The Underscore Archives

Please excuse the plug, but I thought this book was brilliant. Hope  
some of you find the same.

Begin forwarded message:

> DUST OR MAGIC, the creative worker's guide to new media, is  
> available again at last, from Bosko Books, Bristol. It's the same  
> text, with the same Alex Mayhew cover as the original Addison- 
> Wesley edition of 2000, but it has the subtitle I originally  
> wanted, some overdue acknowledgements, a new preface, and a MUCH  
> better price: £15.95 (or €16.95 or $19.95). The original price was  
> quite a stretch for the students and young designers for whom I  
> mainly wrote it. Amazon has the new edition now:
>
>   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dust-Magic-Creative-Work-Digital/dp/ 
> 0954723953/
>   http://www.amazon.com/Dust-Magic-Creative-Work-Digital/dp/ 
> 0954723953/
>   http://www.amazon.de/Dust-Magic-Creative-Work-Digital/dp/ 
> 0954723953/ ... etc
>
> Dust or Magic's main purpose was to point out that the computer- 
> medium has a history. One which, moreover, wasn't made by  
> corporations, but by people, who work in ways that utterly belie  
> corporate wisdom.
>
> It takes that history up to the end of the "seedy-rom" slump of the  
> late 1990s. It doesn't cover the much bigger bloodletting of 2001  
> (the "dot bomb" slump) or subsequent events - but these are to some  
> extent history repeating itself, and there are now some great  
> sources on this later period, for example Andrew Ross's "No Collar:  
> the humane workplace and its hidden costs" (Temple University  
> Press, 2004):
>
>   http://www.amazon.com/No-Collar-Humane-Workplace-Hidden-Costs/dp/ 
> 1592131506/
>
>   ... and the articles (including one by me) in "The Spark in the  
> Engine: creative workers in a global economy" (ed. Ursula Huws;  
> Merlin Press 2006):
>
>   http://www.merlinpress.co.uk/acatalog/THE_SPARK_IN_THE_ENGINE.html
>
> ===============================
>
> THE BIG ISSUE that follows on from Dust or Magic, is the global  
> pandemic of insecure work that's accompanied the rise of the "new  
> economy". It's not just new-media workers who are insecure.  
> Precarious work is the name of the game all the way down the food- 
> chain from the head-offices in Silicon Valley, to the millions of  
> young, non-white, non-unionised, predominantly female people in  
> southern China, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Mexico ... who make  
> the machines that make the medium possible, for wages so low that  
> one wonders how long computerdom would last in its present form  
> without world poverty. What would happen to technology if poverty  
> were abolished? Going further: what if inequality were abolished? I  
> made a first pass at outlining the issues in a fairly outspoken  
> conference paper (Aarhus, 2005) called "From useful idiocy to  
> activism":
>
>   http://www.dustormagic.net/Papers/Idiocy.html
>
> ===============================
>
> WILL THERE BE ANOTHER Dust or Magic conference? I hope so. I'd like  
> to run one bringing together educationists and global-justice  
> activists: two groups who are solidly focused on needs rather than  
> profits. Does that appeal? Let me know.
>
> With best wishes,
>
> Bob Hughes
> Oxford, 1 May 2007
>
> ===============================
>
>> From the dustjacket of Dust or Magic:
>
> DUST OR MAGIC WAS primarily written for the young, talented people  
> whose creative instincts are kindled by computers and live to  
> create 'good stuff', but who are systematically betrayed by the  
> managerial types in suits who hire them, set them absurd tasks, and  
> sack them when their half-baked schemes go belly-up. It is also for  
> people who simply want to know how human creativity fares in the  
> digital age.
>
> Originally published by Addison-Wesley (under the title 'Dust or  
> Magic, Secrets of successful multimedia design') this book is, in  
> part, a 'secret history' of computers: a history told from the  
> vantage point of the people who did the work. We have insiders'  
> accounts of a range of influential products and projects, many of  
> which were in danger of being forgotten. The scene is illuminated  
> by recent insights into creativity and well-being from the fields  
> of psychology and neuroscience, as well as tried-and-tested,  
> practical strategies for workplace survival from other industries.
>
> The author, Bob Hughes, has been a 'creative' for most of his  
> working life: first a calligrapher, then an advertising artist and  
> copywriter before discovering computers in the mid-1980s. He now  
> teaches at Oxford Brookes University on the MA in Interactive Media  
> Publishing, and researches and writes about the wider impact of  
> electronics and computers in workplaces world-wide. He also  
> campaigns on behalf of migrants, refugees and all precarious workers.
>
>
>      "I am really enjoying Dust or Magic for the second
>    time - having finally sold the children to buy my own
>    copy."
>
>        - Catharine Arakelian, Oxford
>
>
>      "What you are doing is stripping away the corporate
>    bullshit from this 'revolution' - its ours not theirs.
>    Reclaim the pixels!"
>
>        - Chris McEvoy (Creator of 'Usability Must Die'
>          http://www.usabilitymustdie.com).
>
>
>      "There are many books explaining why software
>    projects go sour; this one breaks the mold by showing
>    how they come good."
>
>        - Malcolm Cook (Senior Lecturer in Human Factors,
>          University of Abertay)
>
>
>      "It's bloody brilliant!"
>
>        - Brendan Dawes (Author of Drag, Slide, Fade:
>          http://www.brendandawes.com)
>
>
>      "It was incredibly engrossing. I expected to skim
>    through it, and found myself reading it avidly, putting
>    aside all the other work I should have been doing...It
>    rang so true about so many things about the process of
>    creating the virtual world we spend so much time in
>    that I'm dying to share it with others who also create
>    for it, or want to."
>
>        - Aleen Stein (co-founder of the Voyager Company
>          and CEO of Organa inc. http://www.organa.com)
>
> ===============================
>
>    Bob Hughes
>    bob at dustormagic.net
>    http://www.dustormagic.net
>    +44 1865 726804
>    +44 7968 292499
>
> ===============================