Coverart for item
The Resource Power button : a history of pleasure, panic, and the politics of pushing, Rachel Plotnick

Power button : a history of pleasure, panic, and the politics of pushing, Rachel Plotnick

Label
Power button : a history of pleasure, panic, and the politics of pushing
Title
Power button
Title remainder
a history of pleasure, panic, and the politics of pushing
Statement of responsibility
Rachel Plotnick
Creator
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
Push a button and turn on the television; tap a button and get a ride; click a button and "like" something. The touch of a finger can set an appliance, a car, or a system in motion, even if the user doesn't understand the underlying mechanisms or algorithms. How did buttons become so ubiquitous? Why do people love them, loathe them, and fear them? In Power Button, Rachel Plotnick traces the origins of today's push-button society by examining how buttons have been made, distributed, used, rejected, and refashioned throughout history. Focusing on the period between 1880 and 1925, when "technologies of the hand" proliferated (including typewriters, telegraphs, and fingerprinting), Plotnick describes the ways that button pushing became a means for digital command, which promised effortless, discreet, and fool-proof control. Emphasizing the doubly digital nature of button pushing-as an act of the finger and a binary activity (on/off, up/down)-Plotnick suggests that the tenets of precomputational digital command anticipate contemporary ideas of computer users
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Plotnick, Rachel
Dewey number
621.3815/37
Illustrations
illustrations
Index
index present
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Remote control
  • Electric switchgear
  • Social psychology
  • Industrial revolution
  • Object (Philosophy)
  • Industrial revolution
  • Object (Philosophy)
  • Social psychology
Label
Power button : a history of pleasure, panic, and the politics of pushing, Rachel Plotnick
Instantiates
Publication
Copyright
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
on1013528597
Dimensions
22 cm
Extent
xxvi, 394 pages
Isbn
9780262038232
Lccn
2017055846
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
illustrations
System control number
(OCoLC)1013528597
Label
Power button : a history of pleasure, panic, and the politics of pushing, Rachel Plotnick
Publication
Copyright
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
on1013528597
Dimensions
22 cm
Extent
xxvi, 394 pages
Isbn
9780262038232
Lccn
2017055846
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
illustrations
System control number
(OCoLC)1013528597

Library Locations

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      30.2713021 -97.7460168