MURPHY'S LAW:
If anything can go wrong, it will.
O'Toole's Commentary:
Murphy was an optimist.
Murphy's Corollary:
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
Murphy's Corollary:
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious
Murphy's Constant:
Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value
Quantized Revision of Murphy's Law:
Everything goes wrong all at once.
Ralph's Observation:
It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to realize that you are in a hurry.
Firestone's Law of Forecasting:
Chicken Little only has to be right once.
Thurber's Conclusion:
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
Manly's Maxim:
Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
Moer's truism:
No one gets a change of scenery except the lead dog.
Cannon's Comment:
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.
Scott's Second Law:
When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been correct in the first place.
Finagle's First Law:
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Finagle's Second Law:
No matter what the experiment's result, there will always be someone eager to:
(a) misinterpret it.
(b) fake it.
or
(c) believe it supports his own pet theory.
Finagle's Third Law:
In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake.
Finagle's Fourth Law:
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.
Finagle's Laws of Information:
1.The information you have is not what you want.
2.The information you want is not what you need.
3.The information you need is not what you can obtain.
4.The information you can obtain costs more than you want to pay.
Gumperson's Law:
The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability.
Rudin's Law:
In crises that force people to choose among alternative courses of action, most people will choose the worst one possible.
Ginsberg's Restatement of the Three Laws of Thermodynamics:
You can't win.
You can't break even.
You can't quit.
Ehrman's Commentary
Things will get worse before they will get better? Who said things would get better?
Commoner's Second Law of Ecology:
Nothing ever goes away.
Howe's Law:
Everyone has a scheme that will not work.
Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving Systems Dynamics:
Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a bigger can.
Non-Reciprocal Law of Expectations:
Negative expectations yield negative results.
Positive expectations yield negative results.
Klipstein's Law:
Tolerances will accumulate unidirectionally toward maximum difficulty of assembly.
Interchangeable parts won't.
You never find a lost article until you replace it.
Glatum's Law of Materialistic Acquisitiveness:
The perceived usefulness of an article is inversely proportional to its actual usefulness once bought and paid for.
Lewis' Law:
No matter how long or hard you shop for an item, after you've bought it, it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.
If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
You get the most of what you need the least.
The Airplane Law:
When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to transfer to is on time.
Etorre's Observation:
The other line moves faster.
First Law of Revision:
Information necessitating a change of design will be conveyed to the designer after - and only after - the plans are complete.
(Often called the 'Now They Tell Us' Law)
Second Law of Revision:
The more innocuous the modification appears to be, the further its influence will extend and the more plans will have to be
redrawn.
Corollary to the First Law of Revision:
In simple cases, presenting one obvious right way versus one obvious wrong way, it is often wiser to choose the wrong way, so as
to expedite subsequent revision.
Thinking Man's Tautology:
If you think you're wrong, you're wrong.
Corollary: If you think you're wrong, you're right.
LAWS OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING:
I. Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
II. Any given program costs more and takes longer.
III. If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
IV. If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
V. Any program will expand to fill available memory.
VI. The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.
VII. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capabilities of the programmer who must maintain it.
VIII. Any non-trivial program contains at least one bug.
IX. Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
X. Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology:
There's always one more bug.
Shaw's Principle:
Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
Law of the Perversity of Nature:
You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.
Law of Selective Gravity:
An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
Jennings Corollary to the Law of Selective Gravity:
The chance of the bread falling with the butter side down is directly proportional to the value of the carpet.
Wyszkowski's Second Law:
Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it long enough.
Sattinger's Law:
It works better if you plug it in.
Babcock's Law:
If it can be borrowed and it can be broken, you will borrow it and you will break it.
Lowery's Law:
If it jams - force it.
If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.
Schmidt's Law:
If you mess with a thing long enough, it'll break.
Anthony's Law of Force:
Don't force it - get a bigger hammer.
Cahn's Axiom:
When all else fails, read the instructions.
Gordon's First Law:
If a project is not worth doing at all, it's not worth doing well.
Law of Research:
Enough research will tend to support your theory.
Alan's Law of Research:
The theory is supported as long as the funds are.
Maier's Law:
If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
Cole's Law:
Thinly sliced cabbage
Peer's Law:
The solution to the problem changes the problem.
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous
resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
- Bokonon
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
You can lead a man to slaughter, but you can't make him think.
Don't get mad, get even.
Carson's Law:
It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick.
The Golden Rule:
He who has the gold, makes the rules.
Golden Principle:
Nothing will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Mark's mark:
Love is a matter of chemistry; sex is a matter of physics.
Korman's conclusion:
The trouble with resisting temptation is it may never come your way again.
Knight's Law:
Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans.
Maugham's Thought:
Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
Krueger's Observation:
A taxpayer is someone who does not have to take a civil service exam in order to work for the government.
Benchley's Law of Distinction:
There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.
Harver's Law:
A drunken man's words are a sober man's thoughts.
Schmidt's Observation:
All things being equal, a fat person uses more soap than a thin person.
Gibb's Law:
Infinity is one lawyer waiting for another.
Fools rush in where fools have been before.
Rule of Accuracy:
When working towards the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.
Inside every small problem is a large problem struggling to get out.
Wyszowski's Law:
No experiment is reproducible.
Fett's Law:
Never replicate a successful experiment.
Brooke's Law:
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it
beyond recognition.
The first Myth of Management:
It exists.
Spend sufficient time confirming the need and the need will disappear.
Peter's Placebo:
An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labour:
People are always available for work in the past tense.
Wiker's Law:
Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.
Clarke's First Law:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that
something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Clarke's Third Law:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
