The Infamous Blog

Announcements
Shaun Duke

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

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Announcements
Shaun Duke

Duke’s Great Book Sale Cause He’s Moving…

It has been an inordinate amount of time since I last posted. It’s been a busy year. New job incoming. New move incoming. Family is growing. Life is wild! Speaking of all those changes, I’m presently offering up for sale over 1500 books from my extensive collection. We’re downsizing because I can’t possibly read all of these AND we need to save up some money for the cost of moving and other family expenses (like, seriously, my life is about to change big time). I’m selling science fiction, fantasy, horror, general fiction, romance, non-fiction (history, writing books, English textbooks, literary criticism, science, and lots of fun reference and military history books), and more. There’s a LOT of stuff here, and I’m willing to ship to folks! You can find the massive spreadsheet right here. The main sheet includes information about the sale (what, how, why, etc.). Please tell your friends

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Announcements
Shaun Duke

CONvergence 2023 Schedule: Panels Ahoy!

Turns out I’m going to be at a convention this weekend! Specifically, CONvergence 2023 (July 6-9). Naturally, I’m going to be on a bunch of things for this event. Lots and lots of things. I’ve taken a screenshot of my list of panels for this convention. You can also find full details about these and other panels on the convention schedule. If you will be in the area, feel free to say hello! Anywhoodles…

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On Writing
Shaun Duke

Writing The Histories (or, Crafting Totally Real Histories is Hard)

Some of you may know that I have been working on this silly project called The Histories on and off for a while now. For those not familiar with it, I’ll just point you to the very accurate description on the wiki. This project is now closing in on 30,000 words, and it features content spanning centuries, numerous real and tru-real subjects and peoples, and events both grand and minor (many of which are legitimately real or extrapolated from things someone thinks is real). There are jokes and quirky references, and there are serious linkages to real history. All of that takes a lot of work and time, and so I figured I could do a fun little thing where I tell you about my writing process for every entry. So, let’s talk about writing process, shall we?

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Random Stuff
Shaun Duke

When You Lose Your Social Media Manager (Or, Notes on SMMSs to Drown Your Tears In) — Updated (5/15/2023)

(See Update notes before the list!) Fun fact: when a major social media network is bought by a billionaire who has no idea how to manage a social media network, one of the predictable consequences is that said social media network might stop working as expected. And so here we are in May 2023 with Twitter’s new API changes rippling through the app and service industry like a tornado of stupidity. The consequences of all this? I’ve now spent hours upon hours researching social media managers. Why? The system I was using, SmarterQueue, cut off all support for Twitter two months before my annual subscription had ended. Additionally, the new API rules also scuttled moa.party, the crossposter I used to pull certain items from my Twitter feed to post to Mastodon. Like a lot of folks, I don’t really have the time to sit on social media apps posting. And

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Announcements
Shaun Duke

Announcement: The Histories “I Need a New Computer” Write-a-Thon

Starting now, I’m campaigning to get at least 100 people to buy an entry in The Histories so I can buy a new computer. That’s 100 people sending $10 or more to my Ko-Fi or PayPal OR joining my Patreon at the same level. The Histories is my quirky encyclopedia project (now a wiki) wherein I write absolutely true short histories about real people. Lots of folks have already been included in the wiki, including my good friends Paul Weimer, Brandon O’Brien, Stina Leicht, and more, plus really awesome writerly folks like Premee Mohamed, T.J. Berry, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Diana Rowland, and more. These folks are wizards, space pirates, immortals, mad scientists, and so on! Anyone can get an entry for themselves or for a friend or family member OR expand an existing entry (your own or someone else’s). If that interests you, read the Buy an Entry page for how

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