Top all-time · #1837
Sibylla Bostoniensis
Personal blog · siderea.dreamwidth.orgculturewriting
Sibylla Bostoniensis is a personal blog at siderea.dreamwidth.org about culture and writing. Since 2017, 40 different Hacker News readers have linked it 65 times, most often “How to Compete with Patreon”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (26) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers mostly cite Siderea's Dreamwidth posts, especially the 'asshole filter' essay, as support for points on social behaviour, class, and payments. Few comments judge the writing itself.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- One commenter calls a linked leadership post a "classic"; another says a linked academic-leaning class post "might be of interest" to readers.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 26 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- How to Compete with Patreon7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2023-09-28
- The Asshole Filter7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2022-04-16
- What Software Is Made Of4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-08-31
- Class (American)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-01-03
- Improper Nouns3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-09-01
- Software Development Worst Practices2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-08-31
- The Fourteen-Twenty-Nine Hypothesis2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-12-10
- The Vimes Boots Theory: Further Reflections2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-12-30
- How Professional Ethics Work2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-07-06
- /1179450.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-08-26
What Hacker News says?
> you might short list those who have a tendency to violate contract terms. An asshole filter https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html (maybe you've read already?)
Comment linking /1209794.html
on “When hiring developers, have the candidate read existing code”Submitted Where our economy is, for the young as a story · 276 points
HN discussionI'd be ok with one app store if the criteria for being included are transparent, reasonable and not biased towards less strict rules for big players. Patreon was told to change its whole billing model until a court found in their favor: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1878206.html That's the kind of thing I think we'd both find unacceptable. But I'd still be ok with "one store, resonable rules, respect user privacy".…
Comment linking /1878206.html
on “Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers”Submitted Improper Nouns as a story · 118 points
HN discussion> [..] it incentivises people to behave as unpleasantly as possible — because it's often the only way to trigger the exception [..] Thus creating an asshole filter: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html
Comment linking /1209794.html
on “Accountability Sinks”Submitted The Vimes Boots Theory: Further Reflections as a story · 60 points
HN discussionhttps://siderea.dreamwidth.org/ is another widely read blog. Most DW users post under friends-lock. You're not going to see most DW posts unless someone has given you access.
Comment linking /
on “Facebook has blocked Dreamwidth”Submitted The Vimes Boots Theory: Further Reflections as a story · 35 points
HN discussion> What do you think you need an MD for, in your primary care visit, that an NP can’t do? I guess not much at this point where PCPs don't seem to do much beyond use rubrics, prescribe, and refer. Which is why I used the word enshittification - it's part of a continual gradual march down in quality/services to a captive customer base. Basically the opposite environment of innovation aiming to serve customers. > How mu…
Comment linking /1182366.html
on “Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market”Submitted At Least One Underlying Condition as a story · 15 points
HN discussion> His Her, actually: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/profile
Comment linking /profile
on “Where our economy is, for the young”Submitted Third Class as a story · 3 points
HN discussionClass is more than lineage or wealth or race. The signifiers run much deeper than that. To use an example from https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1237182.html - >So, for instance, if I don't like the medical care I get from the doctors my state-subsidized health plan (thanks, Mitt!) gives me access to, I can't just whip out my checkbook and buy myself care from a better reputed specialist. Being poor might yet shorten m…
Comment linking /1237182.html
on “Learning The Elite Class”Submitted Up the Slope: On Mastodon and What Social Engineering Should Be as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSome other articles that are a little more academic in tone about the nature and study of class in America, and might be of interest to people interested in this article; https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1237182.html https://web.archive.org/web/20151006183427/https://michaeloc...
Comment linking /1237182.html
on “Learning The Elite Class”Submitted What Is Happening to Supply Chains as a story · 3 points
HN discussionEveryone in that spending pipeline is doing it[1], not just the US government. [1] https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1179450.html (very long; you’ll need to get to at least part 2 to see the relevance)
Comment linking /1179450.html
on “The Dollar Is Dead”Submitted Pandemic, Parents, and Schools as a story · 3 points
HN discussiontwo reasons: 1. writing in lowercase is freeing. it reminds me that grammatical rules are arbitrary, and by extension other rules. "you can just do things." 2. people who are pedantic about this when it's clearly intentional are probably not people i want to interact with anyway, so it's a good anti-asshole filter ( https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html )
Comment linking /1209794.html
on “The Rust project has a burnout problem”Submitted Cookies for software licenses as a story · 3 points
HN discussionBlogger siderea has talked about this a lot in relation to patreon, and the challenges for any platform wanting to replace it. EDIT: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1824441.html and https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1371510.html Apparently it comes down to how card processing fees work, as long as there's a constant fixed cost per payment (whether or not there is also a percentage fee), "microtransactions" become unecon…
Comment linking /1371510.html
on “You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality”Submitted How to Compete with Patreon as a story · 2 points
HN discussionTo participate in an American healthcare treatment you need to interact with a private for-profit company which will shut down if it doesn't on average attain significant profitability; Let's say 30% goes to shareholders, taxes, receptionists, keeping the lights on. But they don't deal with everything. They have to interact with upstream providers! And they have to pay somebody to negotiate with them. So another 30%…
Comment linking /1179450.html
on “Using AI to fight insurance claim denials”Submitted How to Compete with Patreon as a story · 2 points
HN discussionOne hopes he has read this, a classic slate star codex post on leadership: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html#cutid1 Sincere questions for Musk would be: How are you supporting your management team when you've asked their subordinates to bypass them with good ideas for exposure, leaving them only to provide risks and bad news their subordinates didn't want to bring forward? How do local team leaders take ri…
Comment linking /1209794.html
on “Elon Musk reveals his productivity rules in a letter he sent to Tesla employees”Submitted How to Compete with Patreon as a story · 2 points
HN discussioni have to go with siderea's response https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1361333.html
Comment linking /1361333.html
on “The War Against Pope Francis”Submitted How to Compete with Patreon as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt sounds like the whole field is contaminated with mind-body dualism. But there's a bigger problem; even once you accept that humans are fully physical, embodied minds in a sea of whatever chemicals can cross the blood-brain barrier, the scope is wider. Humans are part of a society that can harm them without effective means of redress. Also, from the original paper, via the linked LJ: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org…
Comment linking /1388220.html
on “Should Psychiatry Test for Lead More?”Submitted How to Compete with Patreon as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
