Conophytum Wittebergense is an uncommon succulent belonging to South Africa. It belongs to the Mesembryanthemum family and is known for its small, globular shape and unique, pebble-like look. The plant has little white or pink flowers that flower in the summer.
me looking at the image: that's a creepy thing to paint on a bunch of rocks but you do you
me reading the caption: what the fuck holy shit what the fuck
I was there, tumblr. I was there thirty-odd years ago, when the nascent fandom came to blows. I was there when the Knights of the True Fiancee raised their banner, and were besieged. I survived the Shipping Wars, the Bashings, the character assassinations, the MST3King of bad fics and good alike.
Have we learned, after all this time? Can we live in peace? Or will the drumbeat carry us to war again?
Panel 1
Jonathan: It sounds—
Mina: —tenuous, I’ll grant you…
Jonathan: But still, it’s—
Mina: It certainly is!
Griffin: You two are infuriating. Out with it!
Panel 2
Mina: It’s worth investigating. Who were the people involved?
Panel 3
Jack: The professor was one Pierre Aronnax. He had joined an expedition to find—er—a dangerous sea creature.
Panel 4
Irene: The great sea monster! He said it was possibly a giant narwhal. Oh, I remember that!
Panel 5
Quincey: I’d say that’s more than tenuous, then.
Panel 6
Irene: Quite! I’ll take Godfrey with me to interview him; he’ll be delighted to meet him.
Panel 7
Mina: That settles it! You can follow this lead while the rest of us keep at it here.
Panel 1
Irene: Now that you’re back in the land of the waking, Mr. Griffin, have you found anything of use?
Griffin (offscreen): In all this silly nonsense? Hardly!
Panel 2
Griffin: Just look at this! “Pirate Attack Averted By Punctual Crocodile” —Ridiculous!
Panel 3
Jonathan: Mr. Griffin, I wish you would take this seriously—
Griffin: It’s not that. I’m simply bored to death of scrounging through these inane gossip rags. When's lunch? I can’t work on an empty stomach!
Panel 4
Mina: Breakfast was hardly two hours ago. Rest assured, we’ve no plans to starve you.
Panel 5
Griffin: Grumble
Panel 6
Jack: I believe I've found something!
Arthur: Oh, good show, Jack!
Panel 7
Jack: It may be nothing, but, ah…It’s an odd case from a few years back. A French professor and two others were found after more than half a year lost at sea.
Quincey: Say, wasn’t there another string of attacks a few years back? That’d set this around the same time.
The most mind-blowing moment, not only for De La Mata but the scientists too, came when they managed to actually record the sounds that she heard in her ears – which now appear as ‘Left Ear’ and ‘Right Ear’ which begin sides A and B on the album – and in doing so opened up questions about the nature of tinnitus itself. “The NHS definition is that it’s a phantom sound that your brain is creating, that it isn’t something ‘real’, so you should try to ignore it.” By having De La Mata place her ear into an anechoic chamber, with an ultra-sensitive microphone perched in her ear canal, they were able to provide significant evidence to the contrary. “After the first recording of it, it was ‘There’s no way, this isn’t possible.’” They tried again with her breath held, and again with her tensing her ears, and again with other members of staff, but each time it became apparent that yes, the noises De La Mata hears are seemingly something physical.
So I decided to look further into this story. I've been lamenting my rent recently-- in 2019, it was a hefty 1,900. Now, in 2024, it's 2,850.
This complex prided itself on safety. My car was broken into, and my neighbor's car was stolen. In the garage-- which has no security cameras-- several other, more severe crimes have occurred.
My apartment had roaches for eight months because another tenant left their home in disarray. Nests upon nests of roaches.
Our air-conditioner, which is not optional where I live, has broken down 15 times in the past two years. The emergency maintenance number has never worked, and I recently learned-- after going to visit the managers myself-- that it simply hasn't been working for a year.
Oh, and they told us they can't replace the fridge filters anymore. It's just... oh, perish the thought, too expensive.
And last time we went to re-sign our lease, when I spotted a listing from our building managers-- our exact unit plan, our exact floor-- for 2,315, I took screenshot. Why, I thought, would us long-time tenants be asked to pay 2,850 when new renters were looking at 2,315?
Eleven days later when I went to ask them about it, the listing had mysteriously disappeared. "Oh, when was it that price? It wasn't listed at that price. Oh, that screenshot's from... a few days ago. The market's volatile." They told me. Really? $600 in 11 days volatile?
If we adjust what I was originally paying for cumulative inflation, I should be paying 2,415 a month. It just didn't make sense! But moving was expensive, and the other options in our area were expensive too.
So you can imagine that when I looked into this story and learned the fucking company that the FBI is investigating is the same company that manages my building, I SCREAMED.
So, check this shit out. This is absolutely fucked beyond imagining, and almost certainly worse than you even thought, and they wrote this shit down:
Over the last four years, rents have skyrocketed by an average of over 30% nationwide and are a major factor in the overall inflation rate.
Last month, the FBI reportedly conducted an unannounced raid of Cortland Management, a major corporate landlord based in Atlanta. The surprise search appears to be part of a Department of Justice criminal investigation, first reported by Politico in March, into an alleged scheme among many corporate landlords to artificially increase rents through collusion.
...
According to the lawsuit filed by the State of Arizona in February, landlords that are supposed to be in competition with each other "outsource daily pricing and ongoing revenue oversight" to RealPage. The company allegedly facilitates and encourages landlords to work cooperatively to increase rents. [In other words, to illegally collude.] An e-book produced by RealPage says that the company allows corporate landlords who are “technically competitors” to "work together . . . to make us all more successful in our pricing." RealPage bragged that landlords that use its software “continually outpace the market in good times and bad.” In other words, RealPage helps landlords charge higher rates than they would in a truly competitive market.
...
RealPage's former CEO revealed that participating landlords share "occupancy rates, rents charged for each unit and each floorplan, lease terms, amenities, move-in dates, and move-out dates." After feeding in this highly-detailed information that would normally be kept proprietary, "landlords agree to outsource their pricing authority to RealPage—rather than competing with one another on price." RealPage even has a feature called "auto-pilot" that lets the software set rent prices without any human approval or intervention.
...
...RealPage employs "pricing advisors" who "meet with landlords to ensure that properties are implementing RealPage’s set rates." This is described by Arizona as "policing the conspiracy to make sure no one cheats by lowering prices and trying to gain market share." RealPage training materials, cited in the DC lawsuit, advise that landlords "should be compliant" with the software's pricing recommendations. The Arizona lawsuit claims that landlords "agree that if they fail to consistently implement RealPage’s set rates, their contract with RealPage will be terminated." Jeffrey Roper, who created the RealPage algorithm, explained that if "you have idiots undervaluing, it costs the whole system."
...
According to the plaintiffs, landlords using RealPage "account for over 53% of the multifamily rental market in the Atlanta Submarket."
Did you catch all of that? These landlords, who control over fifty percent of the multifamily rental market in the Atlanta Metro area, turned over a bunch of privileged information to a company which promises them greater profits. How does it do that? Well, RealPage literally requires them to collude with each other to fix prices. @artsekey saw the effects of that in real time: rents jumping $600 in a couple of days, and why? Well, in the words of Amber Ruffin, which I will take totally out of context:
So yeah, it's a fucking cartel. Literally, this is "an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition." That is the literal definition of a fucking cartel, and this absolutely meets that definition.
They wrote it down! They fucking WROTE IT DOWN! They're so confident that they put it in their fucking training materials.
(LegalEagle used that clip in a video about Trump so that line has been stuck in my head all fucking day, but SERIOUSLY Y'ALL.)
I cannot stand the parodies of modern major general, they're overdone and simply not as good as the original. They've done them about everything, whatever topic, big or small.
And when i notice one of them my eyes will always start to roll.
The diction's always slurry when they rush the complicated words, and adding many fricatives will turn it so cacophonous. The slanted rhymes are silly and they keep just making more and more, please someone stop the parodies of modern major general.
The scanning of the lyrics in the meter is unbearable, they emphazise the syllables in ways that are untenable, in short in matters musical, prosodic and ephemeral, i cannot stand the parodies of modern major general!
Staff have done their best to hide this post, OP's blog has been deleted to hide it. Spread this post as much as you can (ideally through screenshots to avoid it being nuked)
If we believe in the migration of the soul, we have to accept that if we were musicians, we will remain musicians even if we are reborn with four legs.
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