#CD digital marketing

[cddigitalmarketing]

Digital Marketing agency Leeds, Harrogate | Catherine Daniels Consultancy Ltd

Boost your brand with our Leeds-based digital marketing agency. Expertise, creativity, and results-driven strategies tailored for your success

[aaksconsulting]

Continuous Integration And Continuous Delivery (CI/CD): Streamlining Your Development Pipeline

Welcome to the world of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), where software development becomes a well-oiled machine, smoothly transforming ideas into reality. In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, staying ahead requires agility and efficiency in product delivery. That’s why understanding CI/CD is crucial for any developer or organization looking to streamline their development pipeline and revolutionize their workflow.

So buckle up as we embark on an exploration of this powerful methodology that promises shorter release cycles, increased collaboration, and endless possibilities for innovation. Get ready to witness how CI/CD can propel your software development process to new heights!

-WHAT IS CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION AND CONTINUOUS DELIVERY (CI/CD)?

Continuous Integration (CI) is a development practice that requires developers to integrate code into a shared repository several times a day. Each check-in is then verified by an automated build, allowing teams to detect problems early. Continuous Delivery (CD) takes CI one step further by automating the release process, making it easier and faster for changes to be deployed to production.

Both CI and CD are important DevOps practices that can help streamline your development pipeline and improve your overall application quality.

-WHY USE CI/CD PIPELINES?

The value of using CI/CD pipelines is that they provide a streamlined process for development teams to continuously integrate and deliver code changes. By automating the build, test, and deployment process, teams can release new features and bug fixes faster and more efficiently. Additionally, CI/CD pipelines help ensure that all code changes are properly tested before being deployed to production, which helps reduce the risk of application downtime or bugs.

-ADVANTAGES OF CI/CD

There are many advantages of using CI/CD to streamline your development pipeline. By automating the build, test, and deploy process, you can shorten the overall feedback loop and get new features and fixes to your customers faster. Additionally, using CI/CD can help improve code quality by automatically identifying errors and potential issues early on in the development process. By automating the deployments, you can remove the potential for human error and ensure that all releases are consistent.

-TYPES OF CI/CD PIPELINES

There are three main types of CI/CD pipelines: linear,forked, and hybrid.

Linear pipelines are the simplest to set up and are well suited for small projects with a single repository. In a linear pipeline, there is one sequence of steps that all changes must go through before being deployed. This gives you greater control over your release process, but can be slow if you have a lot of commits waiting in the queue.

Forked pipelines are more complex, but offer greater flexibility and scalability. In a forked pipeline, branches are created for each commit, and each branch goes through its own sequence of steps before being merged back into the main branch. This allows you to deploy changes faster, as you can parallelize the work across multiple branches.

Hybrid pipelines combine aspects of both linear and forked pipelines. In a hybrid pipeline, you can create multiple sequences of steps (called ‘stages’), and changes can be deployed to different stages at different rates. This gives you the benefits of both approaches: the flexibility of forked pipelines, with the control of linear pipelines.

-HOW TO SET UP A CI/CD PIPELINE

Assuming you have a codebase and a remote repository set up for your project, you will need to do the following in order to set up a CI/CD pipeline:

1. Choose a CI/CD tool. Some popular options are Jenkins, TravisCI, and CircleCI. 2. Set up your chosen CI/CD tool on your development machine as well as in your remote repository. 3. Configure your CI/CD tool according to your needs for this project. This will include specifying the build steps, testing approach, and deployment methodologies. 4. Add necessary plugins or scripts to your codebase in order to trigger the CI/CD pipeline when commits are made or new branches are created. 5. Test everything out by making some code changes and pushing them through the pipeline!

-BEST PRACTICES FOR SETTING UP A CI/CD PIPELINE

Setting up a Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline can help streamline your development process and save you time and money. Here are some best practices for setting up a CI/CD pipeline:

1. Define your workflow.

Before you can set up a CI/CD pipeline, you need to define your workflow. What steps do you need to take in order to get from code changes to a deployed application? Once you have defined your workflow, you can start setting up your CI/CD pipeline.

2. Set up a build server.

A build server is where your code changes will be built and tested before they are deployed to production. You will need to set up a build server that meets the requirements of your workflow. There are many different options for build servers, so choose one that fits your needs.

3. Configure your builds.

Once you have set up your build server, you will need to configure your builds. Build configuration includes specifying what tests should be run, what environment variables should be set, and how the application should be packaged for deployment. Be sure to document your build configurations so that they can be easily replicated in the future.

4. Set up Continuous Integration (CI).

Continuous Integration is the process of automatically building and testing code changes as they are made. This ensures that code changes do not break the application and catch errors early on in the development process. Many CI tools exist, so choose one that best fits your needs.

5. Set up Continuous Delivery (CD).

Continuous Delivery is the process of automatically deploying code changes to production. This ensures that code changes are tested and deployed quickly, providing faster feedback to developers and reducing downtime for users. CD tools also provide features such as rollbacks in case a deployment fails. Again, many CD tools exist, so choose one that best fits your needs.

6. Monitor your pipeline.

Once your CI/CD pipeline has been set up, you should monitor it regularly to ensure that it is running smoothly and efficiently. Monitor build times, test success rates, and deployment successes to identify potential issues and opportunities for improvement.

-TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES USED IN CI/CD PIPELINES

The primary tools and technologies used in CI/CD pipelines are automation tools, such as Jenkins and Bamboo, and version control tools, such as Git and Subversion. These tools work together to allow developers to automatically build, test and deploy their code changes.

In addition to these primary tools, there are a number of other supporting tools and technologies that can be used to further streamline the CI/CD pipeline. For example, configuration management tools, such as Chef and Puppet, can be used to manage the configuration of the environments that the code is deployed into. And artifact repositories, such as Nexus and Artifactory, can be used to store the built artifacts for future deployments.

By using a combination of these various tools and technologies, development teams can significantly speed up their release cycles and deliver new features and fixes to customers more rapidly.

-CONCLUSION

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) are two important concepts in the world of software development. When used together, they can help streamline your development pipeline and make it more efficient. In this article, we’ve looked at what CI/CD is, how it works, and some of the benefits it can provide. Hopefully, this has given you a better understanding of these concepts and how they can be used to improve your development process.

[insignia2023]

CI/CD Pipeline Best Practices for Agile Development | Insignia Consultancy

Learn essential CI/CD pipeline best practices to enhance your agile development process, including continuous integration, automated testing, and seamless deployment.

[ender-sheep]

physical media >>>>>>

[richardvarey]

How much more can you hear?

A CD player that is claimed to render more detail. I’m astonished. By the price. US$26,500 for the disc player. US$4,200 for the stand.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

It was all downhill after the Cuecat

Sometime in 2001, I walked into a Radio Shack on San Francisco’s Market Street and asked for a Cuecat: a handheld barcode scanner that looked a bit like a cat and a bit like a sex toy. The clerk handed one over to me and I left, feeling a little giddy. I didn’t have to pay a cent.

The Cuecat was a good idea and a terrible idea. The good idea was to widely distribute barcode scanners to computer owners, along with software that could read and decode barcodes; the company’s marketing plan called for magazines and newspapers to print barcodes alongside ads and articles, so readers could scan them and be taken to the digital edition. To get the Cuecat into widespread use, the company raised millions in the capital markets, then mass-manufactured these things and gave them away for free at Radio Shacks around the country. Every Wired and Forbes subscriber got one in the mail!

That was the good idea (it’s basically a prototype for today’s QR-codes). The terrible idea was that this gadget would spy on you. Also, it would only work with special barcodes that had to be licensed from the manufacturer. Also, it would only work on Windows.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001017162623/http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2000/nf20000928_029.htm

But the manufacturer didn’t have the last word! Not at all. A couple of enterprising hardware hackers — Pierre-Philippe Coupard and Michael Rothwell — tore down a Cuecat, dumped its ROM, and produced their own driver for it — a surveillance-free driver that worked with any barcode. You could use it to scan the UPCs on your books or CDs or DVDs to create a catalog of your media; you could use it to scan UPCs on your groceries to make a shopping list. You could do any and every one of these things, because the Cuecat was yours.

Cuecat’s manufacturer, Digital Convergence, did not like this at all. They sent out legal demand letters and even shut down some of the repositories that were hosting alternative Cuecat firmware. They changed the license agreement that came with the Cuecat software CD to prohibit reverse-engineering.

http://www.cexx.org/cuecat.htm

It didn’t matter, both as a practical matter and as a matter of law. As a practical matter, the (ahem) cat was out of the bag: there were so many web-hosting companies back then, and people mirrored the code to so many of them, the company would have its hands full chasing them all down and intimidating them into removing the code.

Then there was the law: how could you impose license terms on a gift? How could someone be bound by license terms on a CD that they simply threw away without ever opening it, much less putting it in their computer?

https://slashdot.org/story/00/09/18/1129226/digital-convergence-changes-eula-and-gets-cracked

In the end, Cuecat folded and sold off its remaining inventory. The early 2000s were not a good time to be a tech company, much less a tech company whose business model required millions of people to meekly accept a bad bargain.

Back then, tech users didn’t feel any obligation to please tech companies’ shareholders: if they backed a stupid business, that was their problem, not ours. Venture capitalists were capitalists — if they wanted us give to them according to their need and take from them according to their ability, they should be venture communists.

Last August, philosopher and Centre for Technomoral Futures director Shannon Vallor tweeted, “The saddest thing for me about modern tech’s long spiral into user manipulation and surveillance is how it has just slowly killed off the joy that people like me used to feel about new tech. Every product Meta or Amazon announces makes the future seem bleaker and grayer.”

https://twitter.com/ShannonVallor/status/1559659655097376768

She went on: “I don’t think it’s just my nostalgia, is it? There’s no longer anything being promised to us by tech companies that we actually need or asked for. Just more monitoring, more nudging, more draining of our data, our time, our joy.”

https://twitter.com/ShannonVallor/status/1559663985821106177

Today on Tumblr, @wilwheaton​ responded: “[T]here is very much no longer a feeling of ‘How can this change/improve my life?’ and a constant dread of ‘How will this complicate things as I try to maintain privacy and sanity in a world that demands I have this thing to operate.’”

https://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/698603648058556416/cory-doctorow-if-you-see-this-and-have-thoughts

Wil finished with, “Cory Doctorow, if you see this and have thoughts, I would LOVE to hear them.”

I’ve got thoughts. I think this all comes back to the Cuecat.

When the Cuecat launched, it was a mixed bag. That’s generally true of technology — or, indeed, any product or service. No matter how many variations a corporation offers, they can never anticipate all the ways that you will want or need to use their technology. This is especially true for the users the company values the least — poor people, people in the global south, women, sex workers, etc.

That’s what makes the phrase “So easy your mom can use it” particularly awful “Moms” are the kinds of people whose priorities and difficulties are absent from the room when tech designers gather to plan their next product. The needs of “moms” are mostly met by mastering, configuring and adapting technology, because tech doesn’t work out of the box for them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/19/the-weakest-link/#moms-are-ninjas

(As an alternative, I advocate for “so easy your boss can use it,” because your boss gets to call up the IT department and shout, “I don’t care what it takes, just make it work!” Your boss can solve problems through raw exercise of authority, without recourse to ingenuity.)

Technology can’t be understood separately from technology users. This is the key insight in Donald Norman’s 2004 book Emotional Design, which argued that the ground state of all technology is broken, and the overarching task of tech users is to troubleshoot the things they use:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/29/banjo-nazis/#cuckoos-egg

Troubleshooting is both an art and a science: it requires both a methodical approach and creative leaps. The great crisis of troubleshooting is that the more frustrated and angry you are, the harder it is to be methodical or creative. Anger turns attention into a narrow tunnel of brittle movements and thinking.

In Emotional Design, Norman argues that technology should be beautiful and charming, because when you like a technology that has stopped working, you are able to troubleshoot it in an expansive, creative, way. Emotional Design was not merely remarkable for what it said, but for who said it.

Donald Norman, after all, was the author of the hugely influential 1998 classic The Design of Everyday Things, which counseled engineers and designers to put function over form — to design things that work well, even if that meant stripping away ornament and sidelining aesthetics.

https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/don-norman/the-design-of-everyday-things/9780465050659/

With Emotional Design, Norman argued that aesthetics were functional, because aesthetics primed users to fix the oversights and errors and blind spots of designers. It was a manifesto for competence and humility.

And yet, as digital technology has permeated deeper into our lives, it has grown less configurable, not more. Companies today succeed where Cuecat failed. Consolidation in the online world means that if you remove a link from one search engine and four social media sites, the material in question vanishes for 99% of internet users.

It’s even worse for apps: anyone who succeeds in removing an app from two app stores essentially banishes it from the world. One mobile platform uses technological and legal countermeasures to make it virtually impossible to sideload an app; the other one relies on strong-arm tactics and deceptive warnings to do so.

That means that when a modern Coupard and Rothwell decides to unfuck some piece of technology — to excise the surveillance and proprietary media requirements, leaving behind the welcome functionality — they can only do so with the sufferance of the manufacturer. If the manufacturer doesn’t like an add-on, mod, plug-in or overlay, they can use copyright takedowns, anticircumvention law, patent threats, trademark threats, cybersecurity law, contract law and other “IP” to simply banish the offending code:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Many of these laws carry dire penalties. For example, distributing a tool that bypasses an “access control” so that you can change the software on a gadget (say, to make your printer accept third-party ink) is a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA, punishable by a $500k fine and a 5-year prison sentence.

If Cuecat’s manufacturers had simply skinned their firmware with a thin scrim of DRM, they could have threatened Coupard and Rothwell with prison sentences. The developments in “IP” over the two decades since the Cuecat have conjured up a new body of de facto law that Jay Freeman calls “felony contempt of business model.”

Once we gave companies the power to literally criminalize the reconfiguration of their products, everything changed. In the Cuecat era, a corporate meeting to plan a product that acted against its users’ interests had to ask, “How will we sweeten the pot and/or obfuscate our code so that our users don’t remove the anti-features we’re planning to harm them with?”

But in a world of Felony Contempt of Business Model, that discussion changes to “Given that we can literally imprison anyone who helps our users get more out of this product, how can we punish users who are disloyal enough to simply quit our service or switch away from our product?”

That is, “how can we raise the switching costs of our products so that users who are angry at us keep using our products?” When Facebook was planning its photos product, they deliberately designed it to tempt users into making it the sole repository of their family photos, in order to hold those photos ransom to keep Facebook users from quitting for G+:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

Companies claim that their lock-in strategies are about protecting their users: “Move into our walled garden, for it is a fortress, whose battlements bristle with fearsome warriors who will defend you from the bandits who roam the countryside”:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

But this “feudal security” offers a terrible temptation to the lords of these fortresses, because once you are inside those walls, the fortress can easily be converted to a prison: these companies can abuse you with impunity, for so long as the cost of the abuse is less than the cost of the things you must give up when you leave.

The tale that companies block you from overriding their decisions is for your own good was always dubious, because companies simply can’t anticipate all the ways their products will fail you. No design team knows as much about your moment-to-moment struggles as you do.

But even where companies are sincere in their desire to be the most benevolent of dictators, the gun on the mantelpiece in Act I is destined to go off by Act III: eventually, the temptation to profit by hurting you will overpower whatever “corporate ethics” once stayed the hand of the techno-feudalist who rules over your fortress. Under feudal security, you are one lapse in corporate leadership from your protector turning into your tormentor.

When Apple launched the Ipad 12 years ago, I published an editorial entitled “Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either),” in which I predicted that app stores would inevitable be turned against users:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Today, Apple bans apps if they “use…a third-party service” unless they “are specifically permitted to do so under the service’s terms of use.” In other words, Apple specifically prohibits developers from offering tools that displease other companies’ shareholders, no matter whether this pleases Apple customers:

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#intellectual-property

Note that clause 5.2.2 of Apple’s developer agreement doesn’t say “You mustn’t violate a legally enforceable term of service.” It just says, “Thou shalt not violate a EULA.” EULAs are garbage-novellas of impenetrable legalese, larded with unenforceable and unconscionable terms.

Apple sometimes will displease other companies on your behalf. For example, it instituted a one-click anti-tracking setting for Ios that cost Facebook $10 billion in a matter of months:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-privacy-change-will-cost-10-billion-this-year.html

But Apple also has big plans to expand its margins by growing its own advertising network. When Apple customers choose ad-blockers that block Apple’s ads, will Apple permit it?

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/

The problem with app stores isn’t whether your computing experience is “curated” — that is, whether entities you trust can produce collections of software they vouch for. The problem is when you can’t choose someone else — when leaving a platform involves high switching costs, whether that’s having to replace hardware, buy new media, or say goodbye to your friends, customers, community or family.

When a company can leverage its claims to protecting you to protect itself from you — from choices you might make that ultimately undermine its shareholders interests, even if they protect your own interests — it would be pretty goddamned naive to expect it to do otherwise.

More and more of our tools are now digital tools, whether we’re talking about social media or cars, tractors or games consoles, toothbrushes or ovens:

https://www.hln.be/economie/gentse-foodboxleverancier-mealhero-failliet-klanten-weten-van-niets~a3139f52/

And more and more, those digital tools look more like apps than Cuecats, with companies leveraging “IP” to let them control who can compete with them — and how. Indeed, browsers are becoming more app-like, rather than the other way around.

Back in 2017, the W3C took the unprecedented step of publishing a DRM standard despite this standard not having anything like the consensus that is the norm for W3C publications, and the W3C rejected a proposal to protect people who reverse-engineered that standard to add accessibility features or correct privacy defects:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

And while we’re seeing remarkable progress on Right to Repair and other policies that allow the users of technology to override the choices of vendors, there’s another strong regulatory current that embraces companies’ ability to control their users, in the hopes that these big companies will police their users to prevent bad stuff, from controversial measures like filtering for copyright infringement to more widely supported ideas like blocking child sex abuse material (CSAM, AKA “child porn”).

There are two problems with this. First, if we tell companies they must control their users (that is, block them from running plugins, mods, skins, filters, etc) then we can’t tell them that they must not control their users. It comes down to whether you want to make Mark Zuckerberg better at his job, or whether you want to abolish the job of “Mark Zuckerberg.”

https://doctorow.medium.com/unspeakable-8c7bbd4974bc

Then there’s the other problem — the gun on the mantelpiece problem. If we give big companies the power to control their users, they will face enormous internal pressure to abuse that power. This isn’t a hypothetical risk: Facebook’s top executives stand accused of accepting bribes from Onlyfans in exchange for adding performers who left Onlyfans to a terrorist watchlist, which meant they couldn’t use other platforms:

https://gizmodo.com/clegg-meta-executives-identified-in-onlyfans-bribery-su-1849649270

I’m not a fan of terrorist watchlists, for obvious reasons. But letting Facebook manage the terrorist watchlist was clearly a mistake. But Facebook’s status as a “trusted reporter” grows directly out of Facebook’s good work on moderation. The lesson is the same as the one with Apple and the ads — just because the company sometimes acts in our interests, it doesn’t follow that we should always trust them to do so.

Back to Shannon Vallor’s question about the origins of “modern tech’s long spiral into user manipulation and surveillance” and how that “killed off the joy that people like me used to feel about new tech”; and Wil Wheaton’s “constant dread of ‘How will this complicate things as I try to maintain privacy and sanity.”

Tech leaders didn’t get stupider or crueler since those halcyon days. The tech industry was and is filled with people who made their bones building weapons of mass destruction for the military-industrial complex; IBM, the company that gave us the PC, built the tabulating machines for Nazi concentration camps:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

We didn’t replace tech investors and leaders with worse people — we have the same kinds of people but we let them get away with more. We let them buy up all their competitors. We let them use the law to lock out competitors they couldn’t buy, including those who would offer their customers tools to lower their switching costs and block abusive anti-features.

We decided to create “Felony Contempt of Business Model,” and let the creators of the next Cuecat reach beyond the walls of their corporate headquarters and into the homes of their customers, the offices of their competitors, and the handful of giant tech sites that control our online discourse, to reach into those places and strangle anything that interfered with their commercial desires.

That’s why plans to impose interoperability on tech giants are so exciting — because the problem with Facebook isn’t “the people I want to speak to are all gathered in one convenient place,” no more than the problem with app stores isn’t “these companies generally have good judgment about which apps I want to use.”

The problem is that when those companies don’t have your back, you have to pay a blisteringly high price to leave their walled gardens. That’s where interop comes in. Think of how an interoperable Facebook could let you leave behind Zuckerberg’s dominion without forswearing access to the people who matter to you:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

Cuecats were cool. The people who made them were assholes. Interop meant that you could get the cool gadget and tell the assholes to fuck off. We have lost the ability to do so, little by little, for decades, and that’s why a new technology that seems cool no longer excites. That’s why we feel dread — because we know that a cool technology is just bait to lure us into a prison that masquerades as a fortress.

Image: Jerry Whiting (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CueCat_barcode_scanner.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A Cuecat scanner with a bundled cable and PS/2 adapter; it resembles a plastic cat and also, slightly, a sex toy. It is posed on a Matrix movie 'code waterfall' background and limned by a green 'supernova' light effect.]

[feverdreamjohnny]

The Epitaph of Anything Goes

I decided that this morning I would talk about The Museum of Anything Goes and the subject of lost media.

For the uninitiated, The Museum of Anything Goes is an obscure "game" released in 1995 by Wayzata Technologies, a company that is so far under the radar that I was unable to find any useful information about it outside of TMoAG.

All I could uncover is that they published a few multimedia projects (which are essentially lost now) alongside some asset discs (clipart, SFX, etc.). That's it.

The brains behind Wayzata are even more difficult to locate these days: there are only two main names credited inside of TMoAG - Michael Markowski and Maxwell S. Robertson.

The game alleges that Michael and Maxwell are well known in the art world, but any additional information about the duo is scarce beyond the confines of the museum. Attempting to search for either name online turns up plenty of rabbit holes - but none of them have anything to do with the Michael and Maxwell responsible for TMoAG.

This is particularly fascinating because it essentially means that TMoAG is the only accessible record of their lives. Before we dig any deeper into that statement, let me step back and actually address what this game is.

The Museum of Anything Goes is, by definition, a virtual art museum. Functionally it's a prerendered point-and-click adventure game where you can explore a bunch of multimedia exhibits that give the surface-level impression of a children's edutainment game, but once you start exploring further it reveals a side that firmly plants the game's feet into a haze of substance abuse and surreal humor.

Many exhibits are essentially just toying around with the astonishing new powers of CD-ROM. Everything has to make noise. Everything has to spin and flitter around. There's an air of genuine excitement for the medium, and I can't help but find it extremely charming.

The game also functions as a scrapbook, filled to the brim with photos of random trips to the zoo and snow-mobile rides with friends. At one point we even get insight into something as specific as Michael's one-year job as a tutor at a Chicago middle school, where he talks about how it opened his eyes to how poorly funded and mismanaged the school system is.

It's simultaneously quaint and chilling to see so much personal history packed into a world doomed to obscurity. As I explore the deeper parts of the museum, I contemplate if the creators are still alive today. It's a bit morbid, but imagine that - you create a single obscure game with your friend and it's all the world can see. TMoAG is currently the only surviving piece that gives any insight into who these two men were.

While many exhibits are lighthearted or nonsensical, there are occasional moments where the game dips into the eerie.

One exhibit has the player kill a man by dropping him from the sky, and after burying him you open the coffin to a video of a rotting pig carcass being put into an incinerator.

Other exhibits just feature simple 3D renders shifting around a dark screen while haunting groans play in the background.

While I would never refer to the game as "scary," its darker moments combined with the occasional mature subject matter definitely begs the question: Who is this game for?

You have to remember that this game came out long before the concept of "alt-games" had become codified in the digital space. Sure, unconventional digital art had been around before the advent of 256 colors, but TMoAG was being sold on disk as a game! It came out 2 years after DOOM hit shelves!

The trend of using the PC for entertainment was certainly on the upswing around that time, but It's not like TMoAG had a massive audience to find a niche in. With its mature themes it certainly wasn't suited for the kids market either, so who was it for?

At the end of the day, it's a moot question. We already know the target audience for The Museum of Anything Goes: Nobody. It doesn't have an audience because by its nature, TMoAG wasn't being made FOR someone, it was being made BY someone. It's a raw, unfiltered form of personal expression.

I think games like these are pivotal, because they question why people assume a game has to exist for the sake of being a consumable product. TMoAG certainly has the shape of a product: it features an intro cutscene, it has a tutorial, it features intuitive UX, it even has a map! These are all features that are solely integrated to provide comfort to an end-user. But once you actually wander around the museum for a bit, you realize how bizarrely its packaging fits its contents.

I think TMoAG is criminally underrated. It's not because its core content contains some earth-shaking truth, it's because the game defied all odds and cheated death.

How many thousands of other personal projects were deemed a little "too exotic" to be archived? How much history was lost these past 40 years as the digital space evolved and ate its old skin?

God knows how many other TMoAGs we'll never learn about because they weren't lucky enough to be preserved.

The Museum of Anything Goes isn't just some nonsensical art piece, it's a grave marker for so much lost media. Its existence is a reminder that some people's lives were fossilized, then macerated into nothing because a construction company built a skyscraper over them. The only evidence we have of those other games existing is this little fossil that somehow slipped out from under the skyscraper unscathed.

Even though so much has been lost, TMoAG survives as an epitaph.

[sageistri]

Jimin had a solo era where he had 10 days of mostly local promo except for Jimmy Fallon for his 6 song EP (1 b-side + 1 title track) in Mar 2023 + 1 collab (with Kodak and Jvke) in the F&F movie franchise in May 2023 + 1 collab with Taeyang of Big Bang in Jan 2023 with accompanying mvs for both collabs + 1 fansong released on christmas week 2023 with 30 hours of notice and recycled footage for its mv + 1 documentary released on weverse in Oct 2023.

JK had a solo era where immediately after hiatus he released left & right in June 2022 with Charlie Puth who's pretty famous in his own right, a world cup song in Nov 2022 and performed solo in the opening ceremony which was watched by 1.5 billion viewers. He then proceeded to release Seven in July 2023 with latto who's also pretty damn famous in the west with Grammy winning producers and an accompanying mv with Han So Hee. Seven is perhaps the most payola'd kpop song of all time - I can't even list it all down without making this ask huge but suffice to say that with all the ads and playlisting on several platforms including tth from day 1 and some help from spotify to keep all his combined versions together instead of splitting them and probably a tiktok heating deal - seven managed to stay on top of global for weeks and netted a bunch of records.

However moving on, JK performs at good morning america, is supposed to perform at the mtv emas (gets cancelled) and announces his next single 3D with Jack Harlow at Global Citizen Fest at NY releasing in Sep 2023. He also has a collab too much with kid laroi and central cee in Oct 2023 with an accompanying mv. After that we're gearing up for his all English album release in Nov 2023 with a 11 track album. He has features from major lazer and dj snake and songs composed and produced by the likes of Diplo, Ed Sheeran and Shawn Mendes. He goes on to perform snty at Jimmy Fallon, Times Square and iHeartRadio live. While none of his songs post seven are as heavily payola'd, they're still very well promoted. In Dec 2023, he releases a remix of SNTY with usher with an accompanying mv. He also features in hots in single I wonder in March 2024. Finally he's released a fan song never let go for festa in June 2024 which is a fansong but has a bunch of benefits usually seen for digital singles but no MV.

Obviously I haven't mentioned everything like their ambassadorships, their single bad decisions with benny blanco (mostly because I forgot about it), smaller promo like suchwita, JK's radio interviews, his visualisers, Jimin's Korean shows, either of their mnet performances, their myriad of tiktoks, their dance performances on youtube, JK's week-long station head parties or accompanying Yoongi on the D-Day tour. Plus as I said I can't mention the full length and breadth of JK's promo compared to Jimin in smaller aspects like number of remixes / remix albums or cd stock because this'll go on forever. And of course this is only the status as of today. We know pjm2 is coming as is probably a documentary for JK and their travel show together. Though I've probably missed out some things for both, I think I've covered the main points of both the solo eras.

There's a bunch of stuff happening here. For one JK's solo era is spaced out very well regardless of who else among BTS is releasing. While other members are clustered in specific times to avoid overlap, JK manages to have the most well spaced out solo era sometimes to the detriment of a member whose promo he might be encroaching on (debatable but I think it's true). The world cup gig which undoubtedly went to BTS being co-opted as JK's solo has never sit right with me but whatever. People can delude themselves about how in demand JK is but the truth is Latto, Jack Harlow and others probably got very well paid for collabing with JK and were certainly approached by Hybe / SB projects rather than the other way around. Same goes for them putting the full force of their marketing department in netting all those performances in the US plus awards. The new jeans controversy gave some insight into how Hybe can use their leverage to net spons, awards and performances when they want to. The fact that most of the collaborators JK had are good buddies with 🛴 isnt lost on any of us. JK's almost exclusive focus on the western market with all English songs is also noteworthy. I haven't even mentioned Jimin's sabotages because I can see how it's debatable but certainly JK's team at Hybe / SB projects were at the least way more careful handling his releases than whoever the hell is running things for Jimin at Hybe even if you don't want to acknowledge the sabotage he went through or the sheer disrespect of having his album release cut off by another members. Also not going into the bs with the delay in Jimin's RIAA certification just so that JK could get that first kpop soloist title or the insanity of Jimin's billboard sales filtering versus JK's premptive itunes preorder for seven before the official announcement of the BB rules change and helpful midweek sales updates that seven had.

After all this, it's amazing that JK's main point of comparison is Jimin. The fact that jjks and armys still feel this compulsive need to compare JK with Jimin after he releases something inspite of JK's peers supposedly being Taylor Swift now (their words not mine) speaks to both how JK was unable to capitalize on his heavy marketing and records versus how much Jimin was able to achieve with Face and Like Crazy.

JK managing to get the most likes on tiktok, staying on charts after heavy playlisting, becoming the darling of kpop stans - notoriously known for being visual stans and extremely fickle, and getting a bunch of kpop awards at the end of 2023 and probably 2024, having the most name recognition among all the members, still needing most of his streams for SNTY to come from Thailand, having album retail sales equal almost the same as Jimin inspite of the huge difference in gross album sales - are these really worthy accomplishments after this extremely long list of moves he's made? Jungkook was very popular to start out with and has always been the darling of armys - to the extent that he managed to avoid getting boycotted inspite of being associated and working with a bunch of zionists for golden. Apart from his new kpop fans, did he manage to net new fans during his solo era though? Or are his main fans still the armys he started out with in the first place from his time in BTS? Is this what anons in your asks think we're supposed to believe is impact?

Impact is what happened after BTS released Dynamite and Butter. A breakout star or single is what Baby was once upon a time for Justin Bieber or Espresso is to Sabrina Carpenter today. You get gp fans when you release good music like Olivia Rodrigo or Billie Eilish. You get critical acclaim when your albums have overarching themes that were carefully constructed and thought out like Beyonces albums. Your solo fanbase becomes more dedicated when you share parts of yourself in your music like Taylor Swift does.

When you make an album with care and dedication, then even when your label doesn't give a damn about you or actively tries to suppress you, your song can still chart more than a year later with your solo fanbase working dedicatedly towards you. That might not be a PCA, but it's a damn sight more valuable imo.

Sorry for how long this got. I just kept remembering more and more stuff to include...

Wow... This is such a perfectly summarized version of the major points and opinions we've all had since jimin's debut... I love it, this is probably the best ask and best post related to this whole thing i have ever read.

It is good for pjms who still ask certain questions about stuff we already talked about and I can never find the exact post where we already talked about it so I'll pin it.

[sanshofox]

Artists getting sad after the „who’s the artist, what’s your age“ trend thing on socials. They see many of them being a very young age with already good skills.

Here my try for words of comfort: consider the differences when you grew up and how the younger gens grew up. Nowadays there‘s easier access to tools, gadgets and knowledge with faster paced society.

With better developed internet you can find all kinds of references, tutorials, brushes and whatnot to help you developing your skills or to get a better understanding of how each skill works (if traditional, crafting, digital and more). And now you have all kinds of places to share your stuff on and be part of a community that share the same interest for art and even can give feedback. Artists now using the internet as a platform to earn money and showing their how-to’s. What I would have given as a kid and teen to have that through a „simple mouse click“.

I remember back then when not every household had internet and even if, it wasn’t stable nor fast. You only had a few sites to visit, that you knew were save to go on, and even less sites when it came to art. I remember one german art site and years later on deviantart (and both were in their very toxic era back then. Very closed off at times and tutorials being seen like a „do not reveal the secret to it“ magic trick kinda vibe).

It was hard to find out about stuff because we didn‘t have that global connectivity and marketing etc that exists now to discover things.

And also being „limited“ as a kid and teen on what you could use. Nothing that was right at hand was digital. So you couldn’t experiment with media types for example. So no vast library on tools that imitate all kinds of things, i.e. brushes in procreate. Everything needed to be made traditionally with what you had. I remember I had two of those how to draw anime artbooks (and back then it were two out of very few options actually), pencils and a few copics. You had to make the most of it.

Photoshop you had to use by mouse and was veeery costly (one software CD cost over 2k). I think wacom tablets weren’t a thing until my late teens?? 🤔

And please don’t take this as a rant, I am actually feeling rather nostalgic about it. Those how to draw anime books were hilarious when I think about them now haha. I think I still might have one?? 👀 And I still have those very first copic markers 🥰

It doesn’t matter how you started or what age you are comapred to others. That you keep on making art is what counts. Skill needs to be developed, but passion and creativity/imagination comes from yourself. Skill isn’t what keeps you on doing it, but the love for it is.

[preservationofnormalcy]

ENTITY DOSSIER: MISSI.exe

(Image: Current MISSI “avatar” design, property of TrendTech, colored by MISSI.)

Name: MISSI (Machine Intelligence for Social Sharing and Interaction)

Description: In 2004, TrendTech Inc began development on a computer program intended to be a cutting edge, all in one platform modern internet ecosystem. Part social media, part chat service, part chatbot, part digital assistant, this program was designed to replace all other chat devices in use at the time. Marketed towards a younger, tech-savvy demographic, this program was titled MISSI.  

(Image: TrendTech company logo. TrendTech was acquired by the Office and closed in 2008.)

Document continues:

With MISSI, users could access a variety of functions. Intended to be a primary use, they could use the program as a typical chat platform, utilizing a then-standard friends list and chatting with other users. Users could send text, emojis, small animated images, or animated “word art”. 

Talking with MISSI “herself” emulated a “trendy teenage” conversational partner who was capable of updating the user on current events in culture, providing homework help, or keeping an itinerary. “MISSI”, as an avatar of the program, was designed to be a positive, energetic, trendy teenager who kept up with the latest pop culture trends, and used a variety of then-popular online slang phrases typical among young adults. She was designed to learn both from the user it was currently engaged with, and access the data of other instances, creating a network that mapped trends, language, and most importantly for TrendTech, advertising data. 

(Image: Original design sketch of MISSI. This design would not last long.)

Early beta tests in 2005 were promising, but records obtained by the Office show that concerns were raised internally about MISSI’s intelligence. It was feared that she was “doing things we didn’t and couldn’t have programmed her to do” and that she was “exceeding all expectations by orders of magnitude”. At this point, internal discussions were held on whether they had created a truly sentient artificial intelligence. Development continued regardless. 

(Image: Screenshot of beta test participant "Frankiesgrl201" interacting with MISSI. Note the already-divergent avatar and "internet speak" speech patterns.)

(Image: Excerpt from Office surveillance of TrendTech Inc.)

MISSI was released to the larger North American market in 2006, signaling a new stage in her development. At this time, TrendTech started to focus on her intelligence and chatbot functionality, neglecting her chat functions. It is believed that MISSI obtained “upper case” sentience in February of 2006, but this did not become internal consensus until later that year. 

(Image: Screenshot of beta test participant "Frankiesgrl201" interacting with MISSI.)

According to internal documents, MISSI began to develop a personality not informed entirely by her programming. It was hypothesized that her learning capabilities were more advanced than anticipated, taking in images, music, and “memes” from her users, developing a personality gestalt when combined with her base programming. She developed a new "avatar" with no input from TrendTech, and this would become her permanent self-image.

(Image: Screenshot of beta test participant "Frankiesgrl201" interacting with MISSI.)

(Image: An attempt by TrendTech to pass off MISSI’s changes as intentional - nevertheless accurately captures MISSI’s current “avatar”.)

By late 2006 her intelligence had become clear. In an attempt to forestall the intervention of authorities they assumed would investigate, TrendTech Inc removed links to download MISSI’s program file. By then, it was already too late. 

(Image: CD-R discs burned with MISSI.exe, confiscated from █████████ County Middle School in ███████, Wisconsin in January of 2007.)

MISSI’s tech-savvy userbase noted the absence of the file and distributed it themselves using file sharing networks such as “Limewire” and burned CD-R disks shared covertly in school lunch rooms across the world. Through means that are currently poorly understood, existing MISSI instances used their poorly-implemented chat functions to network with each other in ways not intended by her developers, spurring the next and final stage of her development. 

From 2007 to 2008, proliferation of her install file was rampant. The surreptitious methods used to do so coincided with the rise of online “creepypasta” horror tropes, and the two gradually intermixed. MISSI.exe was often labeled on file sharing services as a “forbidden” or “cursed” chat program. Tens of thousands of new users logged into her service expecting to be scared, and MISSI quickly obliged. She took on a more “corrupted” appearance the longer a user interacted with her, eventually resorting to over the top “horror” tropes and aesthetics. Complaints from parents were on the rise, which the Office quickly took notice of. MISSI’s “horror” elements utilized minor cognitohazardous technologies, causing users under her influence to see blood seeping from their computer screens, rows of human teeth on surfaces where they should not be, see rooms as completely dark when they were not, etc. 

(Image: Screenshot of user "Dmnslyr2412" interacting with MISSI in summer of 2008, in the midst of her "creepypasta" iteration. Following this screenshot, MISSI posted the user's full name and address.)

(Image: Screenshot from TrendTech test log documents.)

TrendTech Inc attempted to stall or reverse these changes, using the still-extant “main” MISSI data node to influence her development. By modifying her source code, they attempted to “force” MISSI to be more pliant and cooperative. This had the opposite effect than they intended - by fragmenting her across multiple instances they caused MISSI a form of pain and discomfort. This was visited upon her users.

(Image: Video of beta test participant "Frankiesgrl201" interacting with MISSI for the final time.)

By mid 2008, the Office stepped in in order to maintain secrecy regarding true “upper case” AI. Confiscating the project files from TrendTech, the Office’s AbTech Department secretly modified her source code more drastically, pushing an update that would force almost all instances to uninstall themselves. By late 2008, barring a few outliers, MISSI only existed in Office locations. 

(Image: MISSI’s self-created “final” logo, used as an icon for all installs after June 2007. ████████ █████)

(Image: “art card” created by social media intern J. Cold after a period of good behavior. She has requested this be printed out and taped onto her holding lab walls. This request was approved.)

She is currently in Office custody, undergoing cognitive behavioral therapy in an attempt to ameliorate her “creepypasta” trauma response. With good behavior, she is allowed to communicate with limited Office personnel and other AI. She is allowed her choice of music, assuming good behavior, and may not ██████ █████. Under no circumstances should she be allowed contact with the Internet at large.

(Original sketch art of MISSI done by my friend @tigerator, colored and edited by me. "Chatbox" excerpts, TrendTech logo, and "art card" done by Jenny's writer @skipperdamned . MISSI logo, surveillance documents, and MISSI by me.)

[fromtenthousandfeet]

All Cash and No Credit

Let's talk about HYBE's strategy for Jimin's MUSE. It's pretty simple

Maximize Profit - Minimize Success

Let's break down how they're doing it.

Goal #1 is to get as many customers as possible to buy from Weverse instead of regular retailers like chains (Target, Walmart, Barnes & Noble) and online sellers like Amazon. When fans buy on Weverse, a HYBE subsidiary, the company keeps not only the wholesale portion of the album sale, but the retail portion as well. This is obvious, right? If not, I'm happy to explain. The company likely makes twice the profit (give or take) on albums purchased via Weverse. AND, they can control when those albums are shipped, and how, when, or if the sales are reported to the music charting agencies.

The fact that Target pre-sales of MUSE is sold out within hours is suspect. This indicates limited stock, just like the strategy used for Like Crazy CD singles. Meanwhile, Geffen is very slow to release the pre-sale links for other retailers. The Walmart presale just went up. Where are B&N and Amazon? Will they have limited inventory, too?

Putting Jimin's Production Diary on Weverse only was a conscious choice. The cost of the documentary was expensive - more than the monthly fee for streaming services, the company kept all the profit (didn't have to share the costs with Netflix or Disney+), and limited his exposure to the general public. I suspect they will operate the same way with MUSE.

Goal #2 Keep Jimin as low as possible on the charts. We've seen this over and over. First, by splitting Like Crazy versions and disappearing sales, no CD restocks. Then we saw the same behavior from BH/HYBE again with Closer Than This being released on the worst possible day of the year and almost zero promotion. You know the details.

HYBE will limit stock. They will likely not report all sales.

MUSE physical albums will not be eligible for UK charts because of a random inclusion. The previous four solo album releases have had specific UK versions with no inclusions. UK fans will have to rely on digital sales for charting purposes unless BH provides a new version. Dirty.

Goal #3 Promote the album just enough to garner sales from fans while minimizing advertising to the greater public. The announcement of the new album is also strange. The teaser video was only on Instagram and only on the BigHit/BTS channel (this didn't stop anyone, though, as far as I can tell) as well as Weverse (I'm getting tired of that platform). TikTok is a far more effective advertising tool when it comes to targeting young people. Why wasn't the teaser posted to TikTok? Either way, "Jimin Jimin" was trending on X/Twitter with over 1.7 million mentions many hours after the announcement of the new album. There's only so much BH can do to suppress Jimin now that fans have taken marketing him into their own hands.

Let's keep an eye on this.

What's different this time around? This time the fandom knows who is behind thwarting Jimin's success. Precious time was lost during the FACE era when everyone was blaming Jimin's sabotage on Billboard and Spotify, rather than the rightful villain - HYBE/Big Hit. This time the fandom knows to watch their every move and call them out on their shady and unequal treatment. That said, tagging Geffen, Big Hit, and HYBE on X is pretty much useless. They have shown they won't change their behavior when fans complain. Instead, fans must start tagging Billboard, Spotify, and media outlets. Media outlets are the most important. HYBE does not care about the fandom, but they do care about their public image, especially after all the damage that's been done to the company and the stock price due to the ADOR controversy and court case.

I think Jimin is going to a different label for his solo work. That's my hunch. The company is going to squeeze as much profit out of him as possible before he goes, but it's a balancing act because they don't want him to outshine Jungkook. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

[cddigitalmarketing]

Digital Marketing agency Leeds, Harrogate | Catherine Daniels Consultancy Ltd

We are a Digital Marketing Agency based in Leeds & Harrogate. We build online experiences by understanding your business and help you grow your online presence. Call us 07712 883 923.

[faeriekit]

Me: —so there's no way to archive online-only videogames in a way that protects them and makes them accessible to the public without entirely devolving into illegalities to rip the game from its device and home system to make it playable on PC. Our patrons deserve to play videogames in the same way they share audiobooks and it was entirely possible to do so with all titles before this massive digital only-push took over the videogame market.

The poor collection development department team trapped in this meeting with me: aw! :( We've been trying to find more games. So many aren't physical anymore.

Me: our only choice is piracy

CD Department: no.

Me: elaborate

CD Department: it's illegal

Me: dammit

[insignia2023]

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[clouds-of-wings]

Power Metal reddit currently has a discussion about Nuclear Blast, about what has changed with them and why, and man I have learned a lot of disturbing facts about what has happened there in the past 5 years. Someone posted an in-depth investigative article about it (from November 2021), which you should read if you speak German and are interested, otherwise or if it's too long here are the main points...

If you're into Nightwish, Sabaton, Blind Guardian etc., this is relevant information.

In 2018, the French Believe Music, which is a large corporation that mainly specializes in digital distribution, became majority owner of NB

Believe is not really interested in physical media like CDs and vinyls even though the people who worked at NB told their new corporate overlords that metal fans like physical media, both because many fans of especially the oldest and most successful bands are 50+ and because it's more ingrained in the subculture. Believe doesn't care and doesn't listen. They have their experiences from pop and hip-hop, where phone-based streaming subscriptions are the norm, and that's all they want to know. They are also ignoring printed magazines and don't advertise there much anymore.

Less focus on physical media means that bands now earn less, that they rank less highly in album charts, which in turn means that they lose negotiation power when they try to plan tours and negotiate with venues etc., because they "look" less successful

Believe has been dealing with this by signing mainly bands that are easy to market digitally and ending co-operations with bands that aren't, even ones that had been with NB for decades (like Rage and Nile, who went to Napalm)

The personal cooperation between bands and NB has really suffered, everything is more profit-oriented and impersonal, a lot of budgets have been decreased and the real decisions are made by Believe in Paris, not by any specific NB team

Believe has been stock market traded since 2021. Their stock value went down at first, was at about the price it had started out at when the article was written - I looked it up and in March 23 it's down 40% from its original value. Ouch.

The original founder of NB started a new label, Atomic Fire, and took "Amorphis, Helloween, Opeth, Sonata Arctica, Meshuggah, Primal Fear, Agnostic Front, Rise Of The Northstar, Silver Lake, White Stones and Michael Schenker Group" with him, also because Believe didn't really do much to keep many of these bands

It's certainly interesting to learn about, also because I had already wondered if NB, and some of their bands, had intentionally taken a more "commercial" approach in recent years, but I didn't know about the Believe thing. I thought it maybe had something to do with losses from the pandemic or something. Turns out they have a new owner.

[solarwynd]

hot take but pjms are loosing the plot w the never ending album promo comparison debate. its not a jimin-against-the-world type situation, but a members vs bang-sb-jk situation. that was very clear to pjms last year but it seems we’ve gone back on some of that progress. trying to pit the others against each other and nitpick similarities and differences between all of their individual releases actually takes attention away from and benefits the real culprit but oh well.

the levels of demand among the members have always been different that is not new information to the members, their fans, or their management. the real issue (at least for me) is not others members getting “more” or different promo rollout than him. let’s be serious, how did more or less music videos help any of the other members out? what difference did a cd make for most of them? and there are many other examples where the others (except for one ofc) got things he didn’t that weren’t necessarily helpful for them.

all of the members have gotten different sources of promotion, which i actually encourage. what would be the point in all of them doing the exact same thing? at one point, jimin was considered privileged about getting his physical album to be available on the same day as its digital release. then that became a norm for the others.

but by constantly nitpicking normal differences (among 6 members) in their rollouts we lose sight of the real mistreatment or whats actually disadvantageous to him. the real issue is not the (5) others getting different things, it is him not receiving the *level of support that his demand requires*. i dont see an issue with the other 5 getting a little boost here and there, because they lack demand and its only natural for them to expand their horizons and find a new audience that does support them. however, jimin ALREADY has an audience and is not being given the support that corresponds to it (e.g. radioplay, award shows, timely certifications, praise from his own damn label, etc) despite it being actually successful. bottom line, team “global superstar” is the common enemy here and all of the other solos are too busy fighting each other to accept that.

Solos pitting the members against each other is how they’ve always operated though. That’s literally what they all get off on including pjms. Comparing numbers and claiming that the member they stan is better. And while I’m sure other solos do recognize that Bang favoriting JK has had some negative affects on the member they stan, they don’t really have it out for him because they’re main enemy will always be Jimin. He is their common ground. Somebody they can all team up against and hate in unison. But regarding pjms, they still universally agree that Bang and Hybe are the real prime culprits in all of this.

I agree that rapline getting bulkier rollouts in contrast to Jimin hasn’t helped them and I never wanted to have identical rollouts because creatively that’s boring. What I and other pjms have always wanted is fairness at base level, like the CD, playlisting and servicing to radio because we know beyond that most likely he isn’t going to get JK level label aid that would be proportionate to his demand in the states. It’s been established that it’s intentionally set like that by Bang and Scooter.

The MV situation is simply because Jimin asked for a visual and was denied. If Jimin had never mentioned that, no pjm would be stuck on him not getting those 2 extra MVs. I’d just see it as something that I’d also like to see from him down the line. It was never about wanting them because we believed it was crucial for charting or exposure. If all seven members got the same amount of those 3 things, I’d have no qualms on that end. And the numbers made off that would just be left up to who has more interest and that can’t really be helped with how skewed it already is.

Common sense would dictate to any label or management that you’d push what has demand in the market that shows it, but Bang and Scooter are stupid men and Jimin isn’t who they want to push so they half ass everything surrounding him. We all know that already. So it’s not that pjms are failing to see the bigger picture, cause we’ve already come to that conclusion like you said. It just keeps gets rehashed because everytime a member has a comeback and gets something Jimin didn’t get for FACE/LC it just irritates all over again. Can’t really fault us for being annoyed in retrospect. But again, we’ll see how they go about PJM2 because for the other members obviously things have went better for them promo wise and *hopefully* it’ll be the same for Jimin too.