u/NappyDougOut

Don't worry mods, I won't mention anything self promotional here.

When social media came about, it was sooo promising for indie musicians because every single app promised they'd show indie music to the world for free, but now it seems like posting music, (just to share it and build some kind of an audience) is shunned by almost every app, even to the point of feeling like musicians doing it are subway buskers that won't ever go anywhere.

Behind the scenes, profitable labels dump tons of money on promoting/spamming their artists on apps to the point of running stream bot farms and making bootleg deals with ad agencies to have influencers make phony video ads to promo their songs, rather than letting the public decide fairly what is a hit & what is not.

Every day, we're pelted with songs & genres to "psychologically plant" them in our heads, rather than hearing a wide variety of music and then being able to simply choose what we collect & play offline...

I think making & signing music that I personally like has become 10x easier than sharing it online with others that might like it... To me that's a massive tragedy, not just for us, but for the artists as well that aren't signed to a major and don't have tons of promo money to burn.

We're missing volumes of songs that we would really love to hear as a result.

Online promo has netted a small fan base for us online, which we are thankful for, but I've observed how empty the results of paying for promo makes others feel, many lose their "fans" in an instant if their account gets banned, many others spend money on promo that yields little real results... I know many musicians with millions of followers that can't get 5 people to show up at their live performances. The social media aspect of music making has just felt empty and uninspiring for years now. I'm happy I didn't feed money into it honestly.

As a label runner, that's been promoting music organically for over 10 years, I honestly have zero motivation to keep up the seemingly futile hustle of promoting music online, and I mostly just play it myself and arrange local gigs instead now -- That method feels 100% more authentic than starting burner accounts to ask for "tune IDs" on reddit all day (I never do that mind you, it's annoying).

I'd be interested in reading about how others that run labels feel about this?

Did anybody go to day one?

If so, how was it? I can't really find any videos from it online yet... Seems like it's smaller than years prior?

I was walking through the small {old town) antique market in Kensington MD and it made me wonder where other good day trip spots are for walking to look at collectibles & antiques are?

I'd be interested in places that aren't museums, but places that have chill coffee shops/bakeries & markets near to numerous collector shops that don't make it uncomfortable to walk into & look around as a day trip?

TIA!

I heard there was one in Olney a while back, Greene Turtle up there I think, but missed further info..

I'm not on Facebook, but does anyone know of any fun, & hopefully diverse ppl g music, Karaoke parties in MoCo?

24 hours on a plane, 3 weeks there... Koh Samui is next in December. 👀💯♥️

I've been building with Drupal for many years now, especially in secure environments, and can't help thinking that over time the need to use additional tools to maintain it has dramatically increased.

Drupal used to be much more simple to build & administer when tun locally first then deployed, but now community notes assume you use Drush & Composer, which aren't really necessary if you know PHP dev & MySql administration.

I can't help thinking that the additional management tools mostly serve to help someone track how & where people are using Drupal by reporting specific build/deployment info & dev activity...

I haven't evaluated the add-ons yet, but may have to, because I regularly assure my clients their data and IP is safe. Also, running certain tools in firewalled environments causes a lot of issues & often requires whitelisting. If there are security gaps, we'll need to shift to a different solution, kust on principle alone.

It's important for Drupal to be fully transparent about what they monitor.

Very Very confusing, Google keeps referring me to D7 & D8 modules, and in my running instance of Drupal, the Feeds module isn't enabling when I try to activate it. I can't seem to find any online info on how migrations are done in D11.

I have a 150 row item {as a CSV file} of data I'd like to import into a custom content type that I've already created.

I don't use Drush or Composer BTW... UGH 🤔

Without lying (OFC),

Does anyone have any (updated) great/essential resume building & formatting tips for those that don't want to use Ai to write their resume for them?

Any time I go to places in Aspen Hill & Wheaton, there are often some scary cleanliness issues that trouble me, compared to DC & PG stores.

It's like store & restaurant owners skip ever cleaning their door handles once they open a place, until it needs a new tenant!?

Do health inspections account for that?

There's YEARS of caked-on finger dirt on the retail door handles at Aspen Hill Shopping center! 😮

These places need to all check & clean their door handles RN, at least weekly, just like they clean windows, it's probably the #1 thing spreading infectious diseases, besides licking kid boogers. Yeesh! 🫤⚠️🔥

It's amazing how we built pretty much all of the major highways & road infrastructure across the US on a fraction of the tax revenue that exists now, yet somehow, a simple road & bridge to connect Rockville to Reston is "impossible"?, which would enormously benefit both cities with jobs & massively reduce traffic overload, deliveries, & commute times for many. It's even a project worthy of Federal funding in my OP.

Whoever could promise it and make it actually happen would be a shoe-in for future elections.

Okay, please proceed to argue, put me down for beating a dead horse 🐴, or agree with me below... It's stupid this hasn't happened, and no, reviving the ferry route is far too old school now. 👀

FTR -

Building a new direct road and bridge connection between Rockville, Maryland, and Reston, Virginia (often historically proposed as part of a "Techway" or Northwestern Potomac River Crossing) would cost an estimated $1.5 billion to $4.0+ billion.

-Google

One of the most easily frustrating things about the car... Over several different Android phones ( cable connection) Bluetooth somehow doesn't connect automatically since I've had the car, but even when I'm not using the line (On Radio or whatever) the car disrupts my phone calls.

Also having to go through the menu to disconnect Android Auto each time is a major PIMA. 🙄

Other cars I drive don't do this.

There aren't many great social places in the area beyond restaurants here where I live (Twinbrook/Rockville straight M 30-ish) so it got me wondering, are people up here using apps to meet new dates? Which ones? If so, do yall pay to use premium? I'd love to hear your take, or if you have any other good real life social spots you can recommend?

I'm not desperate to find a serious match, but if that happens over time, great!

Mostly to meet good (hetero) company for social outings, travel, & activities, etc? I figured I'd ask here because I like local (easier) dating rather than long distance dates & activities. There are also a lot of gorgeous and smart women in this area (lately it seems).

I saw a post a week ago on Facebook that mentioned that 2 brand new retail centers were slated to be built in the Glenmont area of Silver Spring by 2027...

Is there anyone here that has official insight on that?

Wish facebook worked perfectly to save the post, but it was from a personal account, so I'm not sure if it's 100% true.

If it is indeed true, that would be big news! 😧