loading . . . Stack updates Just some random musings about the direction Iām going in for my various things
### Text editing
For a while Iāve been using Gram, which is a pretty nice code-oriented text editor that tries to make everything Good, Actuallyā¢, and is basically an anti-AI fork of Zed. Itās pretty nice in that itās fast and has good UX, but thereās a bunch of stuff that really bugs me, the more I use it.
* The language server stuff, while nice, is super inflexible
* Some of the built-in formatting rules (which come from the language servers, I think?) are kinda crappy but the configuration options to fix them donāt work
* It tries really hard to integrate well with Python virtual environments but seems to always get it wrong
* Iām constantly getting nagged with popups regarding āthe project workspaceā being unable to load, pointing me to a log file thatās constantly growing and tells me a lot of stuff that doesnāt seem to have anything to do with project load issues
The main reason I switched to it is because Sublime Text 3 is Intel-only and is not going to be supported on macOS for much longer, but Sublime Text 4 made a bunch of changes I donāt like and also is Quite Expensive now.
I think for now Iāll stick with Gram and just disable the language server stuff, but Iād really like something that works, y'know, better. Maybe Iāll give Sublime Text 4 another try and consider sending them some cash again, or something. I dunno. $100 is a lot for a text editor.
Unfortunately all the other popular code editors these days are even worse in terms of being, like, completely overloaded with useless crap and full of AI garbage, and are also usually built inside of Electron or similar things which make them feel slow and annoying.
Maybe Iāll give Emacs another try. Itās been a whie.
### Online commerce stuff
I used to sell things on Etsy, but it became a quite frustrating (and expensive) experience. Very much not worth it.
I also used to sell things on Gumroad, but meh to that.
I tried selling stuff on Artisans Cooperative but that site is an absolute _mess_ that is built with very good intentions but not a lot of technical acumen. I have one product listing there and all I receive from it is attempted phishing scams, and whenever I report the phishing scams as directed, if I get a response at all itās usually a guilt trip about how under-resourced they are.
Anyway, recently I remembered that Ko-Fi has a storefront and Iāve been working on rebuilding that shop. So far Iām just focusing on putting my music there and fixing my listings for my digital comic collections, and also fixing the very neglected shop page on this site to update the links as appropriate. Iāll probably also list my physical goods on Ko-Fi, but I donāt know how they handle things like variations and shipping rates (the two things that every site makes really frustrating).
### Music sales
I wrote a bit about this on the Blogpuppet, but itās getting really annoying to manage my music sales channels. Right now when I release something I post it on my own site and then also prepare it for sale on Bandcamp, Mirlo, itch.io, Subvert, and Ko-Fi. I also have to upload it to Symphonic and KVRR for the various exposure opportunities those afford. Itās a nightmare.
Bandcrash makes a lot of this a lot easier, though. I have scripts to take a Bandcrash album and populate my website, and with the generated .zip files itās absolutely trivial to post the actual downloads on Ko-Fi and Mirlo; Mirloās is also nice in that itāll automatically extract the relevant metadata. (And KVRR is simple in that I just send some .flac files to the dude who runs it via Discord or whatever.)
The other sales channels are really annoying, though:
* Setting up an album on itch.io is a rather cumbersome process (but itch.io isnāt really built for music, to be fair)
* Bandcamp only lets you upload a single audio file at a time unless you pay for Bandcamp Pro, and you have to manually enter the metadata through a rather cumbersome interface
* Subvert at least lets you batch-upload the files but you still have to manually enter the metadata, and its overall UX flow is super obnoxious and somehow worse than Bandcampās
* Symphonicās uploader and metadata editor is a _massive_ ergonomics nightmare that literally hurts me to use
If I had my druthers Iād just upload to Ko-Fi and _maybe_ Mirlo (since that makes individual track sales possible), but thatās not where my actual sales happen. Most people think of Bandcamp as the gold standard for indie music sales, even though they take a pretty bad cut and canāt even really justify it anymore since itās not like their editorial or discovery channels are worth a damn at this point. (Plus, theyāre owned by Songtradr, and _fuck_ Songtradr.)
I am really hoping for a future where I only have to post my music to my own website and then provide paid access to the full-quality downloads in some ideally-tightly-integrated way. Canimus will hopefully be a part of that future, although any federated protocol would be better than the current state of things.
I have high hopes for Fairplayer.
But with all that said, right now Iām making very little money on music. The only sales channel which gets anything right now is Bandcamp and I made all of $4.50 over the last month there. My lunch today cost $5.85.
### Residence
I like my house, and mostly like my town. But my country is very quickly turning into a fascistic hellhole, and itās becoming quite dangerous to be trans. Even in Seattle I am constantly hearing about people being accosted simply for being trans. There was a very high-profile murder of a trans student at the university, who was committing the grievous sin of _doing her laundry_. Iāve had friends have the cops be called on them for using the āwrongā bathroom or changing room at the gym (including very-masc-presenting transmasc folks).
**_In Seattle._**
This isnāt supposed to happen here.
Lately Iāve been thinking about exit strategies. I really like Victoria, BC, because itās nearby, housing is reasonably affordable (at least compared to Seattle), and it has amazing bicycle infrastructure (which is one of the few things thatās sorely lacking in my current town).
But immigrating into Canada is quite tricky, especially as a disabled, living-off-investment-income, neurodivergent trans person with no Canadian heritage.
The Netherlands also seem nice, particularly Amsterdam, which has amazing bike infrastructure (heck, anyone who watches urbanist YouTube gets plenty of videos from one particularly notorious channel that will just _not shut up_ about it), and by all accounts itās super trans-friendly there, _and_ itās apparently quite open to Americans both culturally and in terms of immigration policy. In particular, the poorly-named (or is it?) DAFT visa looks like a very good option, as it allows American ex-pats to register a freelance business there and give themselves a work visa.
But, gosh, that sure requires a pretty strong commitment, and Iām not ready to uproot just yet. (But I worry that if things get worse, the DAFT program will go awayā¦)
In the meantime I do at least need to renew my passport, which expires in 7 months. Iām not looking forward to the gender marker reset.
Also one of the things I like about my current living situation is having a nice private, isolated recording studio in my home, which is necessary for playing instruments (especially drums). Iād still be able to do that in Victoria pretty easily. I donāt think thatās nearly as accessible in Amsterdam.
I guess after the midterms I will have a clearer picture of where things are going.
### HRT
Thatās going well, although today I think I injected myself with a couple of rubber particles from the stopper. Oops. https://beesbuzz.biz/blog/11730-Stack-updates