Well, I've been using this account for +2 years (according to Tumblr's notification system), so I think it's a good time to introduce myself...
"I'm the weirdest person alive"... You'll see why:
I'm autistic. That alone makes me really weird. "Now everyone is autistic these days" "You just want to feel special"... I have the diagnosis since 2012, way before autism was a "trend" (I don't have a better term)... So FCK YOU!
I'm a Linux enthusiast. However, I won't impose Linux on ya, even less any particular software (seestemdee bad, ooboontoo bad, kaydee-e bad >:c /j)
I'm a math nerd. If you know math blogs, let me know (better if they are college-level math, and even better if they're high-level math [topology, real analysis, functional analysis or more advanced])
I study computer science. Anything about computers and programming makes my day :D (I'm also into theoretical Comp. Sci., things like automata theory, lambda calculi, category theory, etc.)
Yes, as an Arch user btw, I'm queer af. My labels are: quadrigender (four genders at the same time), gender fluid (5%), pangender (5%), trans woman, transfemme (85%), xenogender (5%, I know how to define it but don't know if it currenty exists [if not, I'm gonna coin it]), fictionkind (I have the "soul" of a fictional race, if you will, more on it later), bisexual, panromantic, polyamourous
My interests are kinda limited. I love Undertale, Minecraft, Terraria, TBoI, Spiderman I/ATSV, D&D, Pathfinder and WoD. On the later, I LOVE Mage the Ascension, and my fictionkind race is a Orphan Mage.
I'm kinda into philosophy. I suspect I might have AHDH (not autodiagnosing tho), so I find kinda hard to start reading ACTUAL philosophers (specially people like Hegel and Kant, who ABUSE of weird jargon), but I usually read Wikipedia articles about the topic (which, despite misconceptions, it's actually a reliable source)
I'm an anarchist. I read a few anarchist and marxist authors back at the day, and I'm starting to do actual praxis. I consider myself an "anarchist without labels", as I see all anarchist branches having their valid point but also falling into fallacies and biases (DISCLAIMER: I don't see any right-winger "anarchism" as actual anarchism. If you're "anarcho"-capitalist/monarquist/fascist [yes, those exist, apparently], GO FCK YOURSELF!!!
And despite all the previous items (except 1st and 5th), I'm highly spiritual. I believe in anything mystical, religious, esoteric or spiritual there might be out there... And I mean EVERYTHING... I have my way to make sense out of it.
I love lying to my landlord. “We’re currently looking at a comparable unit in the area at $[a hundred dollars less than our current rent]/month, so if your offer has any flexibility to come down on the rent, that would help us reach a decision about whether or not to renew our lease here” and the comparable unit exists only in my own beautiful mind
Actually, no! And since several people have replied asked for my script for negotiating lower rent, I’m gonna share that below, as well as the philosophy behind it. Full disclosure that I’m not a leasing office person or a realtor or god forbid, a landlord—I’m just someone who has been a renter for 10+ years across different states, and I know for a fact that I have saved myself thousands of dollars by successfully negotiating a lower monthly rent on almost every lease I’ve ever signed. (Also, I’ve only ever rented in the U.S., so this advice may not be as applicable elsewhere.)
Step 0: Know Thy Enemy
The key thing to understand about all residential landlords, whether they’re corporate conglomerates or Just Some Asshole, is that their asset—the property—is a Cinderella carriage that magically turns back into an expensive ass pumpkin of a liability any time it’s sitting empty. The property taxes, insurance, mortgage, HOA fees, and maintenance costs all still come due every month/quarter/year whether they have a tenant to cover it all and then some, or not.
Because of this, at the end of the day, their ultimate goal is to fill every unit at all times with someone who will reliably pay the rent on time and in full. And because everything else is secondary to that goal—and because with the exception of Just Some Asshole landlords, the person responding to your emails and writing up your lease paperwork is several degrees of separation removed from the shareholders who profit off your rent money—they’re almost always willing to negotiate with you. As long as it gets the liability converted into an asset faster or keeps the carriage from turning back into a pumpkin for longer, then in the long run, it’s actually in their best interest to give you a better price.
Step 1: Identify Your Leverage
If you understand how supply and demand works, you can figure out how much leverage you have pretty easily. High supply and low demand = you have more leverage, and vice versa. Do they have an “AVAILABLE NOW - MOVE IN TODAY” sandwich board on the sidewalk or a web banner that says “First month free”? Does their website and/or Apartments.com show a bunch of currently open listings? Do you already live there and know at least two families on your floor have moved out in the last several months with no one new moving in to replace them? These are all indications that they have more than one unit currently sitting empty, meaning higher supply and lower demand. No sandwich board and a website that just says “call for availability”? They might just suck at marketing, but more likely, supply is lower and demand is higher.
You have the least leverage if you’re a prospective tenant looking to move in somewhere that has a waitlist. They have no reason to offer you a discount if six other people are already in line to pay full price for apartments that aren’t even vacant yet (but you can still ask!). You also have no leverage to negotiate if you’ve already signed a lease and you’re in the middle of the lease period; you legally agreed to pay $X/month for Y months, so you’re stuck with that until the lease is up.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have the most leverage if you’re a current tenant who has always paid your rent on time and you’re being offered a renewal on your existing lease with higher rent than you're currently paying, especially if they already have some units that have been empty for a while. If you move out, not only is your unit going to sit vacant for at least part of a month, they’re also probably going to have to put in some work to “turn” the unit (repainting, professional cleaning, etc) to get it in move-in condition for the next tenant.
All of this means that if you move out, even if they can fleece you out of your security deposit and find a new tenant the very next month, it’s still gonna cost them at least a few thousand dollars to turn that pumpkin back into a carriage again. They’re probably willing to come down by $100-$200/month or so on the renewal offer rent if you ask, because they know it’ll actually save them money in the long run. Similar situation if you’re a prospective new tenant—if they can’t get you or anyone else to sign a lease and move in this month, that’s $[whatever the monthly rent is] down the drain, and they’ll never get it back. It’s a perishable item about to spoil.
Step 2: Get Their Opening Offer
This is the first number they’ll quote you for the rent—the sticker price that you’ve always just accepted as set in stone. The truth is, they’ve built some buffer into that number. There’s almost always some room for them to come down, and depending on your leverage, they will if you ask nicely. But for reasons that baffle me, most people don’t!
Step 3: Wait, Research, & Counter
Don’t reply to their initial offer right away—unless there’s a waitlist (in which case, you have little haggling power anyway), wait a few days. It makes them sweat a bit, and it shows you aren’t desperate. The person who is rushing to reply is not the one who has more leverage in the negotiation, and making them wait reminds them of that. In the meantime, use Apartments.com or Zillow to get an idea of what similar units in the same area are currently going for. Then you come up with your counteroffer.
As a general rule, anything more than about 20-25% below their opening offer (or below market rates) will probably just piss them off or make them take you less seriously. But when we’re talking about your monthly rent over the course of a year or two, even a 10% discount adds up to a lot of money!
When I negotiated our original lease for my current place, I also asked for and got a two year lease term instead of the standard one year. But whatever automated calendar event system they use to remind their leasing office staff when it’s time to send out renewal offers didn’t get the memo about that, so they mistakenly sent me a renewal offer the following year, meaning I got to see how much they would have jacked up the rent if they could’ve. For that second year of the lease alone, my negotiating saved us $3,000!
Step 4: BDE (Big Dick Emailing)
Here’s the tricky part. You need to write an email—always negotiate over email if you can, it’s too easy for a salesperson to bowl you over on the phone and anything they say that isn’t in writing means nothing—which simultaneously makes it sound like you would sign a lease with them in a heartbeat and like you are actively flirting with five other apartment complexes right now who all want you so bad it makes them look stupid, because you are just so sexy and fun and your credit score is eight inches flaccid. You need to make them believe you are both highly motivated and ready to sign on the dotted line and willing to just walk away from the table at any second, but if they could just come down a little bit on that number, you’d delete those other hoes’ numbers forever! Here’s the rough script I use every time:
“ Thank you for [your email/the tour/sending over the offer letter/etc]. I have had a chance to review and consider it. I think [name of apartment complex] would be the perfect fit for me, but I am also exploring and touring other options in the area, including a comparable unit nearby at $[a little below your counteroffer number]/month.
If we could come down to $[your counteroffer number]/month on the rent, I would be prepared to sign the lease today. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks! "
Step 6: You Win Either Way
Sometimes they really do just accept your counteroffer without question and send you over a revised lease to sign. (When this happens, I make a note for next time that my counteroffer was probably too high and I should’ve asked for more!) More often, they get approval from The Powers That Be and come back with a number that’s higher than your counteroffer but lower than their initial offer. Assuming I can afford it, I always accept this offer; you’ve achieved your goal of saving yourself money from sticker price, and they’re likely to lose patience if they have to keep going around and around with you. And sometimes (though only very rarely), they may come back and say the price is firm—in which case, guess what? You still didn’t lose anything by asking!
THIS!!! Exactly this. I didn’t mention it above because I just couldn’t fit it neatly anywhere, but once while negotiating a lease renewal, I got as far as receiving their counteroffer, which was basically “price firm :(”, but then life happened, so I forgot to respond and accept. The email sat in my inbox for a week. And then, completely unprompted, they magically replied again saying, “actually, nvm, how’s $[number that is lower than our opening offer] sound?”
To them, it looked like I was staring them down cold as ice like
I was literally just busy with other stuff! and they were sweating!!! BULLETS!!!
I hope this doesn't goes viral (in the sense of a TikTok w/+1M views with this post read aloud and some Minecraft Parkour at the background). Like seriously, if it does, landlords gonna notice it and it'll stop working anymore (or even worse, suing people who followed this advice on masse, including OP)
The only bad thing is whenever you google company's name, for some "unknown" reason (trying desperately to make a money printing machine and failing miserably time after time) it throws you an AI widget at you face to explain you the most basic stuff about that company (and failing at that, too)
i think if you showed minecraft or fortnite to a little medieval peasant boy he would probably start writing parodies of church hymns. it’s human nature
In Minecraft there are REAL animals that even the most deranged and insane medieval European person couldn't have imagined not even in their wildest dreams, like the llama or the axolotl.
So imagine a little medieval boy seeing one of those and going "NO SHIT, THIS IS FOR REAL?????"
[image ID: a cycle with “inaccessibility” at the top, leading to “disabled people unable to participate” leading to “disabled people not visible in public” leading to “disabled people seen as an outlier/rarity” leading to “‘so there’s little/no need to consider them’” leading back around to “inaccessibility” again. At the bottom it is labeled as the Inaccessibility Cycle. Behind the text is the symbol of a person in a wheelchair. End ID]
WHY THE F*CK DID I SEE THIS SH*T ON TUMBLR AND NOT ON @ DEPTHSOFWIKIPEDIA ON INSTAGRAM AS USUAL???????? SPECIALLY SINCE I ALMOST NEVER USE TUMBLR?????????????
I discovered something REALLY messed up about YT's algorithm. Maybe y'all already know abt this sh*t, but perhaps you don't really understand how F*CKED UP this is.
Start with a normal homepage feed, with a normal watched history. You can use your current, normal account for this.
Go delete your history. It's just a few clicks away. Literally.
If you go back to your homepage, all your recommendations will disappear and be replaced with a screen telling you to watch a video "to get you a feed you'll love"
Go search for a video. I really suggest to watch at least 5 minutes of a video about a topic you DON'T usually consume content about on YouTube. For example [*Rolls a d100*] [*Checks random table*] Vampire the Masquerade lore (I wanted to use that punchline for a some time lol).
Go back to your homepage. You'll see Vampire content, that's to be expected. But you'll also see your usual content, the one you used to consume before deleting the history.
How they could get back your content, if you explicitly deleted it? Did it actually get deleted?
But the REALLY f*cked up thing comes when you consider this fact: For most people, YouTube's homepage's feed is their main (and maybe only) source of dopamine and serotonin, AND IN TOP OF THAT, there's sadly a dopamine and serotonin addiction epidemic worldwide.
If that doesn't sound dystopian for you, the fact they're literally forcing tons of people to give away their data and privacy for that "juicy" dopamine their brains crave for, then you're not paying enough attention...
anyway if you hadn't heard the current administration is trying to entirely defund and dissolve the IMLS which provides libraries with funding, especially useful for rural libraries and very small systems that don't have access to private funding to keep them afloat. This will absolutely devastate many many libraries across the country.
If you want to learn more and find out how you can help, check out the ALA website here: https://www.ala.org/faq-executive-order-targeting-imls
This set of frequently asked questions is intended to help library workers, library advocates, and library users understand this Executive O
Here in Argentina, militia literally thought that SET THEORY, an (extremely) abstract mathematical field which its VERY basic was often taught in middle schools back in the day, was "COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA", and then they banned it from schools. That's crazy
one elf cigarette, husbanded carefully, can burn for 3 or 4 human generations. my boy your great grandpappy bummed this ciggie from the leaf-crowned prince of the splendid dales and it has burned on the mantle of our house ever since. on your 14th nameday, my son, you will puff it at last, and become a man
"dwarf meth" is actually a human misnomer, the substance so named is not a drug that is cooked but is actually a mineral that is mined pure from terrifically deep sedimentary rocks. dwarven geologists say that the veins were deposited at the world's beginning, when the dwarven god of craft and ingenuity spilled a whole batch of meth
I love the tags here, because most people I see online talking about Linux fall into one of two categories:
Literal N4z1s, whether they are open abt it or not (when they are not open they leave "clues" like subtle or almost subliminal N4z1 imagenery or "I'll donate USD$1.488" to this project")
Trans people, usually Arch or Gentoo users, and also usually waiting for or being currently on HRT
I know there are middle points out there. It's not always about you, Greg
