andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2025-08-20 06:39 pm
Entry tags:

Life with two kids: Less reassuring than you might expect

Gideon, heading for a recently arrived package, holding a knife "I'm not going to stab *anyone*!"
sabotabby: (books!)
sabotabby ([personal profile] sabotabby) wrote2025-08-20 08:44 am
Entry tags:

Reading Wednesday

Just finished: Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This held up on re-read—it's still my favourite of her work (admittedly I haven't read her latest) and is just this perfect exploration how it feels to be 15 and simultaneously enraged with and in love with the world.

Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction, edited by Sonia Sulaiman. Somehow I missed this coming out last year despite—I thought, anyway—being on some kind of list from the editor. Anyway. It's quite excellent. Stories range from the hauntingly beautiful "The Third or Fourth Casualty" by Ziyad Saadi, about a group of children swimming and drowning, to the gorgeously defiant "Gaza Luna" by Samah Serour Fadil, to the absolute ugly-cry of "The Generation Chip" by Nadia Afifi. It's hard to pick a favourite—there are a lot of bangers in this collection. Anyway, you should read it.

Currently reading: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams. I would probably never read this if Mark Zuckerberg hadn't tried to have it banned, so good job with the Streisand Effect. It's pretty entertaining, though. The author pitches a job that doesn't exist to Facebook because she's naïvely convinced that the company is going to change the world in a good way (ha. ha. ha.) and then gets progressively more disillusioned when it turns out she works for the worst people. Also she almost got eaten by a shark when she was 13, which is a metaphor. But also she almost did get eaten by a shark when she was 13.
siderea: (Default)
Siderea ([personal profile] siderea) wrote2025-08-20 04:45 am
Entry tags:

Admin: Patreon: What fresh hell #728, #729 [Patreon]

Yall. I am so tired.

Last thing first. Investigating the other thing, I discovered this. I'll just cut and paste what I submitted as a ticket to Patreon:
I took a break of a few months, and when I came back my fees spiked. What gives?

I just did a month (July 2025) that extremely similar to last January (2025): similar revenues (466.19 vs 458.50), similar patrons (160 vs 162). According to my "Insights > Earnings" page, my total fees went up from 11.4% to the astounding 14.6%. Drilling down, most of that is an eye-watering 3% increase of the payment fees (5.8% to 8.8%). There was also a minor increase of Patreon's platform fee from 5.6% to 5.8%.

That represents a FIFTY-TWO PERCENT INCREASE in processing fees, and a 28% increase in fees over all.

Care to explain? Was there some announced change in payment structure or payment processor fees I missed?
I have received no response.

But the other thing is this: Patreon has dropped my business model.

Apparently by accident.

When I went to Patreon to create the Patreon post for my latest Siderea Post at the end of July, I was confronted with a recent UI update. In and of itself it wouldn't have been a problem, but, as usual, they screwed something up.

They removed the affordance for a post to Patreon to both be public and paid. The new UI conflated access and payment, such that it was no longer possible to post something world-accessible and still charge patrons for it.

I found a kludge to get around it so I could get paid at all, and I fired off a support ticket asking if it was possible but unobvious, or just not possible, and if it was not possible, whether that was a policy or a mistake. I have received very apologetic reply back from Patreon support which seemed to suggest (but not actually affirm) it was an unintentional:
From what we've seen so far, the option to make a post publicly accessible while still charging members for it isn't possible in the new editor. Content within a paid post will only be available to those with paid access, and it won't show up for the public.

Other creators have reported this same issue, and I want to reassure you that I've already shared this feedback with our team. If anything changes or if this feature is brought back, I'll be sure to keep you in mind and let you know right away.
So it's not like the reply was, "Oh, yes, it was announced that we wouldn't be supporting that feature any more," suggesting, contrarily, they didn't realize they were removing a feature at all.

The support person I was corresponding with encouraged me to write back with any further questions or issues, so I did:
Hi, [REDACTED], thanks for getting back to me. I have both some more questions and feedback.

1) Question: Am I understanding correctly, that the new UI's failure to support having publicly accessible paid posts was an oversight, and not a policy decision to no longer support that business model? Like, there's not an announcement this was going away that I missed? As a blogger who often writes about Patreon itself, I'd like to be able to clarify the situation for my readers.

2) Question: Do you have any news to share whether Patreon intends to restore this functionality? Is fixing this being put on a development roadmap, or should those of us who relied on this functionality just start making other plans? Again: my readers want to know, too.

3) Suggestion: If Patreon intends to restore this functionality, given the way the new UI is organized, the way to add the functionality back in is under "Free Access > More options" there should also be a "charge for this post" button, which then ungrays more options for charging a subset of patrons, defaulting to "charge all patrons".

4) Feedback: The affordance that was removed, of being able to charge patrons for world-accessible content, was my whole business model. I'm not the only one, as I gather you already have discovered. In case Patreon were corporately unaware, this is the business model of creators using Patreon to fund public goods, such as journalism, activism, and open source software. My patrons aren't paying me to give them something; my patrons are paying me to give something to the world. Please pass this along to whomever it's news.

5) Feedback: This is the sort of gaffe which suggests to creators that Patreon is out of touch with its users and doesn't appreciate the full breadth of how creators use Patreon. It is the latest in a long line of incidents that suggests to creators that Patreon is not a platform for creators, Patreon is a platform for music video creators, and everybody else is a red-headed stepchild whom Patreon corporately feels should be grateful they are allowed to use the platform at all. It makes those of us who are not music video creators feel unwelcome on Patreon.

6) Feedback: Being able to charge patrons for world-accessible content is one of a small and dwindling list of features that differentiated Patreon from cheaper competitors. Just sayin'.

7) Feedback: I thought you should know: my user experience has become that when I open Patreon to make a post, I have no idea whether I will be able to. I have to schedule an hour to engage with the Patreon new post workflow because I won't know what will be changed, what will be broken, etc. It would be nice if Patreon worked reliably. My experience as a creator-user of your site is NOT, "Oh, I don't like the choices available to me", it's that the site is unstable, flaky, unpredictable, unreliable.
I got this response:
Hi Siderea,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful follow-up and for sharing your questions and feedback in such detail.

To address your first question, I can’t speak to whether this change was an oversight or a deliberate policy decision, but I can confirm there hasn’t been any official announcement about removing the ability to charge members for world-accessible posts. If anything changes or if we receive more clarity from our product team, I’ll be sure to keep you updated.

At this time, I also don’t have any news to share about whether this functionality will be restored or if it’s on the development roadmap.

I know that’s not the most satisfying answer, but I want to reassure you that your feedback and suggestions are being shared directly with the relevant teams. The more we can highlight how important this feature is for creators like you, the better.

Thank you as well for your suggestion about how this could be reintroduced in the UI—I’ll make sure to pass that along, along with your broader feedback about the impact on creators who fund public goods. Your perspective is incredibly valuable, and I just want to truly thank you for taking the time to lay it all out so clearly.

If you have any more thoughts, questions, or ideas, please let me know, and I’ll be happy to take a further look. I appreciate your patience and your willingness to advocate for the creator community.

All the best,
[REDACTED]
Several observations:

0) Whoa.

1) That is the best customer service response letter I've ever gotten, for reasons I will perhaps break down at some other junction. But it both does and does not read like it was written by an AI. I didn't quite know what to make of it, until someone mentioned to me the phenomenon of customer service agents at another org using AI to generate letters, and then I was like, oooooooh, maybe that's what this is. Or maybe not. Hard to say.

2) Though [REDACTED] could not confirm or deny, it sure sounds like an accident, but one that impacts such an uninteresting-to-Patreon set of creators that they can't be arsed to fix it, either in a timely way or at all.

3) "The more we can highlight how important this feature is for creators like you, the better." is a hell of a sentence. Especially in conjunction with "...along with your broader feedback about the impact on creators who fund public goods.". Reading between the lines, it sure sounds like the support people have been inundated by a little wave of outraged/anguished public-good posters, and the support people, or at least this support person, is entirely on the creators' side against higher ups brushing them off. Could be a pose, of course, but, dayum.

So that's what I know from Patreon's side.

The kludge I came up with for the post I made at the end of July is that I used another new feature – the ability to drop a cut line across a Patreon post where above it is world readable and below it is paid access only – to make a paid-access only post where 100% of the post contents are above the cut line.

Please let me know if it's not working as intended. This unfortunately has the gross effect of putting a button on my new post saying "Join to unlock".

So.

In any event, I strongly encourage those of you following me as unpaid subscribers over on Patreon to make sure you're following me, instead, here on Dreamwidth, because Patreon is flaky.

I will make a separate post with instructions as to all the ways to do that. You can get email notifications of my posts (either all or just the Siderea Posts), follow RSS and Atom feeds, get DM inbox notifications, and, of course, just follow me on your DW reading page, all on/through Dreamwidth, anonymously and completely free.
andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2025-08-19 03:40 pm
Entry tags:

Photo cross-post


I've not been out this late since Gideon was born, but when my music-obsessive photographer friend Kenny told me I had to come see Fantastic Negrito at the Fringe I decided to make an exception.

The support band (Megan Black) was better than most support acts. The main act, on the other hand, is just, well, fantastic. Maybe even worth missing the kids bedtime for.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

sabotabby: (jetpack)
sabotabby ([personal profile] sabotabby) wrote2025-08-18 09:56 pm

you asked for my Hugo opinions

Here we go! It's gonna be long though.


You can see the list of finalists here and the list of winners (with stats and such) here.

Overall impressions: People have good taste. Most of the winners, as you’ll see, weren’t that surprising to me, and I had a high degree of agreement in the categories I cared about. I was particularly happy to see three Indigenous winners.

I’m very much a prose person and it shows; I am interested in most of the other categories, but my time is limited, so while I tried to check out as many of the finalists as possible, I didn’t get to everything. If I hadn't read/watched/listen to most of a category, I didn't vote in it. I focused my time on novels, novellas, and short stories and care most about those.


It’s a ranked ballot so I voted for multiple works in many categories, but to avoid this going forever, I’ve only talked about my top choices.

opinions )
tcpip: (Default)
Diary of a B+ Grade Polymath ([personal profile] tcpip) wrote2025-08-18 07:52 pm
Entry tags:

Happy Birthday, Ratties!

A little less than a year ago, after receiving confirmation of a second parent when I'm travelling, I decided to reintroduce rats as "animales de companie" into my life after a hiatus of several years. Fortunately, The Happy Rattery (FB) had tracked their birthdays and, I am pleased to announce, brothers Mayday and Mayhem have celebrated their first birthday, which makes them about 30 in human years. As an example of nominative determinism, their assigned names proved to be prescient. Mayhem, the larger of the two and with an appropriate bandit mask, is gregarious and boisterous, whereas the smaller Mayday is a lot more circumspect and a little even nervous about the world. Typical of their behaviour, these little brothers have provided a great deal of joy to my life with their antics, especially their remarkable rat-engineering projects; I was very surprised when they tried to add a bag of pegs to their home construction.

Currently 3.7K kilometres away, I am very thankful to Kate R., for looking after the rats in my absence. Delightfully, she provided them a little bit of cupcake for their birthday, complete with a candle. Meanwhile, at the top-end, Lara D. has purchased some Banksy-rat decals for our apartment, MrBlueSky, which we installed this evening in honour of Mayday and Mayhem. Further, because it must be mentioned, a few days ago the Australian water rat, the Rakali (Hydromys chrysogaster) won the ABC award for Australia's under-rated animal as part of National Science Week (I give honourable mention to the marsupial mole). Common in Melbourne's waterway, I derive a great deal of delight watching rakali, especially as they swim at speed, their white-tipped tail hoisted like a flag.

My advocacy for rats can now be measured in decades, and I like to think this has had some effect on their reputation and welfare. There is an excellent essay from Aeon ("Rats are Us") which highly the juxtaposition between the rat and animal welfare laws (essentially non-existent in the United States, it can be harrowing reading) and the scientific evidence that I have raised many times over the decades; they are social animals with communication, they are capable of past memories and future prediction, they are dreamers, they have a highly developed sense of empathy (even for strangers), they love to play, they like to learn (even driving rat-sized cars). With their sentience ("sentus", to feel) certain, and their sapience ("to know") evident, what of their consciousness ("shared knowledge")? The rat is us.
vampwillow: thinking (thinker)
pixel-stained technopeasant wench ([personal profile] vampwillow) wrote2025-08-17 10:53 pm

People

People who need people ...

(I was watching a Barbra movie recently in fact... ) Anyway ...

Having not seen or talked with anyone in ages S came to visit on Thursday and stuffed lots of my mum's stuff into rubbish bags for chucking. Because I haven't been able to bring myself to do it, basically. It's all so final.

Then Friday evening I get a totally unexpected phone call from my former London neighbour so caught up on everything for well over an hour. Hopefully we will meet for lunch one day as she comes in this general direction to go horse riding.

I almost feel human again. *Almost*
vampwillow: camel (camel)
pixel-stained technopeasant wench ([personal profile] vampwillow) wrote2025-08-17 10:52 pm

This was a draft but I don't know from what date. Still valid though

I'm finding life far too complicated. I want to schedule things but find doing so stressful so put it off then get stressed _because_ I've put things off.

I don't understand.
andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2025-08-17 11:27 am
Entry tags:

Photo cross-post


The Flying Bubble Show was great fun. Kids thoroughly entertained.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

ludy: Close up of pink tinted “dyslexo-specs” with sunset light shining through them (Default)
ludy ([personal profile] ludy) wrote2025-08-17 12:22 pm

(no subject)

Grrr! Spellcheck autocorrected we’re to were as I was typing it for some reason (Why?! Surely people are more likely to forget the apostrophe than accidentally add one in so we’re is much less likely to be a typo than were is) … and then had the audacity to tell me that what it had done with what I’d written now wasn’t grammatically correct!


It feels like in the rush of enthusiasm for all things AI that I’m ending up having to fight spellcheck/auto-suggestions more than in the past. They obviously aren’t training it on stuff written by dyslexics!

The suggestions seem to be more business-y now too
andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2025-08-16 12:00 pm
tcpip: (Default)
Diary of a B+ Grade Polymath ([personal profile] tcpip) wrote2025-08-16 05:41 pm

Darwin Visit

I've boarded the silver bird and landed in Darwin, where I'll be staying in Mr Blue Sky in Darwin City, which I still have to remind myself that I am a co-owner. Co-owner Lara and tenant Adam have been wonderful hosts to me, with Cocoa rabbit, the 11-year-old spritely dwarf, providing great entertainment as always. The weather here is of magnificent quality; consistently in the high twenties, clear skies, and gentle cool breezes off Darwin harbour with delightful views across to the National Park. From this vantage point, it's all rather idyllic.

There are nominal household matters to sort out, but it is a convenient time for the Darwin Festival. I have a lifelong interest in aesthetics, which I have to grudgingly accord myself a modest analytical ability. From metaphor, referentiality, creativity, technique, persistence, and connections, I must also confess some apparent predictive skill when evaluating the future success of self-proclaimed artists. Darwin's contribution to the fine arts is not exactly famous, being small and distant, but there are plenty of opportunities in the programme which will receive a fair review in the week to come.

In the meantime, I was blessed yesterday with a second opportunity to visit to the Menzies School of Health Research (Charles Darwin University) (not to be confused with the Menzies Institute for Medical Research (University of Tasmania), let alone the Menzies Research Centre of the Liberal Party. The Darwin Menzies centre particularly interests me as they have a small high performance computing system, which has a few file system and management issues, but nevertheless great to see that it's there! I was hosted by Anto Trimarsanto, a medical researcher in malaria (specifically Plasmodium vivax), who also dutifully informed me that Menzies has an outpost in Timor-Leste. My brain is now working on how to combine these multiple interests.
sabotabby: (jetpack)
sabotabby ([personal profile] sabotabby) wrote2025-08-15 11:39 am
Entry tags:

podcast friday

 Hey, it's a new Wizards & Spaceships episode! In "The Science Bros Answer Your Science Questions Part 1," you can find out what happens if you jump out of a spaceship* and other pressing sci-fi and fantasy questions.


* Don't.
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
tamaranth ([personal profile] tamaranth) wrote2025-08-15 08:22 am
Entry tags:

2025/128: A Memoir of my Former Self — Hilary Mantel

2025/128: A Memoir of my Former Self — Hilary Mantel
You can control and censor a child’s reading, but you can’t control her interpretations; no one can guess how a message that to adults seems banal or ridiculous or outmoded will alter itself and evolve inside the darkness of a child’s heart. [loc. 5001]

A selection of Mantel's short non-fiction, ranging from book reviews (originally published in the New York Review of Books) and film reviews (originally published in the Spectator), through articles about writing and reading, to a delightful review of perfumes and a piece about stationery. ('...comrades, the hard-spined notebook is death to free thought. Pocket-size or desk-size, it drives the narrative in one direction, one only, and its relentless linearity oppresses you, so you seal off your narrative options early.' [loc. 5349]... I, with my plethora of discbound notebooks, wholeheartedly agree.) 

Read more... )
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
tamaranth ([personal profile] tamaranth) wrote2025-08-14 09:57 am
Entry tags:

2025/127: The Haunting of Hill House — Shirley Jackson

2025/127: The Haunting of Hill House — Shirley Jackson
“I could say,” Eleanor put in, smiling, “‘All three of you are in my imagination; none of this is real.’”
“If I thought you could really believe that,” the doctor said gravely, “I would turn you out of Hill House this morning. You would be venturing far too close to the state of mind which would welcome the perils of Hill House with a kind of sisterly embrace.” [loc. 1870]

Reread, for comparison to A Haunting on the Hill: my original review from 2016 is here.

Read more... )