Rich Dana (Ricardo Feral)
Feral Technology Is going backward the only way forward?

“Everything not saved will be lost.”

—Nintendo quit screen message

Well into the 21st century, the term Feral Technology has entered the contemporary discourse, but with some exceptionally non-feral technology companies using the moniker because—well, they think it sounds really cool. The meaning of words is irrelevant in a world in search of a catchy web address.

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Rich Dana (Ricardo Feral)
Grid Interactive On the longest day of the year

The solar array’s passive tracking system wakes to the first rays of the Pennsylvania summer sun. The solar panels don’t care that today is the solstice, or that the sun will rise on its arc to an angle of 72.5° at noon.

Its rusting actuators will strain to follow the sun all the way to its apex. As freon warms in the black copper tubes that run along the edges of the frame, the liquid vaporizes and moves from one side to the other. The tracker begins its daily task of following the thermal energy of the sun, keeping the photovoltaic panels facing into the sunlight as it moves along a course from east to west.

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Rich Dana (Ricardo Feral)
Impact of New Wave Science Fiction a radical re-evaluation

a review of

Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950–1985 Edited by Andrew Nette and Ian McIntyre. PM Press, 2021

In the last several years, Science Fiction, or SF as it is known among fans of the literary genre, has been the subject of several excellent critiques.

In 2018, Alec Nevalla-Lee’s Astounding: John W Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction presented an in-depth analysis of the cultural impact of pulp magazines and the purveyors of the genre’s myth of “the competent man.”

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Rich Dana (Ricardo Feral)
In the World of Digital, Print Raises A Challenge

a review of

Urgent Publishing after the Artist’s Book: Making Public Movements Toward Liberation by Paul Soulellis (Book Design: Be Oakley). GenderFail 2021

Urgent Publishing After the Artist’s Book operates as a document, a record, an archival object and a piece of art, while the book’s commentary on the arts, publishing, and social justice is expressed both through text and graphic design. It challenges the reader’s role as viewer and consumer, potential ally and an unwitting antagonist.

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Rich Dana (Ricardo Feral)
Nisi Shawl shows that Science Fiction can still challenge conventions

a review of

Nisi Shawl, Talk like a Man. PM Press/Outspoken Authors series, 2019 pmpress.org

“My hair was not my own. My blood was not my own. My life was not my own. I am not free. I am a political prisoner on a North American game preserve.”

Thus began the 1989 science fiction story, “I Was a Teenage Genetic Engineer,” by an unknown author in an anthology by a little known indie publisher. The book was Autonomedia’s Semiotext(e) SF, and the author was Denise Angela Shaw.

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Rich Dana (Ricardo Feral)
The Politics of Fandom Science Fiction’s Historic Struggle over the Future

A dedicated band of idealistic working-class teenagers crash a meeting of techno-fascists at a New York hotel, confronting the group’s dictatorial leaders.

It sounds like an Antifa adventure plucked from today’s headlines—but in fact, this plot unfolded at the first ever World Science Fiction Convention in 1939. Despite its reputation for campy story-telling and escapist plots, science fiction (SF) has always been highly political at its core, and this story began when Dave Kyle, a member of a fan club known as The Futurians, attempted to distribute a pamphlet criticizing the convention organizers.

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