siderea | Entries tagged with patreon

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1833954.html

The internet is full of people enraged by the US CDC's reduction – and all but elimination – of isolation guidelines for COVID, pointing out that the CDC's new guidelines seem to be more about what is good for "the economy" – which is to say, good for business interests – than what is good for the health of the people.

I don't think anyone's wrong to be enraged. Nothing that I am about to say is meant to make anyone feel better about the CDC's decision. I do not explain this as any kind of excuse.

There is a sense in which the CDC's decision is right. Not good, mind you, but correct: it brings their guidance back into alignment with our larger society's beliefs about the value of human life and health.

( Ours has never been a society that has particularly highly valued the health and well-being of the people of it... Read more [2,460 words] )

This post brought to you by the 201 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1832343.html

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Protecting yourself from Covid requires understanding Covid correctly. One of the things that you should understand about Covid, and any infectious illness, is the dose-response relationship.

That's the fancy highfalutin' medical way of talking about a very simple idea you already have and use all the time: the bigger a dose of something you get, the stronger its effect on you.

This is usually true of medicines, of course, but it's also true of poisons. Consider lead poisoning, for example. Medical science tells us no amount of lead in the bloodstream is safe. But, as you're probably already aware, even so, having more lead in your blood is worse than having less. Somebody who has only 5 µg/dL of lead in their bloodstream is definitely lead poisoned, but they're in much better shape than somebody who has 500 µg/dL.

It turns out viruses and other infectious microbes are like poisons. Research strongly suggests viruses also have a dose-response relationship: generally speaking, the more of the virus you have inside of you, the worse your symptoms are and the greater the threat to your health.

( When you think about it, that's not really a surprise, is it? [Read more, 4,560 Words] )

This post brought to you by the 199 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

There's going to be no Siderea Posts for December, sorry. I've been heads down grinding for the last two weeks on a do-or-die technical project with a hard deadline of today. It got done, I did not die, but it was close. I am definitely not planning on doing any writing. I am going to celebrate my IT triumph with fish and NYE kisses with my sweetie.

(Many thanks to the various people who helped me over on Mastodon storting out the migration of Siderea's Island of Obsolete Technologies, most especially

dsrtao and

hakamadare and various others I will have to look up to name.)

Edit: I posted this from the new server and it worked, yay!

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1829989.html

This was a thread I originally declaimed over on Mastodon, to the lords and ladies of the Fediverse, of what is past, or passing, or to come.

So that's the original audience. You, loyal readers, may also find it interesting.

It has been lightly edited, structured, and translated from the original plain text into HTML.

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There are two problems that are coming for Mastodon of which apparently an awful lot of people are unaware. These problems are coming for Mastodon not because of anything specific to Mastodon: they come to all growing social media platforms. But for some reason most people haven't noticed them, per se.

The first problem is that scale has social effects. Most technical people know that scale has technological effects. Same thing's true on the social side, too.

For instance, consider the questions "How likely, statistically speaking, are you to run into your boss on this social media platform?" and "How likely, statistically speaking, are you to run into your mother on the social media platform?" While obviously there is wide individual variation based on personal circumstances, in general the answer to those questions is going to be a function of how widespread adoption is in one's communities.

Thing is, people behave differently on a social media platform when they think they might run into their boss there. People behave differently when they think they might run into their mother.

And it's not just bosses and mothers, right? I just use those as obvious examples that have a lot of emotional charge. People also behave differently depending on whether or not they think their next-door neighbors will be there (q.v. Nextdoor.com).

How people behave on a social media platform turns out to be a function of whom they expect to run into – and whom they actually run into! – on that social media platform. And that turns out to be a function of how penetrant adoption is in their communities.

And a problem here is that so many assume that the behavior of users of a given social media platform is wholly attributable to the features and affordances of that social media platform!

( It's very easy to mistake what are effects of being a niche or up-and-coming platform for something the platform is getting right in its design.... Read more [7,670 words] )

This post brought to you by the 199 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

(At least only figuratively this time, AFAIK.)

In no particular order:

1) I just found a pretty serious security problem / bug at Patreon.

2) My email is down because my hosting company apparently just sucks.

Expect me when you see me.

P.S. ~~Anybody have an opinion about Liquid Web especially their Managed VPS service? I'm thinking about moving there.~~ nvmd, Reddit says they're trash. Now entertaining KnownHost.

Also open to other Managed VPS hosting recommendations. I'm looking for Managed with a capital M: I want someone other than me to keep this thing up to date and running. I pay money. I need a reasonable SLA and a bus factor of at least three, so it's not a job for a friend running a box in his basement.

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1828323.html

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I have been hearing since the day it happened that Hamas' massacre of Israeli civilians was Israel's 9/11. God, I hope not. I mean, yes, probably. But speaking as an American, I sincerely hope nobody in Israel is looking at how America responded to 9/11 and going, "Ah, yes, that was a great idea." Obviously it worked out astonishingly terribly for the people of the countries – plural! – we invaded, but it didn't work out so hot for us Americans either.

( Read more [4,970 words] )

This post brought to you by the 197 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Hey, Patrons! Remember how I said Patreon was opting patrons into a feature you might very much not want to be opted into? And perhaps you went and turned this thing off before it went live?

Someone over on the Mioscene reports that they were quite certain that they turned it off for themselves, and now that Patreon has released some big new update, they discovered that they had been re-opted in.

If you turned that feature off, you might want to go check and make sure that it is still off. (And if you turned it off but discover it turned back on again, come back and comment here to let us know, okay?)

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1824441.html

Another post that started as a rant on Mastodon. This has been adapted and expanded further.

It is incredibly frustrating that the only thing more stupid than Patreon is all the alleged Patreon substitutes that clearly don't even understand what Patreon does.

Pro tip: Patreon has no meaningful competitors, and also it sucks, so there's a huge opportunity for somebody to kick sand in its face and take its lunch money. But to do that you would have to understand what actually Patreon does that is worth it to creators to allow Patreon to take 5% of their proceeds (and then pass on to them a second 5% in payment processing fees).

Because I want there to be Patreon competitors, I will explain what Patreon actually does, so if somebody would like to actually compete with Patreon they will know what they have to actually accomplish.

( Brace yourself. Some of this is a little complicated to explain. (Read more [5,960 words]) )

This post brought to you by the 159 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

(h/t @hugh@ausglam.space)

Patrons!

You probably just got an email – or you may be about to get an email – from Patreon with the bland subject "Updates to Patreon's Privacy Policy" that you might, therefore, be inclined to ignore. Don't. It explains you are going to be opted into a new "feature" which you might reasonably find objectionable in two weeks time:

We just announced some exciting community features that aim to transform how fans connect among the communities that matter to them most. As part of this, we're introducing new member profiles that are visible to fellow community members on Patreon and will help you show off your unique fandom.

To prepare for these changes, we're making updates to Patreon's Privacy Policy, effective October 4, 2023.

Further explanation about what exact information will be exposed to your fellow Patreon users and, crucially, how to turn that feature off are available at https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18591059681805

To quote @thatandromeda@ohai.social

oooh, people who took a look at venmo's early mistakes with trying to make a payment processor into a social network and thought, what a great idea

Also, I would like to add that in addition to the obvious privacy obnoxiousness of Patreon doing this effectively retroactively to anyone who has ever commented ever on Patreon, this is yet another example of Patreon obnoxiously competing with me as a creator who has her own independent community space for her readers – this one, here on Dreamwidth.

Patreon relentlessly pushes creators to move more and more of their assets and their resources onto Patreon servers, which Patreon controls and the creator does not, and from which the creator cannot extract that data ever again. Patreon does not give us creators any way to download conversations or comments from Patreon, nor migrate them to another platform. Patreon would very much prefer that my only way to reach my patrons was through Patreon, and that me and my patrons do all of our communication through Patreon, so that basically Patreon can hold my relationship to my patrons hostage, to ensure that I do not leave for an alternative crowdfunding platform.

(As a side note, I would much prefer Patreon compete for the loyalty of creators like me by offering things other platforms don't offer, but Patreon seems to be determined to regress to the mean and abandon all of the things that made it unique and thus uniquely valuable, and make itself indistinguishable from its competition.)

This is one of many compelling reasons that I very much prefer NOT to receive comments on my posts over on Patreon or DMs through Patreon.

I mean, another one of the compelling reasons is that Patreon does not reliably get me email notifications of comments or DMs, so if you try to communicate to me over there, gods only know if I will ever find out about it.

And now we have the new compelling reason that Patreon will randomly do things like turn on features that make public to third parties personal information about you that hadn't previously been public, linked to historical comments that you've made in the past on things that I (and other creators you patronize) have posted.

Yeah, I recommend that you just don't comment on my posts over on Patreon. It's better for us both if you don't. It's clearly – now, with hindsight – a bad idea and has unanticipated privacy risks, for you. And, personally, for me, I prefer to be communicated with via Dreamwidth, the platform I've chosen, which doesn't up and do dumb disruptive things to the users, which has the features I prefer (including the ability to download and backup comments), and where I get reliable notifications. Works great. Be sure to turn on email notifications if you do comment or DM here, so you get notified of my response if/when I reply.

Perhaps ironically, Dreamwidth is a social platform already, and does have profiles, so if you do comment here with a Dreamwidth account, readers, including anonymous ones, can click on your username or icon and be taken back to your own journal and your own profile and see what's there. So roleplay accordingly. (Feel free to use a burner account.)

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1821984.html

This was originally posted to Mastodon here. Slight changes have been made and further commentary added.

This is a true story.

In 2014, I happened to be on site at a software development company, where I wound up being a proverbial fly on the wall during a notable conversation.

I was being shown around by the head of technical documentation, and had just been introduced to the head of engineering. Maybe he was a VP, I don't recall. Anyways, he decided that was the occasion, with me, random contractor standing in front of him, to engage the head of technical documentation in a conversation about how there might be layoffs coming, and he was of the opinion that they should probably lay off his division's tech writers, and make the software developers write their own documentation, to save money.

The head of technical documentation was, of course, flabbergasted and appalled, but substantially outranked, and she had to be diplomatic in her response, tying her hands – and her tongue. Also she was caught somewhat by surprise by this fascinating proposal.

Unbeknownst to me, while this conversation was happening and I was supposed to be being onboarded, my contract was in the process of falling through, because the disorganization of this organization was so high, the parties who had extended me the offer were unaware the organization had put a stop order on retaining new contractors.

And to this day I lament that I did not know that fact, because I was being on my best behavior, and in retrospect I really wish I hadn't been. ( Because what I was biting my tongue rather than say was...[5,020 words] )

This post brought to you by the 160 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

My next Siderea post manifested as a thread over on Mastodon. I'll be tidying it up and posting it here in the next little while, but if you're eager to see it early, you can catch it there now.

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1819759.html

Over on Mastodon, I had made the comment "CSS will always be hamstrung by HTML's toxic content/appearance paradigm", to which someone else reasonably enough asked me,

What do you mean by "toxic content/appearance paradigm"? Do you think the separation of content from appearance is a bad idea, or that HTML/CSS doesn't do it well, or something else?

I suspect he never expected quite this much answer. I start with a single HTML tag and end with the downfall of civilization.

Not joking.

What follows is my reply, edited and a bit further developed.

Several things:

1) To a first approximation, I think the separation of content from appearance is a fine idea.

2) Which is to say, to a second approximation, I think it's terrible: I have an inchoate intuition that content vs appearance is a bad paradigm because it is an attempt to shoehorn a triad into a false dichotomy, and the real correct solution is separation of content vs appearance vs a third thing, maybe "functionality".

3) But that aside, and for the moment CSS aside as well, HTML's separation of content and appearance is catastrophically bad. It is predicated on fundamentally mistaken ideas as to what is content and what is not.

I have one particular favorite hobby horse example of this, which really captures how apparently trivial errors can have far-reaching consequences.

That example is the Ordered List (<ol>).

( Read more... [2,670 Words] )

This post brought to you by the 161 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1817931.html

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The topic of professional ethics in software development is circulating on social media again, this time precipitated by AI.

As a psychotherapist, I am subject to professional ethics; in my long ago training in engineering, I also brushed up against the professional ethics of engineering. Furthermore, I've been taking an interest in comparative professional ethics for some time.

I think that the field of software development having professional ethics is an excellent idea. I am strongly in favor. But this present discussion, like all previous iterations, reveals that most people have a grave misunderstanding of how professional ethics work, or what they even really are. Professional ethics don't work the way most people think they do. Especially the way most people who work in software think they do.

( The first thing to understand is that professional and personal ethics are very different things. (Read more [5,530 Words]) )

This post brought to you by the 161 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1814892.html

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Oh, dear. To talk about AI, we're going to have to talk about religion.

I'm an atheist. To a first approximation, that means I don't believe any gods exist.

But it would be more accurate to say I don't believe any gods exist yet.

Because if there is anything an American childhood spent soaking in science fiction has taught me, it's that there's nothing modern human beings so desperately, ardently want as gods. So they will stop at nothing to build one.

( Gods come in two basic flavors... [4,420 Words] )

This post brought to you by the 161 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1812843.html

It all started when I decided I wanted to know the origin of the expression "male chauvinist".

I have no idea if the young among you have ever heard this expression. It was very idiomatic back in the 1970s and 1980s. It's basically means "someone who is sexist" or "male supremacist". It was strongly associated with the second wave feminist movement, which promulgated the term.

I think it might be a super useful term to revive, for reasons. Thing is, the more you think about the term "male chauvinist", the weirder it is.

( The dictionary is happy to tell you... (Read more [6,880 Words]) )

This post brought to you by the 161 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1809675.html

[Content warning: I will, alas, necessarily be discussing specific examples of hateful stereotypes, and not just of Jews. Also: sexism, racism, homophobia, and transphobia.]

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Different oppressions are different. This is not a radical notion. You've certainly heard the idea before, and you've heard the idea that because of this it's bad to compare oppressions – the assumption being "compare" means engaging in "oppression olympics", which is to say, arguing which minority has it worse.

But there's another sense in which comparing oppressions isn't just okay, I would argue it's absolutely critical: not who has it worse, but how different oppressions work.

Because here's the thing: different oppressions interoperate.

You kind of know this already: you are aware of the concept of "model minorities". You probably have some awareness of how model minority status is used to pit racial and ethnic minorities against one another, to thwart any inclinations they might have to solidarity with one another.

You might not have really thought about it, but that implies something about the different kinds of oppression the different groups are subjected to.

( Read more [6,390 Words] )

This post brought to you by the 160 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1809078.html

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I don't know who in the US needs to hear this: it's time.

If you have a uterus, or love someone who does. If you're trans, or love someone who is – especially if they're a child. If you were married to someone of the same sex. If you are otherwise LGBQ, or your child is. If you are someone who provides medical care that is or is about to become criminalized.

Definitely, if you live in Florida. Probably, if you live in Texas. There's a whole bunch of other states that aren't looking too good either.

If you're one of those people living in one of those places in the US...

It's time to think about moving.

( Read more [2,500 words] )

This post brought to you by the 160 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1805095.html

There are two kinds of truth. One of them we can call social truth: there are things that are so, simply because we agree, in our society, that that is so.

( Read more [5,220 Words] )

This post brought to you by the 159 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1804400.html

The following is a series of "toots" (tweets) I made on Mastodon, lightly edited, in general response to the trending topic of punching Nazis, which had emerged again in the more general topic of reports that a neo-Nazi group in the US has called for a national day of violence against Jewish targets tomorrow, Sat Feb 25.

Note! It turns out this report has been exaggerated by the grapevine: apparently the neo-Nazis are calling for a day of vandalism against buildings, not violence against people. That said, this sort of boundary pushing is often a prelude to violence against people, both in general, and very specifically among antisemites. Discussion as to why for another day.

I feel a need to apologize that it's a bit shouty. This is not the style I usually employ here on DW. Mastodon doesn't support rich text, so one needs to employ a style there that does not rest upon bold face and italic. When all one has is capital letters, perforce one must engage in capitalism.*

Alright everybody, it's time I share my feelings about punching Nazis.

I'm against it.

Punching people can kill them. Dumb schmucks wind up doing hard time for murder because they thought it was "just a bar fight" and someone winds up dead. You should never punch somebody unless you are ready to kill them.

And if you mean to kill Nazis, jesus fucking christ, don't pummel them with your meat clubs like some sort of ape. Be a motherfucking grownup and SHOOT THEM WITH A GUN.

Now, I can hear some of you thinking, ( "But, Siderea, what about stabbing Nazis with knives?" [1,150 Words] )

This post brought to you by the 159 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1800770.html

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I wrote a series, The Great Age of Plagues, setting out the case for expecting a dramatic increase in the rate of infectious disease outbreaks. I was asked what advice I had for dealing with what is coming.

I thought a lot about this, and I wrote a lot about it, and I eventually came to realize that what I really had to say about it is this.

( I would propose that the most important asset for surviving in the world as it is becoming rests between your ears. (Read more [5,380 words]) )

This post brought to you by the 159 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Sibylla Bostoniensis

Everything Unravels, Everything Will Fade

Business as Usual [COVID, labor, ethics, P/A/S, Patreon]

Covid and the Dose-Response Relationship [Covid, Sci/Bio/Med, Patreon]

No Siderea Post for December (Can't Sleep, Chowns Will Eat Me) [Patreon]

Up the Slope: On Mastodon and What Social Engineering Should Be [p/a/s, new media, Patreon]

Everything is on fire [admin]

The Israelis and the Palestinians [current events, Patreon]

Patrons! PSA, Again [Patreon]

How to Compete with Patreon [New Media, Tech, Patreon]

Patrons: Warning! New Patreon "feature" you're being opted into [Patreon]

Software Development Worst Practices [tech, p/a/s, Patreon]

Post forthcoming, early access [admin, Patreon]

I Blame the W3C's HTML Standard for Ordered Lists [tech, soc, Patreon]

How Professional Ethics Work [soc, law/ethics/morality, Patreon]

Gods and Golems [AI, p/a/s, Patreon]

Personism, Communism, and Feminism [p/a/s, pols/anthro, Patreon]

Why Nazis Hate Jews [curr ev, pols, soc just, p/a/s, Patreon]

Move [US, pols, Patreon]

The Two Truths [p/a/s, Patreon]

Punching Nazis [socjust, p/a/s, Patreon]

Thinking about Survival in the Great Age of Plagues [p/a/s, pestilence, Patreon]

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