From the Nashville Zooâs fb page! Hereâs the petition, please please please take a moment to add your name (even if youâre not from Nashville!). If you are from Tennessee, contact your representatives and make it clear that the people do not want this data center. This is an AZA accredited zoo which is home to several species of critically endangered animals, we NEED to protect it. Make your voice heard!
Those stories also inspired Leftists to attack, and burn down Catholic churches, and the media refused to tell the nation about it, or the later retraction about bodies being found.
whatâs important to note and missing from the âheadlineâ tweet is that they simultaneously constructed additional good public transit to the public transit already in the city (bus rapid transit, train stations). Just removing highway alone isnât going to make traffic better, the bigger part of the story is that they improved public transportation. And the current mayor wants to do more - cyclist lanes and reinstate a tram system
I've said this before and I'll say it again - over 90% of the uses of "white woman" as an adjective you see on this website are just white people in majority-white communities in majority-white countries who have found a way of saying "woman (derogatory)" that nobody will yell at them about
The people who offload all this thought. Sone of them are engineers. Lawyers. Safety inspectors. People in charge of logistics and supply chains. Entire jobs are being replaced by glorified autocomplete which doesn't have a concept of 'truth.'
We're going to start seeing the shit bubbling to the surface soon if this doesn't change. Entire industries could fail.
I love lying to my landlord. âWeâre 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 hereâ 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, Iâm gonna share that below, as well as the philosophy behind it. Full disclosure that Iâm not a leasing office person or a realtor or god forbid, a landlordâIâm 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 Iâve ever signed. (Also, Iâve 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 theyâre corporate conglomerates or Just Some Asshole, is that their assetâthe propertyâis a Cinderella carriage that magically turns back into an expensive ass pumpkin of a liability any time itâs 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.Â
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 goalâand 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 moneyâtheyâre 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, itâs actually in their best interest to give you a better price.Â
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 âAVAILABLE NOW - MOVE IN TODAYâ sandwich board on the sidewalk or a web banner that says âFirst month freeâ? 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 âcall for availabilityâ? They might just suck at marketing, but more likely, supply is lower and demand is higher.Â
You have the least leverage if youâre 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 arenât even vacant yet (but you can still ask!). You also have no leverage to negotiate if youâve already signed a lease and youâre in the middle of the lease period; you legally agreed to pay $X/month for Y months, so youâre stuck with that until the lease is up.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have the most leverage if youâre a current tenant who has always paid your rent on time and youâre 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, theyâre also probably going to have to put in some work to âturnâ 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, itâs still gonna cost them at least a few thousand dollars to turn that pumpkin back into a carriage again. Theyâre probably willing to come down by $100-$200/month or so on the renewal offer rent if you ask, because they know itâll actually save them money in the long run. Similar situation if youâre a prospective new tenantâif they canât get you or anyone else to sign a lease and move in this month, thatâs $[whatever the monthly rent is] down the drain, and theyâll never get it back. Itâs a perishable item about to spoil.Â
Step 2: Get Their Opening Offer
This is the first number theyâll quote you for the rentâthe sticker price that youâve always just accepted as set in stone. The truth is, theyâve built some buffer into that number. Thereâs 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 donât!
Step 3: Wait, Research, & Counter
Donât reply to their initial offer right awayâunless thereâs 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 arenât 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 weâre 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 itâs time to send out renewal offers didnât 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 couldâve. For that second year of the lease alone, my negotiating saved us $3,000!Â
Step 4: BDE (Big Dick Emailing)Â
Hereâs the tricky part. You need to write an emailâalways negotiate over email if you can, itâs too easy for a salesperson to bowl you over on the phone and anything they say that isnât in writing means nothingâwhich 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, youâd delete those other hoesâ numbers forever! Hereâs the rough script I use every time:
â 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 shouldâve asked for more!) More often, they get approval from The Powers That Be and come back with a number thatâs higher than your counteroffer but lower than their initial offer. Assuming I can afford it, I always accept this offer; youâve achieved your goal of saving yourself money from sticker price, and theyâre 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 firmâin which case, guess what? You still didnât lose anything by asking!
THIS!!! Exactly this. I didnât mention it above because I just couldnât fit it neatly anywhere, but once while negotiating a lease renewal, I got as far as receiving their counteroffer, which was basically âprice firm :(â, 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, âactually, nvm, howâs $[number that is lower than our opening offer] sound?â
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!!!
Dudes healthcare is so fake. My ADHD meds are $940 without insurance. But they gave me a website of "coupons" which straight up looks like a scam website, and I got it today for $60! Just a coupon from a random website and it was $900 cheaper. America, I am confusion!! America explain!!
as a pharmacy technician i can share with you some websites that give you those "coupons" for your meds!
goodrx is the most well known one, but if i'm trying to find the cheapest price for a patient i compare it to scriptcycle, and use whichever is offering the best price. you just type in the medication (PLEASE make sure you're getting the right drug, dosage, and quantity) and your zip code and they will spit out some offers for you
some pharmacies may have their own discount card to compare to as well!
if you are getting a name brand medication, you can also look at the manufacturer's website to see if they offer any evouchers for you to use too
One thing Iâve become a real extremist about is little girlâs clothing and hair styles because if your kid canât get her hair wet, hang upside down, climb over a fence or run full out in the outfit/hair she is currently wearing then why not? And the answer better be both extremely fucking good and describe something temporary.
Hope you don't mind a story that also made me extremist about this issue.
Took my friends daughter (2.5yrs) to the park. Dressed her in practical clothing that's ok to get stained, brought an extra change of clothing. She sat in the mud at the water bank and played with rocks and mud. A little girl came over, couldn't be more than 3yrs. She was looking longingly at my friend's daughter. She has her hair in a perfect style and she's wearing a pretty dress with white socks and dressy shoes. The parents say "Sweetie don't go into the mud, you'll get your dress dirty" and pull her away, while giving me a judgmental look as they see the kid in my charge covered in mud and throwing rocks into the water. It felt really weird, like we saw eachother as aliens with completely different ideas on how to raise children. When my friends daughter was done playing, changed her into clean clothing and went back home. She had a lot of fun at the park and a day full of nature and play. The other little girl kept her dress clean.
There's a Tumblr post about someone finding out that "girls" toddler clothes are more restrictive than "boys" toddler clothes to the point that it made it harder for them to crawl, at a stage where they were learning to crawl.
I made one about how my toddler child couldn't climb in girl's TODDLER PANTS.
We are not a house who cares much about gendering a baby's clothes. It's a BABY. It doesn't care. So we'd take the kid to yard sales and let them pick out whatever baby clothes caught their fancy and would fit. Some were 'boy' and some were 'girl'. Kiddo loved floral prints because they're a baby (yeah my kid has always picked their own clothes).
Anyway, my kid LOVED TO CLIMB. Sometimes.
It was weird. Sometimes they were all over the sofa and the playground equipment and MY LEGS and sometimes they just. Weren't. Couldn't figure out what was going on.
Until I caught them trying to climb on rhe sofa in one of their pretty flowered pants.
They COULDN'T LIFT THEIR LEGS PROPERLY. And gave up, and did something else.
So I tested this out and... Yeah. The kid COULDN'T climb in ANY of their girl pants. Any. Put them in boy clothes and suddenly the kid is on everything again.
We stopped buying girl pants completely until they were old enough to test them and my kid is a TEENAGER now and i still make them lift their legs individually and jump if it's a girl fit.
YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO MEAN TO DO IT.
Whoever designed these clothes literally did not care if the baby could MOVE. But only if girl.
Onesies from the boys section fit my youngest longer than ones from the girls section. Baby girl onesies typically had a lower cut neckline (all babies need fabric there to help absorb drool and prevent rashes), had narrower leg holes (babies are supposed to have rolls), and were cut for a more slim torso. On babies. Toddler sizes were no better. Girls shorts wouldn't cover the diaper between her legs and were short enough they were literally pointless. She wore her brothers' shorts mostly. Now we're into kids sizes and she can wear stuff from the boys section for months after she's outgrown the same size in girls clothes.
Don't even get me started on cropped everything for girls. My five year old doesn't need a cropped rash guard top in a bathing suit because she's five and the whole point is to prevent sunburn and not having to reapply sunscreen constantly. Which the cropped one does not do. Fucking ridiculous.
man the public defender discourse pisses me off so bad. yeah. yeah I do think that every single person deserves representation. yeah that includes people who *have* committed rape and murder and abuse. when I say every single person I mean every single person. if your idea of justice excludes one person it excludes everyone. next question
âso youâre saying youâd represent someone who has admitted to sexual assault?â iâm saying I have.
âso youâre saying youâd represent someone who has admitted to domestic violence?â iâm saying i have.
"so youâre saying youâd represent someone who has admitted to child abuse?" i'm saying i have.
and i am saying i have given each and every one of those clients the same level of professionalism, effort, and zealous advocacy i have given my clients who are victims of the same. that is how due process works, and every person is guaranteed it.
i have nothing but respect and admiration for my colleagues in the public interest sector who represent those who have committed and/or been accused any and all crimes, no matter how "morally reprehensible" others may find them.
public defenders are among the best, brightest, and most selfless attorneys out there. they are on the front lines of combating the carceral state and protecting the rights of every day people. get it straight in your heads. thanks.
Being a public defender is one of the most essential and under-recognized jobs someone can do to help maintain our democracy. Fuck absolutely anyone and everyone who goes after them. If youâre against public defenders you are fighting for fascism. Thereâs nothing more to say on the matter.
Pretty much anytime people are trying to smear an ex-lawyer politician by saying "they represented murderers/pedophiles/whatever," what they really mean is "they were a public defender and made sure the system treated everyone fairly, which is the only way a judicial system can ever actually dispense justice." Sounds like someone we need more of in government.
Depriving the guilty of the best representation they can have is depriving the innocent of that, too, because THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE TRIAL and we're not assuming people are guilty. Even people who confessed, no, because sometimes people give false confessions.
Ir doesn't matter, the justice system is adversarial and we shouldn't presume guilt.
You could be falsely accused of a terrible crime. Would you not want robust legal representation? Even if you didnât have the means to pay for a lawyer yourself?
Once more, courts donât stop at the district level. Thereâs the two levels of appellate courts above them. And the federal Supreme Court if it ends up being a constitutional issue. Cases donât always end at the guilty verdict.
The most common appeal is âineffective assistance of counselâ (IAOC). IAOC is when your attorney did such a bad job defending you that your trial was constitutionally unfair. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).
If a defendant wins an IAOC appeal, they get a new trial.
Usually, though, they still have to prove that they might have been found not-guilty if their attorney hadnât screwed up (in legal speak, we say the attorney created prejudice against their own client). However, if the attorney screws up badly enough, it doesnât matter how obvious the guilt is, they still get a new trial.
And now youâve got an even longer time since the original crime and witnesses who might not want to testify again or are unavailable for other reasons or are dead. It is harder to prove guilt at a second trial because of that and the new defense attorney now knows all the weaknesses of the stateâs case and can exploit them.
Do you know what prevents successful IAOC claims? Good public defenders.
If you are a minor, do not post images of yourself or friends online.
If you want to share photos with friends, make a whatsapp or discord group. Create closed chats with friends from clubs and extracurricular activities that require passwords to join.
DO NOT EVER POST YOUR FACE ON X.
Do not ever use ANY text to speech/ voice chatting feature on ANY ai platform.
Many of you may have already heard about the disgusting shit happening with grok. But I don't think most people are aware of how awful it truly is.
Please understand, if ai has ever gotten access to audio files of your voice, it can and may generate random content that sounds like you speaking. Your voice is automatically added to Open Ai's source material. These files can be used to ransom unsuspecting people connected to you and your family. They can be used for scams or get you fired from your job. Vengeful exes can ruin your life.
EDIT: Ai can use pretty much any :)) audio file of your voice. Make passwords with your friends and family, ESPECIALLY your older parents and relatives. If someone calls your mom claiming to be you asking for $1000, make sure your mom knows the password "banana" or whatever. You get the idea. Welcome to the new world, kids.
If ai has ever gotten access to images of your face, it can not only identify you, âŹď¸
but also generate explicit and ILLEGAL content of you doing anything. Yes, anything. Anything. Anything including those really bad things. Anything including things with animals.
ANY THING
I am genuinely so terrified for this generation of children. Guys. It's getting really bad.
I grew up on the unregulated internet. I saw beheadings on live leak and watched 2 girls 1 cup when I was 11. The internet has always been a scary and fucked up place, especially for kids.
But never before has it been this fucking dangerous. Never before has it been so EASY to make explicit content of anyone. Never have we been able to identify young children so quickly. We should all be terrified, we should be in hysterics guys. I know this is going to sound over dramatic, but this is legitimately one of the most evil things we have ever created. We as a species are achieving new historical peaks of depravity. We are not prepared to deal with this. This is a brand new era, and things are about to get really fucking confusing and extremely fucking scary.
I've seen people saying that grok is only being used on adult sex workers already showing off, and that is severely incorrect.
Any sex worker who is playing around with the "grok remove my pants đ" feature is further enabling ai and degenerate men to do these things to unconsenting women and children. Even explicit images made consensually with ai train the algorithm to continue doing this better. The people "just having fun" are also complicit in and accessories to these crimes.
I watched in real time last night, a man posting a picture of his own daughter, asking for her school uniform to be removed. I saw this on the official grok account in the replies, plain as day.
"@grok, remove my daughter's underwear and make the girl behind her piss herself"
Seriously.
That man generated 7 images of that little girl (no older than 12yrs old) in 10 minutes. And then after that? The account was gone.
Someone generated CP on grok and got away with it easily. Truly let that shit sink in. Imagine my panic seeing 7 explicit images of a young girl pop up and then disappear.
I saw multiple examples of this happening in real time. I even messaged a guy threatening legal action (I know I couldn't actually do anything but I at least wanted to scare him ykwim?). And of course, the coward deletes his account. There is absolutely no way to hold these monsters accountable and Elon knows that.
Understand that right now, I can go and find any image of you online, go to twitter, and generate an image of you assaulting a dog.
I can generate images of you claiming to be a nazi.
I can generate images of you abusing children.
I can send these images to your employer, your school, your friends, your mother, your daughter. I can do these things very very easily. It would take me no more than 20 minutes. I wouldn't even have to pay for it.
Protect yourself, protect your peers, and stay the fuck away from ai.
Doctors Can Now Save Very Premature Babies. Most Hospitals Donât Try.
From the Wall Street Journal
After her water broke early, doctors told Fatima Goines to prepare for her newbornâs death.
Goines was 22 weeks into her pregnancy, just past the halfway mark. Doctors at Methodist Hospital in suburban Minneapolis said they couldnât save such a premature baby and that no hospital could. They told her that once the baby girl was born, Goines could hold her until the infant died.
Goines didnât want to give up. She checked herself out of Methodist Hospital and, on the recommendation of a fellow mom on Facebook, went to a birthing center connected to Childrenâs Minnesota hospital, 7 miles away from Methodist. After Goines gave birth, doctors there immediately intubated the baby to help her breathe and placed her in an incubator.
MeâLonii is now a healthy 4-year-old, and has surpassed all the developmental milestones for her age. âSheâs doing wonderfully well,â said Dr. Thomas George, who directs the Childrenâs Minnesota neonatal intensive care unit.
How many babies have died because doctors donât try?
If you or someone you know is pregnant and likely to give birth prematurely, check the policies of your local hospitals. This map, compiled by the parents of 21-22 week babies that survived, can give you a starting point with hospitals that have been willing to save these tiny babies.
"Celebrities should just shut up and stick to singing/acting/whatever they're famous for."
No, I don't agree with that actually. They have as much right to freely express their opinions as anyone else. They're not dancing monkeys who exist solely for our entertainment.
However, their fame and popularity doesn't automatically mean they know what the fuck they're talking about on any given topic, either.
real talk i have become a problem recently. the hospital wanted my fingerprint and i said no. the receptionist was like: but its such a convenient way to check in! and i said ok i dont want you to have my biometric data. and she was so baffled. i said, can you not check me in using an id card?
well of course but dont you want to provide your biometric data for your convenience?
On this subject, it's always seemed perverse to me that in most places it is perfectly legal for advertisers to deliberately draw drivers' attention away from the road. We rightly ban tons of stuff that has that effect accidentally!
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