We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
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My OASIS 29 Con Schedule: Come See My Shenanigans!
Reading Time
I’m a guest at OASIS again! And let me tell you, I am super excited. Last year, I had the great pleasure of meeting A. Lee Martinez, who is both one of the nicest dudes that ever walked the Earth and also almost nearly as funny as me (not quite, but he gets like 9 points for being pretty cool :P; I don’t know what these points are on about).
OASIS is one of my local conventions, located in sunny Orlando. I’ll be there for the full run of the convention — May 19th to May 21st.
This year, the Guest of Honor at OASIS is urban fantasy master Faith Hunter, author of the Rogue Mage series and the Jane Yellowrock series, among others. She has something like 9 million books published under one of her 9 identities (OK, so she’s published around 32 books under three names, but 9 million is pretty close…). It should be a lot of fun to chat with her on panels in a couple weeks!
And what am I up to? Boy howdy am I in for a busy weekend. This is my schedule:
Friday (5/19)
What gives with these new forms of media? How do I do it, and where is my audience?
Shaun Duke, Jose Iriarte, Gary Roen
So much much read, so little time. Hear some recommendations from our panelists.
Lucienne Diver, Shaun Duke(m), Elle E. Ire
Saturday (5/20)
What are the ways fans can connect with world?
Shaun Duke, Guy Lillian, Ann Morris(m)
In May 1977 we were all taken to a galaxy far, far away. Since then there have been seven more films, a radio show, two television shows, and countless books. What do want or expect in this new era of Star Wars.
Erica Cameron, Jeff Carroll, Shaun Duke(m)
There is a Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror show on every day. Which ones are worth watching?
Jeff Carroll, Shaun Duke, Ann Morris(m), Mari Ness
Sunday
Does it take a big budget to make a good Science Fiction film? Can you make something meaningful on a limited scale?
Erica Cameron, Jeff Carroll, Shaun Duke(m)
Share your experience meeting your favorite celebs and writers. Joy or trauma, no slander, please.
Shaun Duke, Faith Hunter, Elle E. Ire(m), Gary Roen
New Star Trek is coming soon to a computer service near you. What are hopes and fears in the next chapter of the human adventure?
Jeff Carroll, Shaun Duke(m), Ann Morris
And there you have it. If you’re planning to make a visit, come check out my panels or just hit me up in the hall! I’m happy to talk about podcasting or academia or how many forms of wooden gnome exist in Gainesville at any given time (those pesky gnomes)!
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A Reading List of Dystopian Fiction and Relevant Texts (Apropos of Nothing in Particular)
Why would someone make a list of important and interesting works of dystopian fiction? Or a suggested reading list of works that are relevant to those dystopian works? There is absolutely no reason other than raw interest. There’s nothing going on to compel this. There is nothing in particular one making such a list would hope you’d learn. The lists below are not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be texts I have forgotten or texts you think folks should read that are not listed. Feel free to make your own list and tell me about it OR leave a comment. I’ll add things I’ve missed! Anywhoodles. Here goes:
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Duke’s Best EDM Tracks of 2024
And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most. Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). For whatever reason, the embedded playlist breaks the page, and so I’ve opted to link to it here and at the bottom of this post. Embeds are weird. Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you. Some caveats before we begin:
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2025: The Year of Something
We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
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