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@@ -160,11 +160,52 @@ You don't need me to tell you you need a plan. It should be blindingly obvious t
 ## Why print artifacts
 ## History as a harder time
 ## How Repair Skills Foster Self-Reliance and Independence
-## Simple is Better than Complex Complex is better than complicated
+## Simple is Better than Complex. Complex is Better than Complicated
 ## There is no nature, because there is nothing unnatural, only ugly things
 ## Against data -- do you really need someone else to test everything for you? Do you really trust that their "expert" conclusions are right for you? Why not try things for yourself and see if they work?
 ## Pioneer night
 simple food, stoicism, and avoiding hedonic adaptation
+## Sometimes Digital Tools Help
+
+In 2018 I sold my film camera on eBay. There's really no reason to shoot film at this point, save the fun of it. It's more expensive, has less resolving power, and it's more difficult to print even. 
+
+And yet. I love shooting black and white film. I missed it. So not long ago I bought an old film camera for next to nothing off eBay, and picked up a few rolls of TMax 3200 and Tri-X 400. They were not cheap. This is what I grew up using to take pictures and it still feels completely natural to me even after a five year break.  
+
+My original intent was to not digitize my film images. I planned to develop the film myself and then make contact sheets and file those with the negatives in archival folders. This is what we all did back in the day. Then I'd print select images in the darkroom using an enlarger. 
+
+As with most plans, this one fell apart when it hit the real world. The first part was easy enough for black and white film (which is what I shoot 95 percent of the time). You don't need a darkroom to develop black and white film. I have a tutorial on how to develop black and white film without a darkroom. It's not that hard and the upfront costs are under $100. Consider that it's about $15-$20 *per roll* to have black and white film professionally developed and the DIY option is a no-brainer.
+
+It was in the enlarging and printing of select images that problems came out. The biggest being that I live in an RV. Finding a darkroom to use was difficult. And I forgot how awful it is to breath and be around the chemicals involved in printing. I ended up not printing much. But the worst part was that what I did print wasn't good. The negatives were fine, but the prints weren't good enough. 
+
+My darkroom skills had atrophied. This should not have been surprising, but it caught me off guard. We like to think everything is like learning to ride a bike, but it's not. Or maybe it is, but we discount too much the varying level of skill involved in riding a bike. If you haven't ridden a bike in 20 years your brain will probably remember how to balance and work the pedals, but it will take quite a bit more practice before you're tearing down mountain trails at 20 miles per hour with confidence. 
+
+It wasn't until I looked at my prints that I remember the piles of notebooks lying somewhere at my parents house, full of notes on developing chemistries, development times, places I dodged, all kinds of details about each print. Printing in a darkroom is labor-intensive, and it takes skill. I quickly realized there was no way I was going to get the regular practice in a darkroom I needed to make the kinds of prints I used to make. 
+
+After thinking it over, I reversed course and started "scanning" my film. I use quotes there because I "scan" by taking a photograph of the film negative. I minimally process it by sharpening and spot correcting, sometimes adjusting exposure a little, and then I have it printed professionally. Images printed on modern photo printers at your local professional shop are of far higher quality than what you'll likely get with an enlarger and photo paper. Well, "higher quality" is subjective, so let's just say I like the results better. The cost versus DIY is a wash. 
+
+Throw in the added bonus of not having to seek out a darkroom (hard to do when you live on the road), having fewer chemicals to breath[^1], and the double-archive aspect (a digital copy should something happen to the negative, a negative for when the grid is gone), and I think this would be a somewhat rare example of a place that a recent technological developments have improved the [craft](/how-to/).
+
+Darkroom enthusiasts might disagree. I am will to concede that there is something enchanting about sliding the paper into the chemical bath and watching it come to life. There is also something fun about hanging out in the weird red light of a darkroom. I love both those things, and if you have a place in your life for them (e.g., you have room for a darkroom) then you should stick with printing yourself. Building skills through practice always trumps convenience. But living in a bus means some trade offs. I don't get a darkroom. I have to compromise and that's okay. 
+
+This process of moving from "I am going to do it all myself in a darkroom" to "I will do what I can and hand off the rest" reminded 
+
+Not long after this I happened to pass through Amish country on our way to Wisconsin. We spent a night behind a high school in a small town in Illinois. We ate dinner watching the Amish play softball against a non-Amish team. 
+
+We often think of the Amish as opposed to technology, but they aren't. They are in fact deeply engaged with technology, far more engaged than mainstream culture. The Amish put serious thought into technologies, deciding as a community which they use, and which they avoid. 
+
+They have a complex system of determining whether a technology is acceptable or not, and the decision often varies from community to community, which is a key point. The use of a technology in Amish communities is a community decision. It's not a top-down imposed decision, nor is it an everyone-for-themselves decision. It's a community decision that has to balance whatever the technology is, against tradition.
+
+The chief difference, at least in my cursor observations of Amish culture over the years we've spent traveling in and out of Amish areas, is that the Amish value tradition over innovation, mainstream U.S culture values innovation over tradition. 
+
+To be clear, valuing tradition over innovation as the Amish do doesn't mean they try to never change. The Amish has managed to keep their unique way of life in tact through the most tumultuous stretch of history I am aware of, clearly they are pretty good at survival and understanding how and when to adapt.
+
+
+
+
+[^1]: I do develop my own film. Since I can work with film developing chemicals outside in plenty of fresh air, they don't bother me. 
+
+
+
 # Podcast
 ## Books covered ala Jocko
     - Illich