today I learned that in 2008, the city council of florence overturned dante’s sentence of execution if he returned from exile. yes, dante’s inferno dante, who died in 1321.
but the funniest part of this is not that they were debating the exile of a man who has been dead for over 500 years.
the funniest part is that the vote was 19-5. five people voted to uphold dante’s exile.
The objectively funniest part of this is actually that the city that holds his remains, Ravenna, refused to give his remains back. This was a ploy from florence to have his remains moved back for the tourist money and its been ongoing for a long time. Florence had a fake tomb built in the city to trick people into visiting, and have tried to force the return of the remains.
His actual caretakers have been very steadfast in keeping them hidden, moved, or generally out of reach to respect his choice in life to never, ever, ever return to florence, even when he was first offered the chance to return. This is at this point an almost millenium long feud that florence is really, really mad about losing
Iceland is fucking bizarre my name change made the news
Like just @ me at this point I’m literally the only person in iceland (and very possibly the world) who has the first name Lauf
(Article title reads “Lauf and Birningur in group of new names in the name register”)
No one lives here so now two of our biggest news outlets are vagueing about me lmao
Hmm you’re right. Correction: two of our biggest media outlets are talking about me specifically because they are obsessed with me
This morning I showed up to work and my boss was like “congratulations :))” and I was kinda confused so asked her on what and she said “your name, I heard about it on the radio”
So far I have counted two online articles and apparently the radio is also talking about my name change so I’ll keep you guys updated when I’m on national tv or something
With a little legwork we can make more people on Tumblr see this than the entire population of Iceland.
My roommate recently came home pale-faced, like he’d seen a ghost. More like witnessed a massacre. Mass-firings were just done at his company. His job, he’d been assured, was safe. All of his coworkers weren’t so safe, and he had to get texts and phone calls from his work-friends, people he’d worked alongside for years, people he‘d gone out to have drinks with, learn they were no longer employed. To say he had survivor’s guilt would not be hyperbole.
Was this because the company had fallen on hard times? The pandemic has been rough for a lot of industries. No, actually, the company had turned a very nice profit both last year and previous, even in such a troublesome market.
The problem was, you see, the company’s stock price hadn’t risen quite as high as had been projected. They’d made money, sure. Quite a lot of money, in fact. But too many people had projected, i.e., bet the company would do better.
How did the company offset this “loss”? Easy: fire people. Quickest and easiest way to pad the numbers.
No but you don’t understand stock had fallen a percentage point! There was no other way!
We see it all the time. Hugely successful companies reporting ‘record-breaking’ profits then fire huge segments of their workforce - the very people responsible for those record-breaking profits. Why? The money “saved” on personnel costs can boost the stocks even higher!
If your company is struggling, not turning a profit, losing money, people expect layoffs. But to work hard, be successful, your company churning along strong and healthy, and you still lose your job? For what? Because half a percentage point that was dictated by speculation, guessing, by gambling that things would go up or down a certain amount on a graph of rich-people feelings?
I wonder how next year’s speculations will be affected with the information that the company laid off a lot of the people responsible for last year’s profits? Probably not much because the workers are just the components at the company; it’s the leadership that drives the ship, that makes the successes.Those leaders whose bonuses are coincidentally decided by, among other things, the stock price.
Companies are no longer grounded in reality.
“Don’t learn about money, kids. Don’t learn about economics. I know cosmic horror usually focuses on how the biological or astronomical sciences will expose you to the terrible true face of god and you’ll go mad, clawing out your eyes as things that Cannot Exist destroy your life and kill you, but that’s stupid. Biology and Astronomy follow rules.”
“Economics is the tongue of devils and madness and it turns mortal men of moral character into alien monsters incapable of comprehending even the most basic of human connections.”
Hi this is what turned my “I’m sort of liberal but not really fighting about it” husband into an absolute raging leftist (which has been a very sexy evolution).
The company he’d worked at for six years got bought out. At the same time, he was being transferred to a new department. He had a bunch of assignments to start and his new computer had just arrived. He got pulled into a meeting. And bam, laid off. No reason why except the new CEO wanting to throw his weight around. They gave him a sexy severance package so they could keep getting their PPP loan. The layoffs had nothing to do with anything beyond the new CEO demonstrating what he could do.
Husband got a new job for a startup. Things were going okay. And then out of the blue, his entire department got laid off. No real reason; the company was raking it in. They just decided they didn’t need that department for now.
He’s got a good job now, but he doesn’t trust it. We both know it could be snatched away at any time, for no reason. This is why you act your wage and don’t expect anything from companies. Nothing matters to them but the rich getting richer.
id: first image is the tumblr halloween icon, which depicts a skeleton-like ghoul in a spooky red robe. the second image is the same ghoul, now photoshopped to look like they’re dabbing. end id
id: tags that read, “make her tpose.” end id.
On it boss
id: image of the same icon, now with the ghoul t-posing. end id.
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