When a bipolar stand-up comedian wins the lottery, anything can happen. Introducing "The Funologist" – a hilarious and heartwarming tale that will leave you laughing, pondering, and inspired. Join Freddie Angel, a bipolar stand-up comic, on a wild rollercoaster ride of life, love, and lottery winnings. Imagine winning the lottery and having the power to change your life and the lives of others. When lady luck smiles on Freddie Angel, a lovable disaster living in his mother's basement, he suddenly becomes visible to the world, but with newfound fame comes a multitude of challenges. "The Funologist" takes you on a journey through Freddie's unconventional philanthropic mission. With wacky methods and a heart full of generosity, Freddie sets out to make a difference. But as he navigates the treacherous waters of instant wealth and pseudo-celebrity, he learns that not everything is as it seems. This book is the perfect blend of "Pay it Forward" and "Last Comic Standing," creating an outrageous and captivating story that will keep you entertained from start to finish. Delve into the mind of a comedic genius and experience the brilliance, mania, and compassion that define Freddie Angel. "The Funologist" speaks to the universal struggles of dreams, fame, and the true meaning of giving. It's a book that resonates with anyone who has ever felt like an underdog or craved a chance at transformation. Get ready for a belly-aching laugh as Freddie takes center stage and shows us that life is anything but predictable. With witty humor, relatable characters, and an inspiring message, "The Funologist" is a must-read for anyone seeking an escape into a world of comedy, chaos, and compassion. Don't miss your chance to grab a copy of "The Funologist" and join the legions of readers who have fallen in love with Freddie Angel's unforgettable journey. For fans of Kristin Hannah, Sherryl Woods, Barbara O’Neal, Mary Kay Andrews, Jennifer Weiner, Emily Giffin, Pamela Kelley, Mary Ellen Taylor and Colleen Hoover. This best selling contemporary fiction novel features lovable characters over 40 in the prime of midlife.

This book reflects the move in Human Computer Interaction studies from standard usability concerns towards a wider set of problems to do with fun, enjoyment, aesthetics and the experience of use. Traditionally HCI has been concerned with work and task based applications but as digital technologies proliferate in the home fun becomes an important issue. There is an established body of knowledge and a range of techniques and methods for making products and interfaces usable, but far less is known about how to make them enjoyable. Perhaps in the future there will be a body of knowledge and a set of techniques for assessing the pleasure of interaction that will be as thorough as those that currently assess usability. This book is a first step towards that. It brings together a range of researchers from academia and industry to provide answers. Contributors include Alan Dix, Jacob Nielsen and Mary Beth Rosson as well as a number of other researchers from academia and industry.

How should we understand and design for fun as a User Experience? This new edition of a classic book is for students, designers and researchers who want to deepen their understanding of fun in the context of HCI. The 2003 edition was the first book to do this and has been influential in broadening the field. It is the most downloaded book in the Springer HCI Series. This edition adds 14 new chapters that go well beyond the topics considered in 2003. New chapter topics include: online dating, interactive rides, wellbeing, somaesthetics, design fiction, critical design and participatory design methods. The first edition chapters are also reprinted, with new notes by their authors setting the context in which the 2003 chapter was written and explaining the developments since then. Taken with the new chapters this adds up to a total of 35 theoretical and practical chapters written by the most influential thinkers from academia and industry in this field.

On any given night in living rooms across America, women gather for a fun girls’ night out to eat, drink, and purchase the latest products—from Amway to Mary Kay cosmetics. Beneath the party atmosphere lies a billion-dollar industry, Direct Home Sales (DHS), which is currently changing how women navigate work and family. Drawing from numerous interviews with consultants and observations at company-sponsored events, Paid to Party takes a closer look at how DHS promises to change the way we think and feel about the struggles of balancing work and family. Offering a new approach to a flexible work model, DHS companies tell women they can, in fact, have it all and not feel guilty. In DHS, work time is not measured by the hands of the clock, but by the emotional fulfillment and fun it brings.

"I've lived by the motto, `Find something you love to do, and you'll never have to work a day in your life.' The Fun Minute Manager takes that concept to a whole new level in showing the boss how to help employees love what they do and enjoy going to work. If you don't have a `fun epiphany' reading this book, go back and read it again!"---Harvey Mackay, Author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive "Successful organizations have a clear vision of where they are headed. They understand what business they are really in. And, most importantly, they develop a culture that supports the vision and business, just as Southwest Airlines did. We hired attitudes that contained a humor and fun component and developed their skills. The Fun Minute Manager endorses that concept and gives you a flight plan on how to build a fun, productive and profitable culture."---Howard Putnam, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, Speaker and Author "Rare indeed is a book a `perfect fit' for the time it is birthed. The authors have managed such a glove-to-hand fit with their thoughtful, penetrating, relevant invitation for every manager to fold in fun when work environments so need to find fun."---Bob Danzig, former CEO of Hearst Newspapers, and Author "In these tough and difficult times, The Fun Minute Manager is a perfect response to build staff morale and effectiveness. Bob Pike is the master of creative solutions that organizations can implement today! He, along with John and Robert, has put that creativity and more into this book. This is a must-read.'---Elliott Masie, Chairman of The Learning Consortium Meet Bob Workman. Bob likes his job. Bob likes his employees. Bob considers himself a good manager but senses low morale among his immediate staff members. In this easy-to-read business fable, a chance encounter transforms Bob's work life as he sets out to discover how fun can revolutionize a worksite and pay big dividends both in morale and return on investment. Bob discovers that a fun work environment---one which lifts people's spirits and reminds them of their value to their managers, their organization, and to each other---is a primary need among employees. He sets off on a quest to find ways to create a fun environment and develops a method to produce convincing evidence that creating a fun work environment is worth the time and effort for the company. While "fun" has not been viewed as a traditional responsibility of the manager, managers who care about their employees and their bottom line will find The Fun Minute Manager a great tool for actively engaging their employees and positively transforming their workplace. This book is concise, timely, and a rich resource of practical ideas.

Reclaiming fun as a meaningful concept for understanding games and play. “Fun” is somewhat ambiguous. If something is fun, is it pleasant? Entertaining? Silly? A way to trick students into learning? Fun also has baggage—it seems inconsequential, embarrassing, child's play. In Fun, Taste, & Games, John Sharp and David Thomas reclaim fun as a productive and meaningful tool for understanding and appreciating play and games. They position fun at the heart of the aesthetics of games. As beauty was to art, they argue, fun is to play and games—the aesthetic goal that we measure our experiences and interpretations against. Sharp and Thomas use this fun-centered aesthetic framework to explore a range of games and game issues—from workplace bingo to Meow Wolf, from basketball to Myst, from the consumer marketplace to Marcel Duchamp. They begin by outlining three elements for understanding the drive, creation, and experience of fun: set-outsideness, ludic forms, and ambiguity. Moving from theory to practice and back again, they explore the complicated relationships among the titular fun, taste, and games. They consider, among other things, the dismissal of fun by game journalists and designers; the seminal but underinfluential game Myst, and how tastes change over time; the shattering of the gamer community in Gamergate; and an aesthetics of play that goes beyond games.

Fun and Software offers the untold story of fun as constitutive of the culture and aesthetics of computing. Fun in computing is a mode of thinking, making and experiencing. It invokes and convolutes the question of rationalism and logical reason, addresses the sensibilities and experience of computation and attests to its creative drives. By exploring topics as diverse as the pleasure and pain of the programmer, geek wit, affects of play and coding as a bodily pursuit of the unique in recursive structures, Fun and Software helps construct a different point of entry to the understanding of software as culture. Fun is a form of production that touches on the foundations of formal logic and precise notation as well as rhetoric, exhibiting connections between computing and paradox, politics and aesthetics. From the formation of the discipline of programming as an outgrowth of pure mathematics to its manifestation in contemporary and contradictory forms such as gaming, data analysis and art, fun is a powerful force that continues to shape our life with software as it becomes the key mechanism of contemporary society. Including chapters from leading scholars, programmers and artists, Fun and Software makes a major contribution to the field of software studies and opens the topic of software to some of the most pressing concerns in contemporary theory.