This is a really excellent deep dive into AI water use and how a lot of discourse around it is at best inaccurate and at worst deliberately misleading.
A great example of how it's misleading is the NYT story about an AI datacenter causing local wells to dry up for residents, but the story is actually about the construction causing water issues - the datacenter wasn't active, hadn't been finished, and the construction could easily have been for a shipping hub or housing development. Framing "construction company did not do appropriate groundwater surveys and fucked up the water table" as "data centers guzzling up water" is extremely disingenuous.
The substack article I linked is quite long and quite technical, and if you're not interested in reading it Hank Green has made a video discussing the fact that there is a lot more nuance in the discourse around AI water use than the most vocal Pro-AI or Anti-AI people are interested in examining.
There are a lot of people who say that all AI use is theft. I think that's uncomplicatedly wrong, that if you're using "theft" the way that the DMCA uses "theft" you're wrong. For more on that, I'd recommend reading the "Expanding Copyright is not the Answer" section of @mostlysignssomeportents's adapted speech on AI criticism or the EFF's comments to the copyright office RE generative AI. (You should actually read both, and you should read Doctorow's article in full because it is a criticism of AI that moves beyond thought terminating cliches to really explore why the AI industry as it stands is bullshit).
I do not, generally speaking, like AI. I think that most AI products create shit results. I think most AI art looks like shit and most AI writing is awful bordering on unreadable. I think that there's a massive bubble built up around AI and I think AI is absolutely fucking the personal computing market.
And, all that said, it is deeply annoying to dislike AI as much as I do and still feel the need to point out that the way that a lot of people criticize AI is shortsighted, reactionary, and just flat-out incorrect. There are real things wrong with how we are approaching AI as a society and how AI is being sold to users and forced into our environments, and "art theft" is not one of those things.
(And this is everyone's reminder that fair use is the best, I love it, and you are allowed to copy, distribute, remix, sell, and do whatever you want with my art and writing whenever you want to. Every time I write something like this people come into my inbox to say "I hope your art gets stolen" and I'm like "Bitch, me too, the fuck?")
Its one of those "ughhh I don't even like this thing, quit putting me in a position where I feel obliged to defend it on a technicality"
but like it does *matter* when you make incorrect vs correct arguments against a bad thing (because the incorrect arguments can get wielded against other stuff that is not bad)
And it does *matter* when you erase nuance from an issue (because again, good things and people can get caught in the collateral fallout)
also one issue I've seen frequently with people that both dont engage with ai and also argue against ai is talking points that go like "ai is so stupid because it's like xyz. why don't they make something actually useful that does abc?" and sometimes I have to speak up and be like... 'uh, they do already have ai that does abc. that is already a thing that ai does". bc, like, the cherry-picked examples of ai fuckups that go around the web are only ever gonna convey part of the thing. which is gonna make it harder to create cogent arguments about it's problems.
(as part of my job i have to interact with ai at least enough to know what things other people can/are doing with it so I can problem solve for that in advance; it's a whole annoying thing)
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Keep thinking about this Austin Walker post that now lives in my brain. It's a reply to people saying genAI can help creators 'develop concepts' and waste less time on research (x)
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ Fuck off and give me the ball . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁
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!!!
For anyone who hasn't seen them before, Hidden Search Operators are handy tricks you can use when you're either searching or filtering AO3.
summary: string is a generic way of explaining that you can search AO3 for a specific word that appears in a summary. You can do this from the search bar in the header, from the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced Search form, or from the Search Within Results box at the bottom of the filter menu.
Examples:
summary: Bruce
summary: "Bruce Banner"
summary: Bruce OR summary: Banner OR summary: Hulk
You need to put quotation marks around your search term if it is more than one word. The quotes make sure that the site searches for those two words together.
The other two operators listed work best in the Search Within Results box.
expected_number_of_chapters: 1 will return results where every fic has only 1 chapter currently posted.
You can use expected_number_of_chapters: -1 if you want results where every fic has more than 1 chapter currently posted.
otp:true will return results where there is only 1 relationship tag on the fic. If you want results where there are 2+ relationship tags (and no fics with only 1 relationship tag) then you can use otp:false
This page is so beautiful and honestly I hope it reaches and helps any new people that are just starting out on Ao3 because it's helping me and I’ve been using the site for 5+ years now
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"The Hobbit movies aren't accurate. The Hobbit's movies made the dwarves too hot"
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Shhhhhh.... shh
Look into my eyes right now and know I'm being so serious.
I. Don't. Care.
I don't care that it's basically Tolkien fan fiction. I'm under no delusion that it's accurate, I know the studio used the movies as a money grab insted of letting PJ do what he actually wanted. I KNOW. We *all* know.
I sacrificed myself to save you. I didn't plan to survive. I burnt all the bridges. I intended to break your heart with my death, but that would be all right, because I wouldn't be around to see you. I pretended that you'll mourn me for a while and move on. I convinced myself I was going down in the blaze of glory. That my deed was appreciated. That everything was going to be all right afterwards, and I didn't need to be there to see it.
But I survived. And now I have to look you in the eye. I have to pick up the pieces of the life I shattered and figure out how to put it back together. If it can be done at all.
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"Seeing that there were four open board seats but only two progressive candidates running, they organized a write-in campaign...It worked: Shipps was elected by a margin of just 67 votes, defeating a candidate who had tried to get the book Gender Queer banned from local schools."
It is so rare that a write-in campaign works, I am so impressed with the level on which these kids organized! I'm so proud!
