For nearly two decades, the Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions has served as a valuable resource for students and scholars of religion in Japan. This exciting update expands the audience to include non-specialists of Japan while also complicating the notions of “Japan” and “religion.” Asking the provocative question “why study Japanese religions?” the editors argue that studying Japan is vital for the academic study of religion writ large and make a case for the continued importan...

Stay informed. Talk about the issues. Always be engaged. Liberal societies have encouraged their members to take part—or at least interest—in politics. Yet, even in developed nations where it is said to work, the democratic process as we know it routinely fails to give voice, on the one hand, and to appeal at all, on the other hand, to a good number of citizens.Whatever countervailing hopes the worldwide web gave rise to in its dawning years, far from restoring the “public sphere” ...

Transformers began with toys and a cartoon series in 1984 and has since grown to include comic books, movies, and video games - its science fiction story has reached an audience with a wide range second only to that of Star Wars. Here, in Transformers and Philosophy, a dream team of philosophers pursues the fascinating questions posed by humankind’s encounter with an artificially intelligent mechanical civilization: Is genuine artificial intelligence possible? Wo...

If you design and develop products for people, this book is for you. The Persona Lifecycle addresses the “how? of creating effective personas and using those personas to design products that people love. It doesn’t just describe the value of personas; it offers detailed techniques and tools related to planning, creating, communicating, and using personas to create great product designs. Moreover, it provides rich examples, samples, and illustrations to imitate and model. Perhaps most impor...

User interface design is a challenging, multi-disciplinary activity that requires understanding a wide range of concepts and techniques that are often subjective and even conflicting. Imagine how much it would help if there were a single perspective that you could use to simplify these complex issues down to a small set of objective principles. In UI is Communication, Everett McKay explains how to design intuitive user interfaces by focusing on effective human communication. A user interfa...

A systematic presentation of activity theory, its application to interaction design, and an argument for the development of activity theory as a basis for understanding how people interact with technology.Activity theory holds that the human mind is the product of our interaction with people and artifacts in the context of everyday activity. Acting with Technology makes the case for activity theory as a basis for understanding our relationship with technol...

If you've ever wondered how Linux carries out the complicated tasks assigned to it by the IP protocols -- or if you just want to learn about modern networking through real-life examples -- Understanding Linux Network Internals is for you.Like the popular O'Reilly book, Understanding the Linux Kernel, this book clearly explains the underlying concepts and teaches you how to follow the actual C code that implements it. Although some background in the TCP/IP protocol...

The devil gets his due in the latest entry in the Pop Culture and Philosophy series. Supervillains and Philosophy features an international cabal of philosophers and comics industry professionals conspiring to reveal the dark details - and deeper meanings - lurking behind today’s most popular comic book monsters. Whether it’s their moral justification for world domination or the wavering boundaries they share with the modern anti-hero, everyone's favorite villains generat...

This is your must-have resource to the theoretical and practical concepts of mobile UX. You'll learn about the concepts and how to apply them in real-world scenarios. Throughout the book, the author provides you with 10 of the most commonly used archetypes in the UX arena to help illustrate what mobile UX is and how you can master it as quickly as possible. First, you'll start off learning how to communicate mobile UX flows visually. From there, you'll learn about applying and using 10 uni...

This book is a guide for managers, Scrum Masters and agile coaches who are interested in agile organizational methods and who are planning to introduce Scrum at their own company. Scrum is not only a product development framework but can also be used to structure activities for agile and lean organizational development.Divided into five major parts, the book first introduces and defines the Scrum Culture. It explains its relevance, highlights a number of pain points typical for fir...

From school lunchrooms to the White House press room, video games are an integral part of our popular culture, and the industry behind them touches all aspects of our lives, gamer and non-gamer alike. Business and entertainment, health and medicine, politics and war, social interaction and education, all fall under its influence.Virtual Ascendance tells the story of a formerly fringe enterprise that, when few were paying attention, exploded into a multi-billion dollar industry affe...

Imagine how much easier creating web and mobile applications would be if you had a practical and concise, hands-on guide to visual design. Visual Usability gets into the nitty-gritty of applying visual design principles to complex application design.You'll learn how to avoid common mistakes, make informed decisions about application design, and elevate the ordinary. We'll review three key principles that affect application design – consistency, hierarchy, and personality – and illustrate h...