sales” on those white MacBooks almost every week. They nearly threw those things at us students, everyone had one and nobody paid more than $500 bucks, and if there was a way to get your financial aid to pay for it? Free laptop. I don’t know if MSU still does this with MacBooks, but I wouldn’t doubt it.

So yesterday, I wrote about my home lab fiasco. I’ve managed to get some things set back up now, but it’s time for the report of what all I lost because of my poor backup habits.

First, I was able to salvage my RSS feeds and my Linkding stuff. That was the most important part for me, so I’m quite happy. I ended up losing my castopod setup, my glace setup, and my searx history.

I thought I learned this lesson years ago, but apparently not. I have a small homelab. It is just Proxmox on an old HP workstation that has way more memory and CPU power than I really need. I love it, though, and it has been fun to tinker with. I have known for ages that I needed a better backup solution for the server itself. Proxmox has a backup server project that would have been perfect.

I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to music. I currently have subscriptions to (though admittedly a couple of them are free trials): Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, YouTube Music, Amazon Prime Music, Plex, Deezer, and I’m sure there is probably one or two I’m forgetting.

I’m going through what amounts to a crisis. I don’t know what I want to do about music and where I get it from. I have used Deezer for the last two years, but their Android app has annoying bugs that make me not want to use it. I really don’t like Spotify as a company. I technically have had YouTube Music for years because I pay for no ads on YouTube, but I hate that service with a passion. Amazon’s app is spotty when it comes to their collection, though they do have Garth Brooks. Tidal has the same issue, but without Garth. And Apple Music works great on mobile, but the desktop experience isn’t great (yes, I know about Cider V2).