The Daily Parker

So much to read, so much eye strain from the fluorescent lights:

• The federal budget deficit will hit $1 trillion in 2020, due mainly to the Republican tax cuts and spending increases. Note that Republicans have raised holy hell for smaller deficits during Democratic administrations.
• The 10th Circuit ruled this week that electors can vote for anyone they choose, which could have subtle effects in any presidential election.
• Drew Margary warns that President Trump "is not a cosmic 404 error." Brookings Institution senior fellow Thomas Wright thinks "Trump has defected." And Matt Ford bemoans "Trump's tax on the American psyche."
• The Prime Minister of Denmark finally said out loud what a lot of people have thought about the president's foreign policies.
• Chicago Gourmet has announced its lineup for this year's festival, to be held September 24th through 29th.

And finally, this year's Punderdome competition took on food; the audience ate it up.

Another problem with open-plan office spaces, according to comedian JiJi Lee: it's hard to find a place to sob. She suggests some:

By your C.E.O.’s work station: Flatten hierarchies by sobbing in front of your company leader. Open offices were made to foster communication, so introduce yourself and say, “Hi, I'll never make as much money as you!”

The center of the office: The company doesn’t believe in walls, so why build one around your emotions? Let it go and play the “Frozen” soundtrack while you’re at it. Do a cartwheel that turns into a split and then cry onto Colleen’s emotional support dog. You have the space for it! After all, the company wanted to increase productivity and you’ve never been more efficient with your crying in your life.

The restroom: This is where everyone goes to cry. Anticipate long lines.

At least my office has a coat closet. But it's very small.

Yesterday, the Nielsen Norman Group released groundbreaking research on user interface design for dogs:

There are several key usability guidelines that help dogs to have the most usable experience on modern websites and apps, particularly on mobile, tablet, and other touch-based interfaces:

• Consistency is critical. While consistency in any user experience is important, with dogs, it’s even more so. Experienced dog trainers will tell you that, for dogs to learn proper behavior, consistency in enforcing routines, expectations, and commands is critical. Some common UI culprits that provide extra difficulty for dogs are swipe ambiguity, gestures without signifiers, tap uncertainty for flat UI elements like ghost buttons, and unusual placement of common elements like navigation and search.
• Tap targets must be large. We recommend 1cm² for human tap targets, but paws (whether belonging to cats or dogs) require larger tap sizes (of at least 3-4cm², or even larger for Labradors and Great Danes).
• Gestures must be ergonomic for dog physiology. While many wearable interfaces now involve gestures such as swiping left or right to dismiss notifications or switch apps, these need to be modified for more ergonomic canine movements (such as “shake”). Dogs have a greater ability to move paws with precision up and down, but dogs’ range of motion along the horizontal axis is limited and relatively imprecise, so all gestures must account for this limitation.

They also give special guidance on the risks of using hamburger menus and pie charts.

I am not a parent (apparently). But for my friends who are, there is help:

The first proto-blog post on braverman.org hit the Internet on 13 May 1998. (And it was a joke. Literally.) This is the 6,000th since then.

And every single one of them is here.

(The count of actual blog posts is now 5,804, starting from this site becoming an actual blog on 9 November 2005.)

I love what this driver did to her Mazda logo:

A meme is going around Facebook: change one letter of a musical's name to ruin it.

Some of my favorites so far:

• On A Clear Day You Can Pee Forever
• Oklahomo
• Big Liver
• Legally Blande
• The Wound of Music
• Babes in Farms
• Sweeney Toad

One musician friend posted this on his wall and got over 200 responses.

Despite being a long-term .NET guy, and despite thinking Java has lagged significantly in language features and power over the years, and despite the ludicrous claim that .NET isn't portable, I laughed very hard at this Norwegian video:

From two years ago, and still relevant (and still NSFW funny):

I recently had a conversation about mandatory fun at work, and my interlocutor pointed me to this classic article:

Like a diseased appendix bursting and spreading infectious bacteria throughout the abdomen, fun is insinuating itself everywhere, into even the un-hippest workplaces. Witness the August issue of Inc. magazine, the self-declared "Handbook of the American Entrepreneur." Emblazoned on its cover was "Fun! It's the New Core Value." Beneath that was a photo of Jonathan Bush, the CEO of athenahealth, which helps medical practices interact with insurers. Bush was tearing his shirt apart to reveal a Batman costume underneath, the same costume in which he gave a full presentation to a prospective client after making a deal with one of his employees that if the latter lost 70 pounds, the management team would dress as superheroes for a day.

But that's just the beginning. There are 18 pages of similar stories to instruct and inspire employers to keep their employees happy at all costs, because happy employees make for happy customers. There are rubber chickens, Frisbee tosses, mustache-growing contests, pet psychics, interoffice memos alligator-clipped to toy cars, and ceremonies that honor employees for such accomplishments as having "the most animated hand gestures." Perks include on-campus wallyball courts, indoor soccer fields, air hockey, ping pong, billiards, yoga and aerobics classes, company pools and hot tubs, and Native-American themed nap rooms so that employees can sleep (sleep!) at work. And that's all at just one company--Aquascape, a supplier to pond-builders based in St. Charles, Illinois.

Here's an abbreviated list of the jollity that will ensue at your place of business if you follow [funsultants'] advice: "joy lists," koosh balls, office-chair relay races, marshmallow fights, funny caption contests, job interviews conducted in Groucho glasses or pajamas, wacky Olympics, memos by Frisbee, voicemails in cartoon-character voices, rap songs to convey what's learned at leadership institutes, "breakathons," bunny teeth, and asking job prospects to bring show and tell items such as "a stuffed Tigger doll symbolizing the interviewee's energetic and upbeat attitude" or perhaps a "neon-pink mask and snorkel worn to demonstrate a sense of humor, self-deprecating nature, and sense of adventure."

As I was reading the article, I got an email about my company's ongoing mustache-growing contest.

Here's my fun from last week. Feel the joy: