| Murphy's
laws and corollaries
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Collection of Interdisciplinary Laws
MURPHY'S LAWS
- Nothing is
as easy as it looks.
- Everything
takes longer than you think.
- Anything
that can go wrong will go wrong.
- If there
is a possibility of several things going
wrong, the one that will cause
the most damage will be the one to go
wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse
time
for something to go wrong, it will happen
then.
- If
anything simply cannot go wrong, it will
anyway.
- If you
perceive that there are four possible
ways in which a procedure can go wrong,
and circumvent these, then a fifth way,
unprepared for, will promptly develop.
- Left to
themselves, things tend to go from bad to
worse.
- If
everything seems to be going well, you
have obviously overlooked something.
- Nature
always sides with the hidden flaw.
- Mother
nature is a bitch.
- It is
impossible to make anything foolproof
because fools are so ingenious.
- Whenever
you set out to do something, something
else must be done first.
- Every
solution breeds new problems.
- Murphy's Law of
Research
- Enough research
will tend to support your theory.
- Murphy's Law of
Copiers
- The legibility of
a copy is inversely proportional to its
importance.
- Murphy's Law of
the Open Road:
- When there is a
very long road upon which there is a one-way
bridge placed at random,
and there are only two cars on that road, it
follows that:
(1) the two cars are going in opposite
directions, and
(2) they will always meet at the bridge.
- Murphy's Law of
Thermodynamics
- Things get worse
under pressure.
- The Murphy
Philosophy
- Smile . . .
tomorrow will be worse.
- Quantization
Revision of Murphy's Laws
- Everything goes
wrong all at once.
- Murphy's Constant
- Matter will be
damaged in direct proportion to its value
Murphy's Corollaries
- Left to
themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
- It is impossible
to make anything foolproof because fools are so
ingenious
- Law of the
Perversity of Nature (Mrs. Murphy's Corollary):
- You cannot
successfully determine beforehand which side of
the bread to butter.
- Corollary
(Jenning):
- The chance of the
bread falling with the buttered side down is
directly proportional
to the cost of the carpet. Commentaries
- Hill's
Commentaries on Murphy's Laws
- If
we lose much by having things go
wrong, take all possible care.
- If
we have nothing to lose by
change, relax.
- If
we have everything to gain by
change, relax.
- If
it doesn't matter, it does not
matter.
- O'Toole's
Commentary
- Murphy was
an optimist.
NBC's Addendum
to Murphy's Law
You never run
out of things that can go wrong.
Murphy's
Military Laws
- Never
share a foxhole with anyone braver than
you are.
- No battle
plan ever survives contact with the
enemy.
- Friendly
fire ain't.
- The most
dangerous thing in the combat zone is an
officer with a map.
- The
problem with taking the easy way out is
that the enemy has already mined it.
- The buddy
system is essential to your survival; it
gives the enemy somebody else to shoot
at.
- The
further you are in advance of your own
positions, the more likely your artillery
will shoot short.
- Incoming
fire has the right of way.
- If your
advance is going well, you are walking
into an ambush.
- The
quartermaster has only two sizes, too
large and too small.
- If you
really need an officer in a hurry, take a
nap.
- The only
time suppressive fire works is when it is
used on abandoned positions.
- The only
thing more accurate than incoming enemy
fire is incoming friendly fire.
- There is
nothing more satisfying that having
someone take a shot at you, and miss.
- Don't be
conspicuous. In the combat zone, it draws
fire. Out of the combat zone,
it draws sergeants.
- If your
sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
Murphy's
Technology Laws
- You can
never tell which way the train went by
looking at the track.
- Logic is a
systematic method of coming to the wrong
conclusion with confidence.
- Whenever a
system becomes completely defined, some
damn fool discovers
something which either abolishes the
system or expands it beyond recognition.
- Technology
is dominated by those who manage what
they do not understand.
- If
builders built buildings the way
programmers wrote programs, then the
first
woodpecker that came along would destroy
civilization.
- The
opulence of the front office decor varies
inversely with the fundamental
solvency of the firm.
- The
attention span of a computer is only as
long as it electrical cord.
- An expert
is one who knows more and more about less
and less until he knows
absolutely everything about nothing.
- Tell a man
there are 300 billion stars in the
universe and he'll believe you.
Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and
he'll have to touch to be sure.
- All great
discoveries are made by mistake.
- Always
draw your curves, then plot your reading.
- Nothing
ever gets built on schedule or within
budget.
- All's well
that ends.
- A meeting
is an event at which the minutes are kept
and the hours are lost.
- The first
myth of management is that it exists.
- A failure
will not appear till a unit has passed
final inspection.
- New
systems generate new problems.
- To err is
human, but to really foul things up
requires a computer.
- We don't
know one millionth of one percent about
anything.
- Any given
program, when running, is obsolete.
- Any
sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.
- A computer
makes as many mistakes in two seconds as
20 men working 20 years make.
- Nothing
motivates a man more than to see his boss
putting in an honest day's work.
- Some
people manage by the book, even though
they don't know who wrote the book
or even what book.
- The
primary function of the design engineer
is to make things difficult for the
fabricator
and impossible for the serviceman.
- To spot
the expert, pick the one who predicts the
job will take the longest and cost the
most.
- After all
is said and done, a hell of a lot more is
said than done.
- Any
circuit design must contain at least one
part which is obsolete,
two parts which are unobtainable and
three parts which are still under
development.
- A complex
system that works is invariably found to
have evolved from a simple
system that works.
- If
mathematically you end up with the
incorrect answer, try multiplying by the
page number.
- Computers
are unreliable, but humans are even more
unreliable. Any system which
depends on human reliability is
unreliable.
- Give all
orders verbally. Never write anything
down that might go into a "Pearl
Harbor File."
- Under the
most rigorously controlled conditions of
pressure, temperature, volume,
humidity, and other variables the
organism will do as it damn well pleases.
- If you
can't understand it, it is intuitively
obvious.
- The more
cordial the buyer's secretary, the
greater the odds that the competition
already has the order.
- In
designing any type of construction, no
overall dimension can be totalled
correctly
after 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The correct
total will become self-evident at 8:15
a.m. on Monday.
- Fill
what's empty. Empty what's full. And
scratch where it itches.
- All things
are possible except skiing through a
revolving door.
- The only
perfect science is hind-sight.
- Work
smarder and not harder and be careful of
yor speling.
- If it's
not in the computer, it doesn't exist.
- If an
experiment works, something has gone
wrong.
- When all
else fails, read the instructions.
- If there
is a possibility of several things going
wrong the one that will cause
the most damage will be the one to go
wrong.
- Everything
that goes up must come down.
- Any
instrument when dropped will roll into
the least accessible corner.
- Any simple
theory will be worded in the most
complicated way.
- Build a
system that even a fool can use and only
a fool will want to use it.
- The degree
of technical competence is inversely
proportional to the level of management.
Murphy's Love
Laws
- All the
good ones are taken.
- If the
person isn't taken, there's a reason.
(corr. to 1)
- The nicer
someone is, the farther away (s)he is
from you.
- Brains x
Beauty x Availability = Constant.
- The amount
of love someone feels for you is
inversely proportional to
how much you love them.
- Money
can't buy love, but it sure gets you a
great bargaining position.
- The best
things in the world are free --- and
worth every penny of it.
- Every kind
action has a not-so-kind reaction.
- Nice
guys(girls) finish last.
- If it
seems too good to be true, it probably
is.
- Availability
is a function of time. The minute you get
interested is the minute
they find someone else.
Murphy's Laws
of sex
- The more
beautiful the woman is who loves you, the
easier it is to leave her
with no hard feelings.
- Nothing
improves with age.
- No matter
how many times you've had it, if it's
offered take it, because it'll
never be quite the same again.
- Sex has no
calories.
- Sex takes
up the least amount of time and causes
the most amount of trouble.
- There is
no remedy for sex but more sex.
- Sex appeal
is 50% what you've got and 50% what
people think you've got.
- No sex
with anyone in the same office.
- Sex is
like snow; you never know how many inches
you are going to get or
how long it is going to last.
- A man in
the house is worth two in the street.
- If you get
them by the balls, their hearts and minds
will follow.
- Virginity
can be cured.
- When a
man's wife learns to understand him, she
usually stops listening to him.
- Never
sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
- The
qualities that most attract a woman to a
man are usually the same ones she
can't stand years later.
- Sex is
dirty only if it's done right.
- It is
always the wrong time of month.
- The best
way to hold a man is in your arms.
- When the
lights are out, all women are beautiful.
- Sex is
hereditary. If your parents never had it,
chances are you won't either.
- Sow your
wild oats on Saturday night -- Then on
Sunday pray for crop failure.
- The
younger the better.
- The game
of love is never called off on account of
darkness.
- It was not
the apple on the tree but the pair on the
ground that caused the
trouble in the garden.
- Sex
discriminates against the shy and the
ugly.
- Before you
find your handsome prince, you've got to
kiss a lot of frogs.
- There may
be some things better than sex, and some
things worse than sex.
But there is nothing exactly like it.
- Love your
neighbor, but don't get caught.
- Love is a
hole in the heart.
- If the
effort that went in research on the
female bosom had gone into our
space program, we would now be running
hot-dog stands on the moon.
- Love is a
matter of chemistry, sex is a matter of
physics.
- Do it only
with the best.
- Sex is a
three-letter word which needs some
old-fashioned four-letter words
to convey its full meaning.
- One good
turn gets most of the blankets.
- You cannot
produce a baby in one month by
impregnating nine women.
- Love is
the triumph of imagination over
intelligence.
- It is
better to have loved and lost than never
to have loved at all.
- Thou shalt
not commit adultery.....unless in the
mood.
- Never lie
down with a woman who's got more troubles
than you.
- Abstain
from wine, women, and song; mostly song.
- Never
argue with a women when she's tired -- or
rested.
- A woman
never forgets the men she could have had;
a man, the women he couldn't.
- What
matters is not the length of the wand,
but the magic in the stick.
- It is
better to be looked over than overlooked.
- Never say
no.
- A man can
be happy with any woman as long as he
doesn't love her.
- Folks
playing leapfrog must complete all jumps.
- Beauty is
skin deep; ugly goes right to the bone.
- Never
stand between a fire hydrant and a dog.
- A man is
only a man, but a good bicycle is a ride.
- Love comes
in spurts.
- The world
does not revolve on an axis.
- Sex is one
of the nine reasons for reincarnation;
the other eight are unimportant.
- Smile, it
makes people wonder what you are
thinking.
- Don't do
it if you can't keep it up.
- There is
no difference between a wise man and a
fool when they fall in love.
- Never go
to bed mad, stay up and fight.
- Love is
the delusion that one woman differs from
another.
- "This
won't hurt, I promise."
B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - Y - Z
- Abbott's
Admonitions:
- If
you have to ask, you're not
entitled to know.
- If
you don't like the answer, you
shouldn't have asked the
question.
- Abrams's
Advice:
- When
eating an elephant, take one bite at a
time.
- Rule of
Accuracy:
- When
working toward the solution of a problem,
it always helps if you know the answer.
- Corollary:
Provided, of course, that you know there
is a problem.
- Acheson's
Rule of the Bureaucracy:
- A
memorandum is written not to inform the
reader but to protect the writer.
- Acton's
Law:
- Power
tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts
absolutely.
- Ade's Law:
- Anybody
can win -- unless there happens to be a
second entry.
- Airplane
Law:
- When the
plane you are on is late, the plane you
want to transfer to is on time.
- Alan's Law
of Research
- The theory
is supported as long as the funds are.
- Albrecht's
Law:
- Social
innovations tend to the level of minimum
tolerable well being.
- Algren's
Precepts:
- Never eat
at a place called Mom's. Never play cards
with a man named Doc.
And never lie down with a woman who's got
more troubles than you.
- Allen's
Law of Civilization:
- It is
better for civilization to be going down
the drain than to be coming up it.
- Agnes
Allen's Law:
- Almost
anything is easier to get into than out
of.
- Allen's
Axiom
- When all
else fails, follow instructions.
- Allen's
Distinction
- The lion
and the calf shall lie down together, but
the calf won't get much sleep.
- Fred
Allen's Motto:
- I'd rather
have a free bottle in front of me than a
prefrontal lobotomy.
- Alley's
Axiom:
- Justice
always prevails . . . three times out of
seven.
- Alligator
Allegory:
- The
objective of all dedicated product
support employees should be to
thoroughly analyze all situations,
anticipate all problems prior to their
occurrence, have answers for these
problems, and move swiftly to solve
these problems when called upon. However,
when you are up to your ass
in alligators, it is difficult to remind
yourself that your initial objective was
to drain the swamp.
- Allison's
Precept
- The best
simple-minded test of expertise in a
particular area is the ability to
win money in a series of bets on future
occurrences in that area.
- Anderson's
Law
- Any system
or program, however complicated, if
looked at in exactly the
right way, will become even more
complicated.
- Andrews's
Canoeing Postulate:
- No matter
which direction you start it's always
against the wind coming back.
- Law of
Annoyance:
- When
working on a project, if you put away a
tool that you're certain
you're finished with, you will need it
instantly.
- Anthony's
Law of Force:
- Don't
force it, get a larger hammer.
- Anthony's
Law of the Workshop:
- Any tool,
when dropped, will roll into the least
accessible corner of the workshop.
- Corollary:
On the way to the corner, any dropped
tool will first always strike your toes.
- Laws of
Applied Confusion:
- The
one piece that the plant forgot
to ship is the one that supports
75%
of the balance of the shipment.
- Corollary:
Not only did the plant forget to ship it,
50% of the time they haven't
even made it. Truck deliveries that
normally take one day will take five when
you are waiting for the truck. After
adding two weeks to the schedule for
unexpected delays, add two more for the
unexpected, unexpected delays. In any
structure, pick out the one piece that
should not be mismarked and expect the
plant to cross you up.
- Corollaries:
- In
any group of pieces with the same
erection mark on it, one should
not have that mark on it.
- It
will not be discovered until you
try to put it where the mark says
it's supposed to go.
- Never
argue with the fabricating plant
about an error. The inspection
prints are all checked off, even
to the holes that aren't there.
- Approval
Seeker's Law:
- Those
whose approval you seek the most give you
the least.
- The
Aquinas Axiom:
- What the
gods get away with, the cows don't.
- Army
Axiom:
- Any order
that can be misunderstood has been
misunderstood.
- Army Law:
- If it
moves, salute it; if it doesn't move,
pick it up; if you can't pick it up,
paint it.
- Ashley-Perry
Statistical Axioms:
- Numbers
are tools, not rules.
- Numbers
are symbols for things; the
number and the thing are not the
same.
- Skill
in manipulating numbers is a
talent, not evidence of divine
guidance.
- Like
other occult techniques of
divination, the statistical
method has a
private jargon deliberately
contrived to obscure its methods
from nonpractitioners.
- The
product of an arithmetical
computation is the answer to an
equation;
it is not the solution to a
problem.
- Arithmetical
proofs of theorems that do not
have arithmetical bases prove
nothing.
- Astrology
Law:
- It's
always the wrong time of the month.
- Fourteenth
Corollary of Atwood's General Law of
Dynamic Negatives:
- No books
are lost by loaning except those you
particularly wanted to keep.
- Avery's
Rule of Three:
- Trouble
strikes in series of threes, but when
working around the house the
next job after a series of three is not
the fourth job -- it's the start of a
brand new series of three.
- Babcock's
Law:
- If it can
be borrowed and it can be broken, you
will borrow it and you will break it.
- Baer's
Quartet:
- What's
good politics is bad economics; what's
bad politics is good economics;
what's good economics is bad politics;
what's bad economics is good politics.
- Bagdikian's
Law of Editor's Speeches:
- The
splendor of an editor's speech and the
splendor of his newspaper are inversely
related to the distance between the city
in which he makes his speech and the city
in which he publishes his paper.
- Baker's
Byroad:
- When you
are over the hill, you pick up speed.
- Baker's
Law:
- Misery no
longer loves company. Nowadays it insists
on it.
- Baldy's
Law:
- Some of it
plus the rest of it is all of it.
- Barber's
Laws of Backpacking
- The
integral of the gravitational
potential taken around any loop
trail you
chose to hike always comes out
positive.
- Any
stone in your boot always
migrates against the pressure
gradient to
exactly the point of most
pressure.
- The
weight of your pack increases in
direct proportion to the amount
of food
you consume from it. If you run
out of food, the pack weight goes
on
increasing anyway.
- The
number of stones in your boot is
directly proportional to the
number
of hours you have been on the
trail.
- The
difficulty of finding any given
trail marker is directly
proportional to
the importance of the
consequences of failing to find
it.
- The
size of each of the stones in
your boot is directly
proportional to the
number of hours you have been on
the trail.
- The
remaining distance to your chosen
campsite remains constant as
twilight approaches.
- The
net weight of your boots is
proportional to the cube of the
number
of hours you have been on the
trail.
- When
you arrive at your chosen
campsite, it is full.
- If
you take your boots off, you'll
never get them back on again.
- The
local density of mosquitos is
inversely proportional to your
remaining repellent.
- Barrett's
Laws of Driving:
- You
can get ANYWHERE in ten minutes
if you go fast enough.
- Speed
bumps are of negligible effect
when the vehicle exceeds triple
the desired restraining speed.
- The
vehicle in front of you is
traveling slower than you are.
- This
lane ends in 500 feet.
- Barr's
Comment on Domestic Tranquility:
- On a
beautiful day like this it's hard to
believe anyone can be unhappy
-- but we'll work on it.
- Barth's
Distinction
- There are
two types of people: those who divide
people into two types,
and those who don't.
- Bartz's
Law of Hokey Horsepuckery:
- The more
ridiculous a belief system, the higher
the probability of its success.
- Baruch's
Rule for Determining Old Age:
- Old age is
always fifteen years older than I am.
- Barzun's
Laws of Learning
- The
simple but difficult arts of
paying attention, copying
accurately,
following an argument, detecting
an ambiguity or a false
inference,
testing guesses by summoning up
contrary instances, organizing
one's
time and one's thought for study
-- all these arts -- cannot be
taught in
the air but only through the
difficulties of a defined
subject. They cannot
be taught in one course or one
year, but must be acquired
gradually in
dozens of connections.
- The
analogy to athletics must be
pressed until all recognize that
in the
exercise of Intellect those who
lack the muscles, coordination,
and will
power can claim no place at the
training table, let alone on the
playing field.
- Forthoffer's
Cynical Summary of Barzun's Laws
- That
which has not yet been taught
directly can never be taught
directly.
- If
at first you don't succeed, you
will never succeed.
- Baxter's
First Law:
- Government
intervention in the free market always
leads to a lower national standard
of living.
- Baxter's
Second Law:
- The
adoption of fractional gold reserves in a
currency system always leads to
depreciation, devaluation, demonetization
and, ultimately, to complete destruction
of that currency.
- Baxter's
Third Law:
- In a free
market good money always drives bad money
out of circulation.
- Beardsley's
Warning to Lawyers:
- Beware of
and eschew pompous prolixity.
- Beauregard's
Law:
- When
you're up to your nose, keep your mouth
shut.
- Becker's
Law:
- It is much
harder to find a job than to keep one.
- Beifeld's
Principle:
- The
probability of a young man meeting a
desirable and receptive young female
increases by pyramidal progression when
he is already in the company of
(1) a date, (2) his wife, and (3) a
better looking and richer male friend.
- Belle's
Constant:
- The ratio
of time involved in work to time
available for work is usually about 0.6.
- Benchley's
Distinction:
- There are
two types of people: those who divide
people into two types,
and those who don't.
- Benchley's
Law:
- Anyone can
do any amount of work, provided it isn't
the work he is supposed to
be doing at that moment.
- Berkeley's
Laws:
- The
world is more complicated than
most of our theories make it out
to be.
- Ignorance
is no excuse.
- Never
decide to buy something while
listening to the salesman.
- Information
which is true meets a great many
different tests very well.
- Most
problems have either many answers
or no answer. Only a few
problems have a single answer.
- An
answer may be wrong, right, both,
or neither. Most answers are
partly right and partly wrong.
- A
chain of reasoning is no stronger
than its weakest link.
- A
statement may be true
independently of illogical
reasoning.
- Most
general statements are false,
including this one.
- An
exception TESTS a rule; it NEVER
PROVES it.
- The
moment you have worked out an
answer, start checking it --
it probably isn't right.
- If
there is an opportunity to make a
mistake, sooner or later
the mistake will be made.
- Being
sure mistakes will occur is a
good frame of mind for
catching them.
- Check
the answer you have worked out
once more -- before
you tell it to anybody.
- Estimating
a figure may be enough to catch
an error.
- Figures
calculated in a rush are very
hot; they should be allowed
to cool off a little before being
used; thus we will have a
reasonable
time to think about the figures
and catch mistakes.
- A
great many problems do not have
accurate answers, but do have
approximate answers, from which
sensible decisions can be made.
- Berra's
Law:
- You can
observe a lot just by watching.
- Berson's
Corollary of Inverse Distances:
- The
farther away from the entrance that you
have to park, the closer the space
vacated by the car that pulls away as you
walk up to the door.
- Bicycle
Law:
- All
bicycles weigh 50 pounds:
- A 30-pound
bicycle needs a 20-pound lock and chain.
- A 40-pound
bicycle needs a 10-pound lock and chain.
- A 50-pound
bicycle needs no lock or chain.
- First Law
of Bicycling:
- No matter
which way you ride it's uphill and
against the wind.
- The
Billings Phenomenon:
- The
conclusions of most good operations
research studies are obvious.
- Billings's
Law:
- Live
within your income, even if you have to
borrow to do so.
- Blaauw's
Law:
- Established
technology tends to persist in spite of
new technology.
- Blanchard's
Newspaper Obituary Law:
- If you
want your name spelled wrong, die.
- Bok's Law:
- If you
think education is expensive -- try
ignorance.
- Boling's
Postulate:
- If you're
feeling good, don't worry. You'll get
over it.
- Bolton's
Law of Ascending Budgets:
- Under
current practices, both expenditures and
revenues rise to meet each
other, no matter which one may be in
excess.
- Bombeck's
Rule of Medicine:
- Never go
to a doctor whose office plants have
died.
- Bonafede's
Revelation:
- The
conventional wisdom is that power is an
aphrodisiac. In truth, it's exhausting.
- Boob's
Law:
- You always
find something the last place you look.
- Booker's
Law:
- An ounce
of application is worth a ton of
abstraction.
- Boozer's
Revision:
- A bird in
the hand is dead.
- Boren's
Laws of the Bureaucracy:
- When
in doubt, mumble.
- When
in trouble, delegate.
- When
in charge, ponder.
- Borkowski's
Law:
- You can't
guard against the arbitrary.
- Borstelmann's
Rule:
- If
everything seems to be coming your way,
you're probably in the wrong lane.
- Boston's
Irreversible Law of Clutter:
- In any
household, junk accumulates to fill the
space available for its storage.
- Boultbee's
Criterion:
- If the
converse of a statement is absurd, the
original statement is an insult
to the intelligence and should never have
been said.
- Boyle's
Laws:
- The
success of any venture will be
helped by prayer, even in the
wrong denomination.
- When
things are going well, someone
will inevitably experiment
detrimentally.
- The
deficiency will never show itself
during the dry runs.
- Information
travels more surely to those with
a lesser need to know.
- An
original idea can never emerge
from committee in the original.
- When
the product is destined to fail,
the delivery system will
perform perfectly.
- The
crucial memorandum will be snared
in the out-basket by the
paper clip of the overlying
correspondence and go to file.
- Success
can be insured only by devising a
defense against failure
of the contingency plan.
- Performance
is directly affected by the
perversity of inanimate objects.
- If
not controlled, work will flow to
the competent man until he
submerges.
- The
lagging activity in a project
will invariably be found in the
area where
the highest overtime rates lie
waiting.
- Talent
in staff work or sales will
recurringly be interpreted as
managerial ability.
- The
"think positive" leader
tends to listen to his
subordinates' premonitions
only during the postmortems.
- Clearly
stated instructions will
consistently produce multiple
interpretations.
- On
successive charts of the same
organization the number of boxes
will never decrease.
- Branch's
First Law of Crisis:
- The spirit
of public service will rise, and the
bureaucracy will multiply itself
much faster, in time of grave national
concern.
- First Law
of Bridge:
- It's
always the partner's fault.
- Brien's
First Law:
- At some
time in the life cycle of virtually every
organization, its ability to
succeed in spite of itself runs out.
- Broder's
Law:
- Anybody
that wants the presidency so much that
he'll spend two years
organizing and campaigning for it is not
to be trusted with the office.
- Brontosaurus
Principle:
- Organizations
can grow faster than their brains can
manage them in relation
to their environment and to their own
physiology; when this occurs, they
are an endangered species.
- Brooks's
Law:
- Adding
manpower to a late software project makes
it later.
- Brooke's
Law:
- Whenever a
system becomes completely defined, some
damn fool discovers
something which either abolishes the
system or expands it beyond recognition.
- Brownian
Motion Rule of Bureacracies:
- It is
impossible to distinguish, from a
distance, whether the bureaucrats
associated
with your project are simply sitting on
their hands, or frantically trying to
cover their asses.
- Heisenberg's
Addendum to Brownian Bureaucracy: If you
observe a bureaucrat closely
enough to make the distinction above, he
will react to your observation by
covering
his ass.
- (Jerry)
Brown's Law:
- Too often
I find that the volume of paper expands
to fill the available briefcases.
- (Sam)
Brown's Law:
- Never
offend people with style when you can
offend them with substance.
- (Tony)
Brown's Law of Business Success:
- Our
customer's paperwork is profit. Our own
paperwork is loss.
- Bruce-Briggs's
Law of Traffic:
- At any
level of traffic, any delay is
intolerable.
- Buchwald's
Law:
- As the
economy gets better, everything else gets
worse.
- Bucy's
Law:
- Nothing is
ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
- Bunuel's
Law:
- Overdoing
things is harmful in all cases, even when
it comes to efficiency.
- Bureaucratic
Cop-Out #1:
- You should
have seen it when *I* got it.
- Burns's
Balance:
- If the
assumptions are wrong, the conclusions
aren't likely to be very good.
- Bustlin'
Billy's Bogus Beliefs:
- The
organization of any program
reflects the organization of the
people
who develop it.
- There
is no such thing as a "dirty
capitalist", only a
capitalist.
- Anything
is possible, but nothing is easy.
- Capitalism
can exist in one of only two
states -- welfare or warfare.
- I'd
rather go whoring than warring.
- History
proves nothing.
- There
is nothing so unbecoming on the
beach as a wet kilt.
- A
little humility is arrogance.
- A
lot of what appears to be
progress is just so much
technological rococo.
- Butler's
Law of Progress:
- All
progress is based on a universal innate
desire on the part of every organism
to live beyond its income.
- Bye's
First Law of Model Railroading:
- Anytime
you wish to demonstrate something, the
number of faults is proportional
to the number of viewers.
- Bye's
Second Law of Model Railroading:
- The desire
for modeling a prototype is inversely
proportional to the decline of the
prototype.
- Cahn's
Axiom (Allen's Axiom):
- When all
else fails, read the instructions.
- Calkin's
Law of Menu Language:
- The number
of adjectives and verbs that are added to
the description of a menu item is in
inverse proportion to the quality of the
resulting dish.
- John
Cameron's Law:
- No matter
how many times you've had it, if it's
offered, take it, because it'll never be
quite the same again.
- Camp's
Law:
- A coup
that is known in advance is a coup that
does not take place.
- Campbell's
Law:
- Nature
abhors a vacuous experimenter.
- Canada
Bill Jones's Motto:
- It's
morally wrong to allow suckers to keep
their money.
- Canada
Bill Jones's Supplement:
- A Smith
and Wesson beats four aces.
- Cannon's
Cogent Comment:
- The leak
in the roof is never in the same location
as the drip.
- 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.
- Carson's
Law
- It's
better to be rich and healthy than poor
and sick.
- Cartoon
Laws
- Any
body suspended in space will
remain in space until made aware
of its situation. Daffy Duck
steps off a cliff, expecting
further pastureland. He loiters
in midair, soliloquizing
flippantly, until he chances to
look down. At this point, the
familiar principle of 32 feet per
second per second takes over.
- Any
body in motion will tend to
remain in motion until solid
matter intervenes suddenly.
Whether shot from a cannon or in
hot pursuit on foot, cartoon
characters are so absolute in
their momentum that only a
telephone pole or an outsize
boulder retards their forward
motion absolutely. Sir Isaac
Newton called this sudden
termination of motion the
stooge's surcease.
- Any
body passing through solid matter
will leave a perforation
conforming to its perimeter. Also
called the silhouette of passage,
this phenomenon is the speciality
of victims of directed-pressure
explosions and of reckless
cowards who are so eager to
escape that they exit directly
through the wall of a house,
leaving a cookie-cutout- perfect
hole. The threat of skunks or
matrimony often catalyzes this
reaction.
- The
time required for an object to
fall twenty stories is greater
than or equal to the time it
takes for whoever knocked it off
the ledge to spiral down twenty
flights to attempt to capture it
unbroken. Such an object is
inevitably priceless, the attempt
to capture it inevitably
unsuccessful.
- All
principles of gravity are negated
by fear. Psychic forces are
sufficient in most bodies for a
shock to propel them directly
away from the earth's surface. A
spooky noise or an adversary's
signature sound will induce
motion upward, usually to the
cradle of a chandelier, a
treetop, or the crest of a
flagpole. The feet of a character
who is running or the wheels of a
speeding auto need never touch
the ground, especially when in
flight.
- As
speed increases, objects can be
in several places at once. This
is particularly true of
tooth-and-claw fights, in which a
character's head may be glimpsed
emerging from the cloud of
altercation at several places
simultaneously. This effect is
common as well among bodies that
are spinning or being throttled.
A 'wacky' character has the
option of self- replication only
at manic high speeds and may
ricochet off walls to achieve the
velocity required.
- Certain
bodies can pass through solid
walls painted to resemble tunnel
entrances; others cannot. This
trompe l'oeil inconsistency has
baffled generation, but at least
it is known that whoever paints
an entrance on a wall's surface
to trick an opponent will be
unable to pursue him into this
theoretical space. The painter is
flattened against the wall when
he attempts to follow into the
painting. This is ultimately a
problem of art, not of science.
- Any
violent rearrangement of feline
matter is impermanent. Cartoon
cats possess even more deaths
than the traditional nine lives
might comfortably afford. They
can be decimated, spliced,
splayed, accordion-pleated,
spindled, or disassembled, but
they cannot be destroyed. After a
few moments of blinking self
pity, they reinflate, elongate,
snap back, or solidify.
Corollary: A cat will assume the
shape of its container.
- For
every vengeance there is an equal
and opposite revengeance. This is
the one law of animated cartoon
motion that also applies to the
physical world at large. For that
reason, we need the relief of
watching it happen to a duck
instead.
- Everything
falls faster than an anvil.
Examples too numerous to mention
from the Roadrunner cartoons.
- Cavanaugh's
Postulate:
- All
kookies are not in a jar.
- Law of
Character and Appearance:
- People
don't change; they only become more so.
- Checkbook
Balancer's Law:
- In matters
of dispute, the bank's balance is always
smaller than yours.
- Cheops's
Law:
- Nothing
ever gets built on schedule or within
budget.
- Chili
Cook's Secret:
- If your
next pot of chili tastes better, it
probably is because of something left
out, rather than added.
- Chisholm's
First Law and Corollary: see Murphy's
Third and Fifth Laws.
- Chisholm's
Second Law:
- When
things are going well, something will go
wrong.
- Corollaries:
- When
things just can't get any worse,
they will.
- Anytime
things appear to be going better,
you have overlooked something.
- Chisholm's
Third Law:
- Proposals,
as understood by the proposer, will be
judged otherwise by others.
- Corollaries:
- If
you explain so clearly that
nobody can misunderstand,
somebody will.
- If
you do something which you are
sure will meet with everyone's
approval, somebody won't like it.
- Procedures
devised to implement the purpose
won't quite work.
- No
matter how long or how many times
you explain, no one is listening.
- The First
Discovery of Christmas Morning: Batteries
not included.
- Churchill's
Commentary on Man:
- Man will
occasionally stumble over the truth, but
most of the time he will pick himself up
and continue on as though nothing has
happened.
- Ciardi's
Poetry Law:
- Whenever
in time, and wherever in the universe,
any man speaks or writes in any detail
about the technical management of a poem,
the resulting irascibility of the
reader's response is a constant.
- 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.
- Corollary
(Asimov): When the lay public rallies
round an idea that is denounced by
distinguished but elderly scientists, and
supports that idea with great fervor and
emotion -- the distinguished but elderly
scientists are then, after all, right.
- Clarke's
Second Law:
- The only
way to discover the limits of the
possible is to go beyond them into the
impossible.
- Clarke's
Third Law:
- Any
sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.
- Clarke's
Law of Revolutionary Ideas:
- Every
revolutionary idea -- in Science,
Politics, Art or Whatever -- evokes three
stages of reaction. They may be summed up
by the three phrases:
- "It
is completely impossible -- don't
waste my time."
- "It
is possible, but it is not worth
doing."
- "I
said it was a good idea all
along."
- Clark's
First Law of Relativity:
- No matter
how often you trade dinner or other
invitations with in-laws, you will lose a
small fortune in the exchange.
- Corollary:
Don't try it: you cannot drink enough of
your in-laws' booze to get even before
your liver fails.
- Clark's
Law:
- It's
always darkest just before the lights go
out.
- Cleveland's
Highway Law:
- Highways
in the worst need of repair naturally
have low traffic counts, which results in
low priority for repair work.
- Clopton's
Law:
- For every
credibility gap there is a gullibility
fill.
- Clyde's
Law:
- If you
have something to do, and you put it off
long enough, chances are someone else
will do it for you.
- Cohen's
Law:
- What
really matters is the name you succeed in
imposing on the facts -- not the facts
themselves.
- Cohen's
Laws of Politics:
- Law of
Alienation:
- Nothing
can so alienate a voter from the
political system as backing a winning
candidate.
- Law of
Ambition:
- At any one
time, thousands of borough councilmen,
school board members, attorneys, and
businessmen -- as well as congressmen,
senators, and governors -- are dreaming
of the White House, but few, if any of
them, will make it.
- Law of
Attraction:
- Power
attracts people but it cannot hold them.
- Law of
Competition:
- The more
qualified candidates who are available,
the more likely the compromise will be on
the candidate whose main qualification is
a nonthreatening incompetence.
- Law of
Inside Dope:
- There are
many inside dopes in politics and
government.
- Law of
Lawmaking:
- Those who
express random thoughts to legislative
committees are often surprised and
appalled to find themselves the
instigators of law.
- Law of
Permanence:
- Political
power is as permanent as today's
newspaper. Ten years from now, few will
know or care who the most powerful man in
any state was today.
- Law of
Secrecy:
- The best
way to publicize a governmental or
political action is to attempt to hide
it.
- Law of
Wealth:
- Victory
goes to the candidate with the most
accumulated or contributed wealth who has
the financial resources to convince the
middle class and poor that he will be on
their side.
- Law of
Wisdom:
- Wisdom is
considered a sign of weakness by the
powerful because a wise man can lead
without power but only a powerful man can
lead without wisdom.
- Cohn's
Law:
- The more
time you spend in reporting on what you
are doing, the less time you have to do
anything. Stability is achieved when you
spend all your time doing nothing but
reporting on the nothing you are doing.
- Cole's
Law:
- Thinly
sliced cabbage.
- Mr. Cole's
Axiom:
- The sum of
the intelligence on the planet is a
constant; the population is growing.
- Colson's
Law:
- If you've
got them by the balls, their hearts and
minds will follow.
- Comins's
Law:
- People
will accept your idea much more readily
if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said
it first.
- Committee
Rules:
- Never
arrive on time, or you will be
stamped a beginner.
- Don't
say anything until the meeting is
half over; this stamps you as
being wise.
- Be
as vague as possible; this
prevents irritating the others.
- When
in doubt, suggest that a
subcommittee be appointed.
- Be
the first to move for
adjournment; this will make you
popular -- it's what everyone is
waiting for.
- Commoner's
Three Laws of Ecology:
- No
action is without side-effects.
- Nothing
ever goes away.
- There
is no free lunch.
- Law of
Computability
- Any system
or program, however complicated, if
looked at in exactly the right way, will
become even more complicated.
- Law of
Computability Applied to Social Science:
- If at
first you don't succeed, transform your
data set.
- Laws of
computer programming
- Any
given program, when running, is
obsolete.
- Any
given program costs more and
takes longer.
- If
a program is useful, it will have
to be changed.
- If
a program is useless, it will
have to be documented.
- Any
program will expand to fill
available memory.
- The
value of a program is
proportional to the weight of its
output.
- Program
complexity grows until it exceeds
the capabilities of the
programmer who must maintain it.
- Any
non-trivial program contains at
least one bug.
- Undetectable
errors are infinite in variety,
in contrast to detectable errors,
which by definition are limited.
- Adding
manpower to a late software
project makes it later.
- Lubarsky's
Law of Cybernetic Entomology:
There's always one more bug.
- First
Maxim of Computers
- To err is
human, but to really screw things up
requires a computer.
- Connolly's
Law of Cost Control:
- The price
of any product produced for a government
agency will be not less than the square
of the initial Firm Fixed-Price Contract.
- Connolly's
Rule for Political Incumbents:
- Short-term
success with voters on any side of a
given issue can be guaranteed by creating
a long-term special study commission made
up of at least three divergent interest
groups.
- Conrad's
Conundrum
- Technologie
don't transfer.
- Considine's
Law:
- Whenever
one word or letter can change the entire
meaning of a sentence, the probability of
an error being made will be in direct
proportion to the embarrassment it will
cause.
- Conway's
Law #1
- If you
assign N persons to write a compiler
you'll get a N-1 pass compiler.
- Conway's
Law #2
- In every
organization there will always be one
person who knows what is going on. ->
This person must be fired.
- Cooke's
Law:
- In any
decisive situation, the amount of
relevant information available is
inversely proportional to the importance
of the decision.
- Cook's
Law:
- Much work,
much food; little work, little food; no
work, burial at sea.
- Coolidge's
Immutable Observation:
- When more
and more people are thrown out of work,
unemployment results.
- Cooper's
Law:
- All
machines are amplifiers.
- Cooper's
Metalaw:
- A
proliferation of new laws creates a
proliferation of new loopholes.
- Mr.
Cooper's Law:
- If you do
not understand a particular word in a
piece of technical writing, ignore it.
The piece will make perfect sense without
it.
- Corcoroni's
Laws of Bus Transportation:
- The
bus that left the stop just
before you got there is your bus.
- The
amount of time you have to wait
for a bus is directly
proportional to the inclemency of
the weather.
- All
buses heading in the opposite
direction drive off the face of
the earth and never return.
- The
last rush-hour express bus to
your neighborhood leaves five
minutes before you get off work.
- Bus
schedules are arranged so your
bus will arrive at the transfer
point precisely one minute after
the connecting bus has left.
- Any
bus that can be the wrong bus
will be the wrong bus. All others
are out of service or full.
- Cornuelle's
Law:
- Authority
tends to assign jobs to those least able
to do them.
- Corry's
Law:
- Paper is
always strongest at the perforations.
- Courtois's
Rule:
- If people
listened to themselves more often, they'd
talk less.
- Crane's
Law (Friedman's Reiteration):
- There
ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
("tanstaafl")
- Mark
Miller's Exception to Crane's Law:
- There are
no "free lunches", but
sometimes it costs more to collect money
than to give away food.
- Crane's
Rule:
- There are
three ways to get something done: do it
yourself, hire someone, or forbid your
kids to do it.
- Cripp's
Law:
- When
traveling with children on one's
holidays, at least one child of any
number of children will request a rest
room stop exactly halfway between any two
given rest areas.
- Cropp's
Law:
- The amount
of work done varies inversely with the
amount of time spent in the office.
- Culshaw's
First Principle of Recorded Sound:
- Anything,
no matter how bad, will sound good if
played back at a very high level for a
short time.
- Cutler
Webster's Law:
- There are
two sides to every argument unless a man
is personally involved, in which case
there is only one.
- Czecinski's
Conclusion:
- There is
only one thing worse than dreaming you
are at a conference and waking to find
that you are at a conference, and that is
the conference where you can't fall
asleep.
- Darrow's
Observation:
- History
repeats itself. That's one of the things
wrong with history.
- Darwin's
Observation:
- Nature
will tell you a direct lie if she can.
- Dave's Law
of Advice:
- Those with
the best advice offer no advice.
- Dave's
Rule of Street Survival:
- Speak
softly and own a big, mean Doberman.
- Davidson's
Maxim:
- Democracy
is that form of government where
everybody gets what the majority
deserves.
- Davis's
Basic Law of Medicine:
- Pills to
be taken in twos always come out of the
bottle in threes.
- de la
Lastra's Law
- After the
last of 16 mounting screws has been
removed from an access cover, it will be
discovered that the wrong access cover
has been removed.
- de la
Lastra's Corollary
- After an
access cover has been secured by 16
hold-down screws, it will be discovered
that the gasket has been ommitted.
- Deadlock's
Law:
- If the
law-makers make a compromise, the place
where it will be felt most is the
taxpayer's pocket.
- Corollary:
The compromise will always be more
expensive than either of the suggestions
it is compromising.
- Dean's Law
of the District of Columbia:
- Washington
is a much better place if you are asking
questions rather than answering them.
- First Law
of Debate:
- Never
argue with a fool. People might not know
the difference.
- Decaprio's
Rule
- Everything
takes more time and money.
- Deitz's
Law of Ego:
- The fury
engendered by the misspelling of a name
in a column is in direct ratio to the
obscurity of the mentionee.
- Dennis's
Principles of Management by Crisis:
- To
get action out of management, it
is necessary to create the
illusion of a crisis in the hope
it will be acted upon.
- Management
will select actions or events and
convert them to crises. It will
then over-react.
- Management
is incapable of recognizing a
true crisis.
- The
squeaky hinge gets the oil.
- Dhawan's
Laws for the Non-Smoker:
- The
cigarette smoke always drifts in
the direction of the non-smoker
regardless of the direction of
the breeze.
- The
amount of pleasure derived from a
cigarette is directly
proportional to the number of
non-smokers in the vicinity.
- A
smoker is always attracted to the
non-smoking section.
- The
life of a cigarette is directly
proportional to the intensity of
the protests from non-smokers.
- Dieter's
Law:
- Food that
tastes the best has the highest number of
calories.
- Dijkstra's
Prescription for Programming Inertia:
- If you
don't know what your program is supposed
to do, you'd better not start writing it.
- Diogenes's
First Dictum:
- The more
heavily a man is supposed to be taxed,
the more power he has to escape being
taxed.
- Diogenes's
Second Dictum:
- If a
taxpayer thinks he can cheat safely, he
probably will.
- Dirksen's
Three Laws of Politics:
- Get
elected.
- Get
re-elected.
- Don't
get mad -- get even.
- Principle
of Displaced Hassle:
- To beat
the bureaucracy, make your problem their
problem.
- Donohue's
Law:
- Anything
worth doing is worth doing for money.
- Donsen's
Law:
- The
specialist learns more and more about
less and less until, finally, he knows
everything about nothing; whereas the
generalist learns less and less about
more and more until, finally, he knows
nothing about everything.
- Laws of
Dormitory Life:
- The
amount of trash accumulated
within the space occupied is
exponentially proportional to the
number of living bodies that
enter and leave within any given
amount of time.
- Since
no matter can be created or
destroyed (excluding nuclear and
cafeteria substances), as one
attempts to remove unwanted
material (i.e., trash) from one's
living space, the remaining
material mutates so as to occupy
30 to 50 percent more than its
original volume.
- Corollary:
Dust breeds. The odds are 6:5 that if one
has late classes, one's roommate will
have the EARLIEST possible classes.
- Corollary
1: One's roommate (who has early classes)
has an alarm clock that is louder than
God's own.
- Corollary
2: When one has an early class, one's
roommate will invariably enter the space
late at night and suddenly become
hyperactive, ill, violent, or all three.
- Douglas's
Law of Practical Aeronautics:
- When the
weight of the paperwork equals the weight
of the plane, the plane will fly.
- Dow's Law:
- In a
hierarchical organization, the higher the
level, the greater the confusion.
- Dror's
First Law:
- While the
difficulties and dangers of problems tend
to increase at a geometric rate, the
knowledge and manpower qualified to deal
with these problems tend to increase
linearly.
- Dror's
Second Law:
- While
human capacities to shape the
environment, society, and human beings
are rapidly increasing, policymaking
capabilities to use those capacities
remain the same.
- Ducharme's
Precept
- Opportunity
always knocks at the least opportune
moment.
- Dude's Law
of Duality:
- Of two
possible events, only the undesired one
will occur.
- Dunne's
Law:
- The
territory behind rhetoric is too often
mined with equivocation.
- Dunn's
Discovery:
- The
shortest measurable interval of time is
the time between the moment one puts a
little extra aside for a sudden emergency
and the arrival of that emergency.
- Durant's
Discovery:
- One of the
lessons of history is that nothing is
often a good thing to do and always a
clever thing to say.
- Durrell's
Parameter:
- The faster
the plane, the narrower the seats.
- Dyer's
Law:
- A
continuing flow of paper is sufficient to
continue the flow of paper.
- Economists'
Laws:
- What
men learn from history is that
men do not learn from history.
- If
on an actuarial basis there is a
50-50 chance that something will
go wrong, it will actually go
wrong nine times out of ten.
- Edington's
Theory:
- The number
of different hypotheses erected to
explain a given biological phenomenon is
inversely proportional to the available
knowledge.
- Law of
Editorial Correction:
- Anyone
nit-picking enough to write a letter of
correction to an editor doubtless
deserves the error that provoked it.
- Ehrlich's
Rule:
- The first
rule of intelligent tinkering is to save
all the parts.
- Ehrman's
Commentary
- Things
will get worse before they will get
better. Who said things would get better?
- Eliot's
Observation:
- Nothing is
so good as it seems beforehand.
- Ellenberg's
Theory:
- One good
turn gets most of the blanket.
- Emerson's
Insight:
- That which
we call sin in others is experiment for
us.
- Old
Engineer's Law:
- The larger
the project or job, the less time there
is to do it.
- The
"Enough Already" Law:
- The more
you run over a dead cat, the flatter it
gets.
- Extended
Epstein-Heisenberg Principle:
- In an R
& D orbit, only 2 of the existing 3
parameters can be defined simultaneously.
The parameters are: task, time, and
resources ($). 1) If one knows what the
task is, and there is a time limit
allowed for the completion of the task,
then one cannot guess how much it will
cost. 2) If the time and resources ($)
are clearly defined, then it is
impossible to know what part of the R
& D task will be performed. 3) If you
are given a clearly defined R & D
goal and a definte amount of money which
has been calculated to be necessary for
the completion of the task, one cannot
predict if and when the goal will be
reached. 4) If one is lucky enough to be
able to accurately define all three
parameters, then what one is dealing with
is not in the realm of R & D.
- Epstein's
Law:
- If you
think the problem is bad now, just wait
until we've solved it.
- Ettorre's
Observation:
- The other
line moves faster.
- Corollary:
Don't try to change lines. The other line
-- the one you were in originally -- will
then move faster.
- Evans's
Law:
- Nothing
worth a damn is ever done as a matter of
principle. (If it is worth doing, it is
done because it is worth doing. If it is
not, it's done as a matter of principle.)
- Evans's
Law of Politics:
- When team
members are finally in a position to help
the team, it turns out they have quit the
team.
- Evelyn's
Rules for Bureaucratic Survival:
- A
bureaucrat's castle is his desk .
. . and parking place. Proceed
cautiously when changing either.
- On
the theory that one should never
take anything for granted, follow
up on everything, but especially
those items varying from the
norm. The greater the divergence
from normal routine and/or the
greater the number of offices
potentially involved, the better
the chance a
never-to-be-discovered person
will file the problem away in a
drawer specifically designed for
items requiring a decision.
- Never
say without qualification that
your activity has sufficient
space, money, staff, etc.
- Always
distrust offices not under your
jurisdiction which say that they
are there to serve you.
"Support" offices in a
bureaucracy tend to grow in size
and make demands on you out of
proportion to their service, and
in the end require more effort on
your part than their service is
worth.
- Corollary:
Support organizations can always prove
success by showing service to someone . .
. not necessarily you. Incompetents often
hire able assistants.
- Everitt's
Form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics:
- Confusion
(entropy) is always increasing in
society. Only if someone or something
works extremely hard can this confusion
be reduced to order in a limited region.
Nevertheless, this effort will stil
result in an increase in the total
confusion of society at large.
- Eve's
Discovery:
- At a
bargain sale, the only suit or dress that
you like best and that fits is the one
not on sale.
- Adam's
Corollary: It's easy to tell when you've
got a bargain -- it doesn't fit.
- Nonreciprocal
Laws of Expectations:
- Negative
expectations yield negative
results.
- Positive
expectations yield negative
results.
- First Law
of Expert Advice:
- Don't ask
the barber whether you need a haircut.
- Faber's
Laws:
- If
there isn't a law, there will be.
- The
number of errors in any piece of
writing rises in proportion to
the writer's reliance on
secondary sources.
- Fairfax's
Law:
- Any facts
which, when included in the argument,
give the desired result, are fair facts
for the argument.
- Falkland's
Rule:
- When it is
not necessary to make a decision, it is
necessary not to make a decision.
- Farber's
First Law:
- Give him
an inch and he'll screw you.
- Farber's
Second Law:
- A hand in
the bush is worth two anywhere else.
- Farber's
Third Law:
- We're all
going down the same road in different
directions.
- Farber's
Fourth Law:
- Necessity
is the mother of strange bedfellows.
- Farnsdick's
corollary
- After
things have gone from bad to worse, the
cycle will repeat itself.
- Farrow's
Finding:
- If God had
intended for us to go to concerts, He
would have given us tickets.
- Law of
Fashion:
- Any given
dress is: indecent 10 years before its
time, daring 1 year before its time, chic
in its time, dowdy 3 years after its
time, hideous 20 years after its time,
amusing 30 years after its time, romantic
100 years after its time, and beautiful
150 years after its time.
- Rule of
Feline Frustration:
- When your
cat has fallen asleep on your lap and
looks utterly content and adorable, you
will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.
- Fetridge's
Law:
- Important
things that are supposed to happen do not
happen, especially when people are
looking.
- Fett's Law
of the Lab:
- Never
replicate a successful experiment.
- The Fifth
Rule:
- You have
taken yourself too seriously.
- Finagle's
Creed:
- Science is
Truth. Don't be misled by fact.
- Finagle's
First Law:
- If an
experiment works, something has gone
wrong.
- Finagle's
Second Law:
- No matter
what result is anticipated, there will
always be someone eager to (a)
misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c)
believe it happened according to 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.
- Corollaries:
- No
one whom you ask for help will
see it.
- Everyone
who stops by with unsought advice
will see it immediately.
- Finagle's
Fourth Law:
- Once a job
is fouled up, anything done to improve it
only makes it worse.
- Finagle's
Law According to Niven:
- The
perversity of the universe tends to a
maximum.
- Finagle's
Laws of Information:
- The
information you have is not what
you want.
- The
information you want is not what
you need.
- The
information you need is not what
you can obtain.
- The
information you can obtain costs
more than you want to pay.
- Finagle's
Rules:
- Ever since
the first scientific experiment, man has
been plagued by the increasing antagonism
of nature. It seems only right that
nature should be logical and neat, but
experience has shown that this is not the
case. A further series of rules has been
formulated, designed to help man accept
the pigheadedness of nature.
- To
study a subject best, understand
it thoroughly before you start.
- Always
keep a record of data. It
indicates you've been working.
- Always
draw your curves, then plot the
reading.
- In
case of doubt, make it sound
convincing.
- Experiments
should be reproducible. They
should all fail in the same way.
- When
you don't know what you are
doing, do it NEATLY.
- Teamwork
is essential; it allows you to
blame someone else.
- Always
verify your witchcraft.
- Be
sure to obtain meteorological
data before leaving on vacation.
- Do
not believe in miracles. Rely on
them.
- Fishbein's
Conclusion:
- The tire
is only flat on the bottom.
- Fitz-Gibbon's
Law:
- Creativity
varies inversely with the number of cooks
involved with the broth.
- Flap's
Law:
- Any
inanimate object, regardless of its
composition or configuration, may be
expected to perform at any time in a
totally unexpected manner for reasons
that are either entirely obscure or
completely mysterious.
- Ford Pinto
Rule:
- Never buy
a car that has a wick.
- Fortis's
Three Great Lies of Life:
- Money
isn't everything.
- It's
great to be a Negro.
- I'm
only going to put it in a little
way.
- Three Lies
According to Playboy:
- The
check's in the mail.
- Anticipation
is half the fun.
- I
promise I won't come in your
mouth.
- Hare's
Additional Lie: This will hurt me more
than it hurts you.
- Lowry's
Additional Lie: I've never done this
before.
- Foster's
Law:
- If you
cover a congressional committee on a
regular basis, they will report the bill
on your day off.
- Fowler's
Law:
- In a
bureaucracy, accomplishment is inversely
proportional to the volume of paper used.
- Fowler's
Note:
- The only
imperfect thing in nature is the human
race.
- Frankel's
Law:
- Whatever
happens in government could have happened
differently, and it usually would have
been better if it had.
- Corollary:
Once things have happened, no matter how
accidentally, they will be regarded as
manifestations of an unchangeable Higher
Reason.
- Franklin's
Observation:
- He that
lives upon Hope dies farting.
- Franklin's
Rule:
- Blessed is
he who expects nothing, for he shall not
be disappointed.
- Freeman's
Law:
- Nothing is
so simple it cannot be misunderstood.
- Freemon's
Rule:
- Circumstances
can force a generalized incompetent to
become competent, at least in a
specialized field.
- Fried's
Law:
- Ideas
endure and prosper in inverse proportion
to their soundness and validity.
- Laws of
the Frisbee:
- The
most powerful force in the world
is that of a disc straining to
land under a car, just beyond
reach. (The technical term for
this force is "car
suck".)
- The
higher the quality of a catch or
the comment it receives, the
greater the probability of a
crummy return throw. ("Good
catch. . . Bad throw.")
- One
must never precede any maneuver
by a comment more predictive
than, "Watch this!"
(Keep 'em guessing.)
- The
higher the costs of hitting any
object, the greater the certainty
it will be struck. (Remember: The
disk is positive; cops and old
ladies are clearly negative.)
- The
best catches are never seen.
("Did you see that?"
"See what?")
- The
greatest single aid to distance
is for the disc to be going in a
direction you did not want.
(Wrong way = long way.)
- The
most powerful hex words in the
sport are: "I really have
this down -- watch." (Know
it? Blow it!)
- In
any crowd of spectators at least
one will suggest that razor
blades could be attached to the
disc. ("You could maim and
kill with that thing.")
- The
greater your need to make a good
catch, the greater the
probability your partner will
deliver his worst throw. (If you
can't touch it, you can't trick
it.)
- The
single most difficult move with a
disc is to put it down.
("Just one more!")
- Frisch's
Law:
- You cannot
have a baby in one month by getting nine
women pregnant.
- Frothingham's
Fallacy:
- Time is
money.
- Fudd's
First Law of Opposition:
- If you
push something hard enough, it will fall
over.
- Teslacle's
Deviant to Fudd's Law:
- It goes in
-- it must come out.
- Funkhouser's
Law of the Power of the Press:
- The
quality of legislation passed to deal
with a problem is inversely proportional
to the volume of media clamor that
brought it on.
- Futility
Factor (Carson's Consolation):
- No
experiment is ever a complete failure --
it can always serve as a bad example, or
the exception that proves the rule (but
only if it is the first experiment in the
series).
- Fyffe's
Axiom:
- The
problem-solving process will always break
down at the point at which it is possible
to determine who caused the problem.
- Gadarene
Swine Law:
- Merely
because the group is in formation does
not mean that the group is on the right
course.
- Galbraith's
Law of Political Wisdom:
- Anyone who
says he isn't going to resign, four
times, definitely will.
- Galbraith's
Law of Prominence:
- Getting on
the cover of "Time" guarantees
the existence of opposition in the
future.
- Gallois's
Revelation:
- If you put
tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes
out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery,
having passed through a very expensive
machine, is somehow ennobled, and no one
dares to criticize it.
- Corollary
- An expert is a person who avoids the
small errors while sweeping on to the
Grand Fallacy.
- Laws of
Gardening:
- Other
people's tools work only in other
people's yards.
- Fancy
gizmos don't work.
- If
nobody uses it, there's a reason.
- You
get the most of what you need the
least.
- Gardner's
Rule of Society:
- The
society which scorns excellence in
plumbing because plumbing is a humble
activity and tolerates shoddiness in
philosophy because it is an exalted
activity will have neither good plumbing
nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes
nor its theories will hold water.
- Gell-Mann's
Dictum: Whatever isn't forbidden is
required.
- Corollary:
If there's no reason why something
shouldn't exist, then it must exist.
- Law of
Generalizations: All generalizations are
false.
- Gerrold's
Fundamental Truth
- It's a
good thing money can't buy happiness. We
couldn't stand the commercials.
- Gerrold's
Law
- A little
ignorance can go a long way.
- (Lyall's
Addendum: ...in the direction of maximum
harm.)
- Gerrold's
Pronouncement
- The
difference between a politician and a
snail is that a snail leaves its slime
behind.
- Gerrold's
Laws of Infernal Dynamics
- An
object in motion will be heading
in the wrong direction.
- An
object at rest will be in the
wrong place.
- Gerrold's
Laws of Infernal Dynamics:
- An
object in motion will always be
headed in the wrong direction.
- An
object at rest will always be in
the wrong place.
- The
energy required to change either
one of the states will always be
more than you wish to expend, but
never so much as to make the task
totally impossible.
- Getty's
Reminder:
- The meek
shall inherit the earth, but NOT its
mineral rights.
- Gibb's Law
- Infinity
is one lawyer waiting for another.
- Gilb's
Laws of Unreliability (see also
Troutman's Laws of Computer Programming):
- Computers
are unreliable, but humans are
even more unreliable.
- Corollary:
At the source of every error which is
blamed on the computer you will find at
least two human errors, including the
error of blaming it on the computer.
- Any
system which depends on human
reliability is unreliable.
- The
only difference between the fool
and the criminal who attacks a
system is that the fool attacks
unpredictably and on a broader
front.
- A
system tends to grow in terms of
complexity rather than of
simplification, until the
resulting unreliability becomes
intolerable.
- Self-checking
systems tend to have a complexity
in proportion to the inherent
unreliability of the system in
which they are used.
- The
error-detection and correction
capabilities of any system will
serve as the key to understanding
the type of errors which they
cannot handle.
- Undetectable
errors are infinite in variety,
in contrast to detectable errors,
which by definition are limited.
- All
real programs contain errors
until proved otherwise -- which
is impossible.
- Investment
in reliability will increase
until it exceeds the probable
cost of errors, or somebody
insists on getting some useful
work done.
- Gilmer's
Motto for Political Leadership:
- Look over
your shoulder now and then to be sure
someone's following you.
- Ginsberg's
Theorem (Generalized Laws of
Thermodynamics):
- You
can't win.
- You
can't break even.
- You
can't even quit the game.
- Ehrman's
Commentary on Ginberg's Theorem:
- Things
will get worse before they get
better.
- Who
said things would get better?
- Freeman's
Commentary on Ginberg's Theorem:
- Every
major philosophy that attempts to make
life seem meaningful is based on the
negation of one part of Ginsberg's
Theorem. To wit:
- Capitalism
is based on the assumption that
you can win.
- Socialism
is based on the assumption that
you can break even.
- Mysticism
is based on the assumption that
you can quit the game.
- Glatum's
Law of Materialistic Acquisitiveness:
- The
perceived usefulness of an article is
inversely proportional to its actual
usefulness once bought and paid for.
- Godin's
Law:
- Generalizedness
of incompetence is directly proportional
to highestness in hierarchy.
- Golden
Principle:
- Nothing
will be attempted if all possible
objections must first be overcome.
- The Golden
Rule of Arts and Sciences:
- Whoever
has the gold makes the rules.
- Gold's Law
- If the
shoe fits, it's ugly.
- (Bill)
Gold's Law:
- A column
about errors will contain errors.
- (Vic)
Gold's Law:
- The
candidate who is expected to do well
because of experience and reputation
(Douglas, Nixon) must do BETTER than
well, while the candidate expected to
fare poorly (Lincoln, Kennedy) can put
points on the media board simply by
surviving.
- Goldwyn's
Law of Contracts:
- A verbal
contract isn't worth the paper it's
written on.
- Golub's
Laws of Computerdom:
- Fuzzy
project objectives are used to
avoid the embarrassment of
estimating the corresponding
costs.
- A
carelessly planned project takes
three times longer to complete
than expected; a carefully
planned project takes only twice
as long.
- The
effort requires to correct course
increases geometrically with
time.
- Project
teams detest weekly progress
reporting because it so vividly
manifests their lack of progress.
- The 19
Rules for good Riting:
- Each
pronoun agrees with their
antecedent.
- Just
between you and I, case is
important.
- Verbs
has to agree with their subject.
- Watch
out for irregular verbs which has
cropped up into our language.
- Don't
use no double negatives.
- A
writer mustn't shift your point
of view.
- When
dangling, don't use participles.
- Join
clauses good like a conjunction
should.
- And
don't use conjunctions to start
sentences.
- Don't
use a run-on sentence you got to
punctuate it.
- About
sentence fragments.
- In
letters themes reports articles
and stuff like that we use commas
to keep strings apart.
- Don't
use commas, which aren't
necessary.
- Its
important to use apostrophe's
right.
- Don't
abbrev.
- Check
to see if you any words out.
- In
my opinion I think that the
author when he is writing should
not get into the habit of making
use of too many unnecessary words
which he does not really need.
- Then,
of course, there's that old one:
Never use a preposition to end a
sentence with.
- Last
but not least, avoid cliches like
the plague.
- Goodfader's
Law:
- Under any
system, a few sharpies will beat the rest
of us.
- Goodin's
Law of Conversions
- The new
hardware will break down as soon as the
old is disconnected and out.
- Gordon's
First Law:
- If a
research project is not worth doing, it
is not worth doing well.
- Professor
Gordon's Rule of Evolving Bryophytic
Systems:
- While
bryophytic plants are typically
encountered in substrata of earthy or
mineral matter in concreted state,
discrete substrata elements occasionally
display a roughly spherical configuration
which, in presence of suitable
gravitational and other effects, lends
itself to combined translatory and
rotational motion. One notices in such
cases an absence of the otherwise typical
accretion of bryophyta. We conclude
therefore that a rolling stone gathers no
moss.
- Corollary
(Rutgers): Generally the subjective value
assignable to avian lifeforms, when
encountered and considered within the
confines of certain orders of woody
plants lacking true meristematic
dominance, as compared to a possible
valuation of these same lifeforms when in
the grasp of -- and subject to control by
-- the manipulative bone/muscle/nerve
complex typically terminating the
forelimb of a member of the species homo
sapiens (and possibly direct precursors
thereof) is approximately five times ten
to the minus first power.
- Goulden's
Axiom of the Bouncing Can:
- If you
drop a full can of beer, and remember to
rap the top sharply with your knuckle
prior to opening, the ensuing gush of
foam will be between 89 and 94 percent of
the volume that would splatter you if you
didn't do a damned thing and went ahead
and pulled the top immediately.
- Goulden's
Law of Jury Watching:
- If a jury
in a criminal trial stays out for more
than 24 hours, it is certain to vote
acquittal, save in those instances when
it votes guilty.
- Graditor's
Laws:
- If
it can break, it will, but only
after the warranty expires.
- A
necessary item goes on sale only
after you have purchased it at
the regular price.
- Gray's Law
of Bilateral Asymmetry in Networks:
- Information
flows efficiently through organizations,
except that bad news encounters high
impedance in flowing upward.
- Gray's Law
of Programming:
- n+1
trivial tasks are expected to be
accomplished in the same time as n
trivial tasks.
- Logg's
Rebuttal to Gray's Law of Programming:
n+1 trivial tasks take twice as long as n
trivial tasks.
- Rule of
the Great:
- When
someone you greatly admire and respect
appears to be thinking deep thoughts,
they are probably thinking about lunch.
- Greenberg's
First Law of Influence:
- Usefulness
is inversely proportional to reputation
for being useful.
- Greener's
Law:
- Never
argue with a man who buys ink by the
barrel.
- Greenhaus's
Summation:
- I'd give
my right arm to be ambidextrous.
- Gresham's
Law:
- Trivial
matters are handled promptly; important
matters are never resolved.
- Grosch's
Law:
- Computing
power increases as the square of the
cost. If you want to do it twice as
cheaply, you have to do it four times
slower.
- Gross's
Law:
- When two
people meet to decide how to spend a
third person's money, fraud will result.
- Grossman's
Misquote
- Complex
problems have simple, easy to understand
wrong answers.
- Gummidge's
Law:
- The amount
of expertise varies in inverse proportion
to the number of statements understood by
the general public.
- Gumperson's
Law:
- The
probability of anything happening is in
inverse ratio to its desirability.
- Corollaries:
- After
a salary raise, you will have
less money at the end of the
month than you had before.
- The
more a recruit knows about a
given subject, the better chance
he has of being assigned to
something else.
- You
can throw a burnt match out the
window of your car and start a
forest fire, but you can use two
boxes of matches and a whole
edition of the Sunday paper
without being able to start a
fire under the dry logs in your
fireplace.
- Children
have more energy after a hard day
of play than they do after a good
night's sleep.
- The
person who buys the most raffle
tickets has the least chance of
winning.
- Good
parking places are always on the
other side of the street.
- Gumperson's
Proof:
- The most
undesirable things are the most certain
(death and taxes).
- Guthman's
Law of Media:
- Thirty
seconds on the evening news is worth a
front page headline in every newspaper in
the world.
- Hacker's
Law:
- The belief
that enhanced understanding will
necessarily stir a nation or an
organization to action is one of
mankind's oldest illusions.
- Hacker's
Law of Personnel:
- Anyone
having supervisory responsibility for the
completion of a task will invariably
protest that more resources are needed.
- Hagerty's
Law:
- If you
lose your temper at a newspaper
columnist, he'll get rich or famous or
both.
- Haldane's
Law:
- The
Universe is not only queerer than we
imagine, it is queerer than we CAN
imagine.
- Hale's
Rule:
- The
sumptuousnss of a company's annual report
is in inverse proportion to its
profitability that year.
- Hall's
Law:
- There is a
statistical correlation between the
number of initials in an Englishman's
name and his social class (the upper
class having significantly more than
three names, while members of the lower
class average 2.6).
- Halpern's
Observation:
- That
tendency to err that programmers have
been noticed to share with other human
beings has often been treated as if it
were an awkwardness attendant upon
programming's adolescence, which like
acne would disappear with the craft's
coming of age. It has proved otherwise.
- Harden's
Law:
- Every time
you come up with a terrific idea, you
find that someone else thought of it
first.
- Hardin's
Law:
- You can
never do merely one thing.
- Harper's
Magazine's Law:
- You never
find an article until you replace it.
- Harris's
Lament:
- All the
good ones are taken.
- Harris's
Law:
- Any
philosophy that can be put "in a
nutshell" belongs there.
- Harris's
Restaurant Paradox:
- One of the
greatest unsolved riddles of restaurant
eating is that the customer usually gets
faster service when the retaurant is
crowded than when it is half empty; it
seems that the less the staff has to do,
the slower they do it.
- Harrison's
Postulate
- For every
action, there is an equal and opposite
criticism.
- Hartig's
How Is Good Old Bill? We're Divorced Law:
- If there
is a wrong thing to say, one will.
- Hartig's
Sleeve in the Cup, Thumb in the Butter
Law:
- When one
is trying to be elegant and
sophisticated, one won't.
- Hartley's
Law:
- You can
lead a horse to water, but if you can get
him to float on his back you've got
something.
- Hartley's
Second Law
- Never go
to bed with anybody crazier than you are.
- Hartman's
Automotive Laws:
- Nothing
minor ever happens to a car on
the weekend.
- Nothing
minor ever happens to a car on a
trip.
- Nothing
minor ever happens to a car.
- Hart's
Law:
- In a
country as big as the United States, you
can find fifty examples of anything.
- Harvard
Law:
- Under the
most rigorously controlled conditions of
pressure, temperature, volume, humidity,
and other variables, any experimental
organism will do as it damn well pleases.
- Harver's
Law
- A drunken
man's words are a sober man's thoughts.
- Hawkin's
Theory of Progress
- Progress
does not consist of replacing a theory
that is wrong with one that is right. It
consists of replacing a theory that is
wrong with one that is more subtly wrong.
- Hein's
Law:
- Problems
worthy of attack prove their worth by
hitting back.
- Heller's
Myths of Management:
- The first
myth of management is that it exists. The
second myth of management is that success
equals skill.
- Corollary
(Johnson): Nobody really knows what is
going on anywhere within your
organization.
- Hellrung's
Law
- If you
wait, it will go away. (Shevelson's
Extension: ... having done its damage.)
- [Grelb's
Addition: ... if it was bad, it will be
back.]
- Hendrickson's
Law:
- If a
problem causes many meetings, the
meetings eventually become more important
than the problem.
- Herblock's
Law:
- If it's
good, they'll stop making it.
- Herrnstein's
Law:
- The total
attention paid to an instructor is a
constant regardless of the size of the
class.
- Hersh's
Law:
- Biochemistry
expands to fill the space and time
available for its completion and
publication.
- Hildebrand's
Law:
- The
quality of a department is inversely
proportional to the number of courses it
lists in its catalogue.
- Historian's
Rule:
- Any event,
once it has occurred, can be made to
appear inevitable by a competent
historian.
- Hoare's
Law of Large Programs:
- Inside
every large program is a small program
struggling to get out.
- Hogg's Law
of Station Wagons:
- The amount
of junk is in direct proportion to the
amount of space available.
- Baggage
Corollary: If you go on a trip taking two
bags with you, one containing everything
you need for the trip and the other
containing absolutely nothing, the second
bag will be completely filled with junk
acquired on the trip when you return.
- Horner's
Five Thumb Postulate:
- Experience
varies directly with equipment ruined.
- Horngren's
Observation: (generalized)
- The real
world is a special case.
- Horowitz's
Rule:
- A computer
makes as many mistakes in two seconds as
20 men working 20 years.
- Howard's
First Law of Theater:
- Use it.
- Howe's
Law:
- Every man
has a scheme that will not work.
- Hull's
Theorem:
- The
combined pull of several patrons is the
sum of their separate pulls multiplied by
the number of patrons.
- Hull's
Warning:
- Never
insult an alligator until after you have
crossed the river.
- IBM
Pollyanna Principle
- Machines
should work. People should think.
- Idea
Formula:
- One man's
brain plus one other will produce about
one half as many ideas as one man would
have produced alone. These two plus two
more will produce half again as many
ideas. These four plus four more begin to
represent a creative meeting, and the
ratio changes to one quarter as many.
- The Ike
Tautology:
- Things are
more like they are now than they have
ever been before.
- Corollary:
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
- Iles's
Law:
- There is
an easier way to do it.
- Corollaries:
- When
looking directly at the easier
way, especially for long periods,
you will not see it.
- Neither
will Iles.
- Imhoff's
Law:
- The
organization of any bureaucracy is very
much like a septic tank -- the REALLY big
chunks always rise to the top.
- Index of
Development:
- The degree
of a country's development is measured by
the ratio of the price of an automobile
to the cost of a haircut. The lower the
ratio, the higher the degree of
development.
- Law of the
Individual:
- Nobody
really cares or understands what anyone
else is doing.
- Laws of
Institutional Food:
- Everything
is cold except what should be.
- Everything,
including the corn flakes, is
greasy.
- Law of
Institutions:
- The
opulence of the front office decor varies
inversely with the fundamental solvency
of the firm.
- Iron Law
of Distribution:
- Them what
has -- gets. Wakefield's Refutation of
the Iron Law of Distribution:
- Them what
gets -- has.
- Issawi's
Law of Aggression:
- At any
given moment, a society contains a
certain amount of accumulated and
accruing aggressiveness. If more than 21
years elapse without this aggressiveness
being directed outward, in a popular war
against other countries, it turns inward,
in social unrest, civil disturbances, and
political disruption.
- Issawi's
Laws of Committo-Dynamics:
- Comitas
comitatum, omnia comitas.
- The
less you enjoy serving on
committees, the more likely you
are to be pressed to do so.
- Issawi's
Law of the Conservation of Evil:
- The total
amount of evil in any system remains
constant. Hence, any diminution in one
direction -- for instance, a reduction in
poverty or unemployment -- is accompanied
by an increase in another, e.g., crime or
air pollution.
- Issawi's
Law of Consumption Patterns:
- Other
people's patterns of expenditure and
consumption are highly irrational and
slightly immoral.
- Issawi's
Law of Cynics:
- Cynics are
right nine times out of ten; what undoes
them is their belief that they are right
ten times out of ten.
- Issawi's
Law of Dogmatism:
- When we
call others dogmatic, what we really
object to is their holding dogmas that
are different from our own.
- Issawi's
Law of Estimation of Error:
- Experts in
advanced countries underestimate by a
factor of 2 to 4 the ability of people in
underdeveloped countries to do anything
technical.
- Issawi's
Law of Frustration:
- One cannot
make an omelette without breaking eggs --
but it is amazing how many eggs one can
break without making a decent omelette.
- Issawi's
Laws of Progress:
- The Course
of Progress: Most things get steadily
worse.
- The Path
of Progress: A shortcut is the longest
distance between two points.
- The
Dialectics of Progress: Direct action
produces direct reaction.
- The Pace
of Progress: Society is a mule, not a car
. . . If pressed too hard, it will kick
and throw off its rider.
- Issawi's
Law of the Social Sciences:
- By the
time a social science theory is
formulated in such a way that it can be
tested, changing circumstances have
already made it obsolete.
- Issawi's
Observation on the Consumption of Paper:
- Each
system has its own way of consuming vast
amounts of paper: in socialist societies
by filling large forms in quadruplicate,
in capitalist societies by putting up
huge posters and wrapping every article
in four layers of cardboard.
- First
Postulate of Isomurphism
- Things
equal to nothing else are equal to each
other.
- Italian
Proverb:
- She who is
silent consents.
- Jacquin's
Postulate on Democratic Governments:
- No man's
life, liberty or property are safe while
the legislature is in session.
- Jake's
Law:
- Anything
hit with a big enough hammer will fall
apart.
- Jaroslovsky's
Law:
- The
distance you have to park from your
apartment increases in proportion to the
weight of packages you are carrying.
- Jay's Laws
of Leadership:
- Changing
things is central to leadership,
and changing them before anyone
else is creativity.
- To
build something that endures, it
is of the greatest important to
have a long tenure in office --
to rule for many years. You can
achieve a quick success in a year
or two, but nearly all of the
great tycoons have continued
their building much longer.
- Jenkinson's
Law:
- It won't
work.
- Jinny's
Law:
- There is
no such thing as a short beer. (As in,
"I'm going to stop off at Joe's for
a short beer before on the way
home.")
- John's
Axiom:
- When your
opponent is down, kick him.
- John's
Collateral Corollary:
- In order
to get a loan you must first prove you
don't need it.
- Johnson's
First Law:
- When any
mechanical contrivance fails, it will do
so at the most inconvenient possible
time.
- Johnson's
Second Law:
- If, in the
course of several months, only three
worthwhile social events take place, they
will all fall on the same evening.
- Johnson's
Third Law:
- If you
miss one issue of any magazine, it will
be the issue containing the article,
story, or installment you were most
anxious to read.
- Corollary:
All of your friends either missed it,
lost it, or threw it out.
- Johnson's
First Law of Auto Repair:
- Any tool
dropped while repairing an automobile
will roll under the car to the vehicle's
exact geographic center.
- Johnson-Laird's
Law:
- Toothache
tends to start on Saturday night.
- Jones's
Law:
- The man
who can smile when things go wrong has
thought of someone he can blame it on.
- Jones's
Motto:
- Friends
may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
- McClaughry's
Codicil on Jones's Motto: To make an
enemy, do someone a favor.
- Jones's
Principle:
- Needs are
a function of what other people have.
- Juhani's
Law:
- The
compromise will always be more expensive
than either of the suggestions it's
compromising.
- Kafka's
Law:
- In the
fight between you and the world, back the
world.
- Kamin's
First Law:
- All
currencies will decrease in value and
purchasing power over the long term,
unless they are freely and fully
convertable into gold and that gold is
traded freely without restrictions of any
kind.
- Kamin's
Second Law:
- Threat of
capital controls accelerates marginal
capital outflows.
- Kamin's
Third Law:
- Combined
total taxation from all levels of
government will always increase (until
the government is replaced by war or
revolution).
- Kamin's
Fourth Law:
- Government
inflation is always worse than statistics
indicate: central bankers are biased
toward inflation when the money unit is
non-convertible, and without gold or
silver backing.
- Kamin's
Fifth Law:
- Purchasing
power of currency is always lost far more
rapidly than ever regained. (Those who
expect even fluctuations in both
directions play a losing game.)
- Kamin's
Sixth Law:
- When
attempting to predict and forecast
macro-economic moves or economic
legislation by a politician, never be
misled by what he says; instead watch
what he does.
- Kamin's
Seventh Law:
- Politicians
will always inflate when given the
opportunity.
- Kaplan's
Law of the Instrument:
- Give a
small boy a hammer and he will find that
everything he encounters needs pounding.
- Katz's
Law:
- Men and
nations will act rationally when all
other possibilities have been exhausted.
- Katz's
Maxims:
- Where
are the calculations that go with
the calculated risk?
- Inventing
is easy for staff outfits.
Stating a problem is much harder.
Instead of stating problems,
people like to pass out half-
accurate statements together with
half-available solutions which
they can't finish and which they
want you to finish.
- Every
organization is
self-perpetuating. Don't ever ask
an outfit to justify itself, or
you'll be covered with facts,
figures, and fancy. The criterion
should rather be, "What will
happen if the outfit stops doing
what it's doing?" The value
of an organization is more easily
determined this way.
- Try
to find out who's doing the work,
not who's writing about it,
controlling it, or summarizing
it.
- Watch
out for formal briefings; they
often produce an avalanche (a
high-level snow job of massive
and overwhelming proportions).
- The
difficulty of the coordination
task often blinds one to the fact
that a fully coordinated piece of
paper is not supposed to be
either the major or the final
product of the organization, but
it often turns out that way.
- Most
organizations can't hold more
than one idea at a time. Thus
complementary ideas are always
regarded as competetive. Further,
like a quantized pendulum, an
organization can jump from one
extreme to the other, without
ever going through the middle.
- Try
to find the real tense of the
report you are reading: Was it
done, is it being done, or is it
something to be done? Reports are
now written in four tenses: past
tense, present tense, future
tense, and pretense. Watch for
novel uses of "contractor
grammar", defined by the
imperfect past, the insufficient
present, and the absolutely
perfect future.
- Kelley's
Law:
- Last guys
don't finish nice.
- Kelly's
Law:
- An
executive will always return to work from
lunch early if no one takes him.
- Kennedy's
Law:
- Excessive
official restraints on information are
inevitably self-defeating and productive
of headaches for the officials concerned.
- Kent's
Law:
- The only
way a reporter should look at a
politician is down.
- Kerr-Martin
Law:
- In
dealing with their OWN problems,
faculty members are the most
extreme conservatives.
- In
dealing with OTHER people's
problems, they are the world's
most extreme liberals.
- Kettering's
Laws:
- If
you want to kill any idea in the
world today, get a committee
working on it.
- If
you have always done it that way,
it is probably wrong.
- Key to
Status:
- S = D/K. S
is the status of a person in an
organization, D is the number of doors he
must open to perform his job, and K is
the number of keys he carries. A higher
number denotes higher status. Thus the
janitor needs to open 20 doors and has 20
keys (S = 1), a secretary has to open two
doors with one key (S = 2), but the
president never has to carry any keys
since there is always someone around to
open doors for him (with K = 0 and a high
D, his S reaches infinity).
- Kharasch's
Institutional Imperative:
- Every
action or decision of an institution must
be intended to keep the institution
machinery working.
- Corollary:
The expert judgment of an institution,
when the matter involved concerns
continuation of the institution's
operations, is totally predictable, and
hence the finding is totally worthless.
- Kirkland's
Law:
- The
usefulness of any meeting is in inverse
proportion to the attendance.
- Kitman's
Law:
- On the TV
screen, pure drivel tends to drive off
ordinary drivel.
- Klipstein's
Lament
- All
warranty and guarantee clauses are voided
by payment of the invoice.
- Klipstein's
Observation
- Any
product cut to length will be too short.
- Klipstein's
Law of Specifications:
- In
specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes
Ohm's.
- Klipstein's
Laws:
- Applied to
General Engineering:
- A
patent application will be
preceded by one week by a similar
application made by an
independent worker.
- Firmness
of delivery dates is inversely
proportional to the tightness of
the schedule.
- Dimensions
will always be expressed in the
least usable term. Velocity, for
example, will be expressed in
furlongs per fortnight.
- Any
wire cut to length will be too
short.
- Applied to
Prototyping and Production:
- Tolerances
will accumulate unidirectionally
toward maximum difficulty to
assemble.
- If
a project requires n components,
there will be n-1 units in stock.
- A
motor will rotate in the wrong
direction.
- A
failsafe circuit will destroy
others.
- A
transistor protected by a
fast-acting fuse will protect the
fuse by blowing first.
- A
failure will not appear until a
unit has passed final inspection.
- A
purchased component or instrument
will meet its specs long enough,
and only long enough, to pass
incoming inspection.
- After
the last of 16 mounting screws
has been removed from an access
cover, it will be discovered that
the wrong access cover has been
removed.
- After
an access cover has been secured
by 16 hold-down screws, it will
be discovered that the gasket has
been omitted.
- After
an instrument has been assembled,
extra components will be found on
the bench.
- Knight's
Law
- Life is
what happens to you while you are making
other plans.
- Knoll's
Law of Media Accuracy:
- Everything
you read in the newspapers is absolutely
true except for that rare story of which
you happen to have firsthand knowledge.
- Knowles's
Law of Legislative Deliberation:
- The length
of debate varies inversely with the
complexity of the issue.
- Corollary:
When the issue is trivial, and everyone
understands it, debate is almost
interminable.
- Kohn's
Second Law:
- Any
experiment is reproducible until another
laboratory tries to repeat it.
- Koppett's
Law:
- Whatever
creates the greatest inconvenience for
the largest number must happen.
- Korman's
conclusion
- The
trouble with resisting temptation is it
may never come your way again.
- Kristol's
Law:
- Being
frustrated is disagreeable, but the real
disasters in life begin when you get what
you want.
- Krueger's
Observation
- A taxpayer
is someone who does not have to take a
civil service exam in order to work for
the government.
- Labor Law
- A
disagreeable law is its own reward.
- First Law
of Laboratory Work
- Hot glass
looks exactly the same as cold glass.
- LaCombe's
Rule of Percentages
- The
incidence of anything worthwhile is
either 15-25 percent or 80-90 percent.
- Corollary
(Dudenhoefer)
- An answer
of 50 percent will suffice for the 40-60
range.
- Langin's
Law
- If things
were left to chance, they'd be better.
- Langsam's
Law
- Everything
depends.
- Lani's
Principles of Economics
- Taxes
are not levied for the benefit of
the taxed.
- $100
placed at 7% interest compounded
quarterly for 200 years will
increase to more than
$100,000,000 by which time it
will be worth nothing.
- In
God we trust; all others pay
cash.
- La
Rochefoucauld's Law
- It is more
shameful to distrust one's friends than
to be deceived by them.
- Larrimer's
Constant
- What this
world needs is a damned good plague.
- Law of
Late-Comers
- Those who
have the shortest distance to travel
invariably arrive latest.
- Laura's
Law
- No child
throws up in the bathroom.
- Lawyer's
Rule
- When the
law is against you, argue the facts. When
the facts are against you, argue the law.
When both are against you, call the other
lawyer names.
- Leahy's
Law
- If a thing
is done wrong often enough, it becomes
right.
- Corollary:
Volume is a defense to error.
- Le
Chatelier's Law
- If some
stress is brought to bear on a system in
equilibrium, the equilibrium is displaced
in the direction which tends to undo the
effect of the stress.
- Lenin's
Law
- Whenever
the cause of the people is entrusted to
professors, it is lost.
- Le
Pelley's Law
- The bigger
the man, the less likely he is to object
to caricature.
- Les
Miserables Metalaw
- All laws,
whether good, bad, or indifferent, must
be obeyed to the letter.
- Levy's Ten
Laws of the Disillusionment of the True
Liberal
- Large
numbers of things are determined,
and therefore not subject to
change.
- Anticipated
events never live up to
expectations.
- That
segment of the community with
which one has the greatest
sympathy as a liberal inevitably
turns out to be one of the most
narrow-minded and bigoted
segments of the community.
- Always
pray that your opposition be
wicked. In wickedness there is a
strong strain toward rationality.
Therefore there is always the
possibility, in theory, of
handling the wicked by
outthinking them.
- Corollary
1: Good intentions randomize behavior.
- Corollary
2: Good intentions are far more difficult
to cope with than malicious intent.
- Corollary
3: If good intentions are combined with
stupidity, it is impossible to outthink
them.
- Corollary
4: Any discovery is more likely to be
exploited by the wicked than applied by
the virtuous.
- In
unanimity there is cowardice and
uncritical thinking.
- To
have a sense of humor is to be a
tragic figure.
- To
know thyself is the ultimate form
of aggression.
- No
amount of genius can overcome a
preoccupation with detail.
- Only
God can make a random selection.
- Eternal
boredom is the price of constant
vigilance.
- Lewis's
Laws
- People
will buy anything that's one to a
customer.
- No
matter how long or how hard you
shop for an item, after you've
bought it it will be on sale
somewhere cheaper.
- Liebling's
Law
- If you
just try long enough and hard enough, you
can always manage to boot yourself in the
posterior.
- Lilly's
Metalaw
- All laws
are simulations of reality.
- Lloyd-Jones's
Law of Leftovers:
- The amount
of litter on the street is proportional
to the local rate of unemployment.
- Law of
Local Anesthesia
- Never say
"oops" in the operating room.
- (F)law of
Long-Range Planning
- The longer
ahead you plan a special event, and the
more special it is, the more likely it is
to go wrong.
- Long's
Notes
- Always
store beer in a dark place.
- Certainly
the game is rigged. Don't let
that stop you; if you don't bet,
you can't win.
- Any
priest or shaman must be presumed
guilty until proved innocent.
- Always
listen to experts. They'll tell
you what can't be done, and why.
Then do it.
- If
it can't be expressed in figures,
it is not science; it is opinion.
- It
has long been known that one
horse can run faster than another
-- but which one? Differences are
crucial.
- A
fake fortuneteller can be
tolerated. But an authentic
soothsayer should be shot on
sight. Cassandra did not get half
the kicking around she deserved.
- Delusions
are often functional. A mother's
opinions about her children's
beauty, intelligence, goodness,
et cetera ad nauseam, keep her
from drowning them at birth.
- A
generation which ignores history
has no past -- and no future.
- A
poet who reads his verse in
public may have other nasty
habits.
- Small
change can often be found under
seat cushions.
- History
does not record anywhere at any
time a religion that has any
rational basis. Religion is a
crutch for people not strong
enough to stand up to the unknown
without help. But, like dandruff,
most people do have a religion
and spend time and money on it
and seem to derive considerable
pleasure from fiddling with it.
- It's
amazing how much "mature
wisdom" resembles being too
tired.
- Of
all the strange
"crimes" that human
beings have legislated out of
nothing, "blasphemy" is
the most amazing -- with
"obscenity" and
"indecent exposure"
fighting it out for second and
third place.
- It's
better to copulate than never.
- Everything
in excess! To enjoy the flavor of
life, take big bites. Moderation
is for monks.
- It
may be better to be a live jackal
than a dead lion, but it is
better still to be a live lion.
And usually easier.
- Never
appeal to a man's "better
nature". He may not have
one. Invoking his self-interest
gives you more leverage.
- Little
girls, like butterflies, need no
excuse.
- Avoid
making irrevocable decisions
while tired or hungry.
- An
elephant: A mouse built to
government specifications.
- A
zygote is a gamete's way of
producing more gametes. This may
be the purpose of the universe.
- Stupidity
cannot be cured with money, or
through education, or by
legislation. Stupidity is not a
sin; the victim can't help being
stupid. But stupidity is the only
universal capital crime; the
sentence is death, there is no
appeal, and execution is carried
out automatically and without
pity.
- God
is omnipotent, omniscient, and
omnibenevolent. It says so right
here on the label. If you have a
mind capable of believing all
three of these divine attributes
simultaneously, I have a
wonderful bargain for you. No
checks, please. Cash and in small
bills.
- Beware
of altruism. It is based on
self-deception, the root of all
evil.
- The
most preposterous notion that H.
sapiens has ever dreamed up is
that the Lord God of Creation,
Shaper and Ruler of all the
Universe, wants the saccharine
adoration of His creatures, can
be swayed by their prayers, and
becomes petulant if He does not
receive this flattery. Yet this
absurd fantasy, without a shred
of evidence to bolster it, pays
all the expenses of the oldest,
largest, and least productive
industry in all history.
- The
second most preposterous notion
is that copulation is inherently
sinful.
- Everybody
lies about sex.
- Rub
her feet.
- Never
underestimate the power of human
stupidity.
- Always
tell her she is beautiful,
especially if she is not.
- In
a family argument, if it turns
out you are right, apologize at
once.
- To
stay young requires unceasing
cultivation of the ability to
unlearn old falsehoods.
- Does
history record any case in which
the majority was right?
- Secrecy
is the beginning of tyranny.
- The
greatest productive force is
human selfishness.
- Be
wary of strong drink. It can make
you shoot at tax collectors --
and miss.
- Expertise
in one field does not carry over
into other fields. But experts
often think so. The narrower
their field of knowledge the more
likely they are to think so.
- Never
try to outstubborn a cat.
- Tilting
at windmills hurts you more than
the windmills.
- Yield
to temptation; it may not pass
your way again.
- Waking
a person unnecessarily should not
be considered a capital crime.
For a first offense, that is.
- The
correct way to punctuate a
sentence that starts: "Of
course it's none of my business,
but . . . " is to place a
period after the word
"but". Don't use
excessive force in supplying such
a moron with a period. Cutting
his throat is only a momentary
pleasure and is bound to get you
talked about.
- A
skunk is better company than a
person who prides himself on
being "frank".
- Natural
laws have no pity.
- You
can go wrong by being too
skeptical as readily as by being
too trusting.
- Anything
free is worth what you pay for
it.
- Climate
is what we expect; weather is
what we get.
- Pessimist
by policy, optimist by
temperament -- it is possible to
be both. How? By never taking an
unnecessary chance and by
minimizing risks you can't avoid.
This permits you to play out the
game happily, untroubled by the
certainty of the outcome.
- "I
came, I saw, SHE conquered."
(The original Latin seems to have
been garbled.)
- A
committee is a life form with six
or more legs and no brain.
- Don't
try to have the last word. You
might get it.
- Los
Angeles Dodgers Law Wait till last year.
- Law of the
Lost Inch
- In
designing any type of construction, no
overall dimension can be totalled
correctly after 4:40 p.m. on Friday.
- Corollaries:
- Under
the same conditions, if any minor
dimensions are given to
sixteenths of an inch, they
cannot be totalled at all.
- The
correct total will become
self-evident at 9:01 a.m. on
Monday.
- Lowrey's
Law
- If it
jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed
replacing anyway.
- Lowrey's
Law of Expertise
- Just when
you get really good at something, you
don't need to do it any more.
- Lubarsky's
Law of Cybernetic Entomology
- There's
always one more bug.
- Lubin's
Law
- If another
scientist thought your research was more
important than his, he would drop what he
is doing and do what you are doing.
- Luce's Law
- No good
deed goes unpunished.
- Lucy's Law
- The
alternative to getting old is depressing.
- Luten's
Laws
- When
properly administered, vacations
do not diminish productivity: for
every week you're away and get
nothing done, there's another
week when your boss is away and
you get twice as much done.
- It's
not so hard to lift yourself by
your bootstraps once you're off
the ground.
- Lyall's
Conjecture:
- If a
computer cable has one end, then it has
another.
- Lyall's
Fundamental Observation:
- The most
important leg of a three legged stool is
the one that's missing.
- Lynch's
Law:
- When the
going gets tough, everybody leaves.
- Lyon's Law
of Hesitation:
- He who
hesitates is last.
- Madison's
Question:
- If you
have to travel on a Titanic, why not go
first-class?
- Rev.
Mahaffy's Observation:
- There's no
such thing as a large whiskey.
- Maier's
Law:
- If the
facts do not conform to the theory, they
must be disposed of.
- Corollaries:
- The
bigger the theory, the better.
- The
experiment may be considered a
success if no more than 50% of
the observed measurements must be
discarded to obtain a
correspondence with the theory.
(Compensation Corollary)
- Malek's
Law:
- Any simple
idea will be worded in the most
complicated way.
- Malinowski's
Law:
- Looking
from far above, from our high places of
safety in the developed civilization, it
is easy to see all the crudity and
irrelevance of magic.
- Malloy's
Maxim:
- The fact
that monkeys have hands should give us
pause.
- The first
Myth of Management
- It exists.
- Truths of
Management:
- Think
before you act; it's not your
money.
- All
good management is the expression
of one great idea.
- No
executive devotes effort to
proving himself wrong.
- Cash
in must exceed cash out.
- Management
capability is always less than
the organization actually needs.
- Either
an executive can do his job or he
can't.
- If
sophisticated calculations are
needed to justify an action,
don't do it.
- If
you are doing something wrong,
you will do it badly.
- If
you are attempting the
impossible, you will fail.
- The
easiest way of making money is to
stop losing it.
- Truth 5.1
of Management:
- Organizations
always have too many managers.
- Manly's
Maxim:
- Logic is a
systematic method of coming to the wrong
conclusion with confidence.
- Mark's
mark:
- Love is a
matter of chemistry; sex is a matter of
physics.
- Marshall's
Generalized Iceberg Theorem:
- Seven-eighths
of everything can't be seen.
- Marshall's
Universal Laws of Perpetual Perceptual
Obfuscation:
- Nobody
perceives anything with total
accuracy.
- No
two people perceive the same
thing identically.
- Few
perceive what difference it makes
-- or care.
- Martha's
Maxim (and see Olum's Observation and
Farrow's Finding):
- If God had
meant for us to travel tourist class, He
would have made us narrower.
- Dean
Martin's Definition of Drunkenness:
- You're not
drunk if you can lie on the floor without
holding on.
- Martin-Berthelot
Principle:
- Of all
possible committee reactions to any given
agenda item, the reaction that will occur
is the one which will liberate the
greatest amount of hot air.
- Martin's
Laws of Academia:
- The
faculty expands its activity to
fit whatever space is available,
so that more space is always
required.
- Faculty
purchases of equipment and
supplies always increase to match
the funds available, so these
funds are never adequate.
- The
professional quality of the
faculty tends to be inversely
proportional to the importance it
attaches to space and equipment.
- Martin's
Law of Committees:
- All
committee reports conclude that "it
is not prudent to change the policy (or
procedure, or organization, or whatever)
at this time."
- Martin's
Exclusion: Committee reports dealing with
wages, salaries, fringe benefits,
facilities, computers, employee parking,
libraries, coffee breaks, secretarial
support, etc., always call for dramatic
expenditure increases.
- Martin's
Law of Communication:
- The
inevitable result of improved and
enlarged communication between different
levels in a hierarchy is a vastly
increased area of misunderstanding.
- Martin's
Minimax Maxim:
- Everyone
knows that the name of the game is to let
the other guy have all of the little tats
and to keep all of the big tits for
yourself.
- Matsch's
Law:
- It is
better to have a horrible ending than to
have horrors without end.
- Matsch's
Maxim:
- A fool in
a high station is like a man on the top
of a small mountain: everything appears
small to him and he appears small to
everybody.
- Matz's
warning:
- Beware of
the physician who is great at getting out
of trouble.
- Maugham's
Thought:
- Only a
mediocre person is always at his best.
- May's Law:
- The
quality of the correlation is inversely
proportional to the density of the
control (the fewer the facts, the
smoother the curves).
- May's
Mordant Maxim:
- A
university is a place where men of
principle outnumber men of honor.
- McCarthy's
Law:
- Being in
politics is like being a football coach.
You have to be smart enough to understand
the game and dumb enough to think it's
important.
- McClaughry's
Law of Public Policy:
- Politicians
who vote huge expenditures to alleviate
problems get re-elected; those who
propose structural changes to prevent
problems get early retirement.
- McClaughry's
Law of Zoning:
- Where
zoning is not needed, it will work
perfectly; where it is desperately
needed, it always breaks down.
- McDonald's
Second Law:
- Consultants
are mystical people who ask a company for
a number and give it back to them.
- McGoon's
Law:
- The
probability of winning is inversely
proportional to the amount of the wager.
- McGovern's
Law:
- The longer
the title, the less important the job.
- McGurk's
Law:
- Any
improbable event which would create
maximum confusion if it did occur, will
occur.
- McKenna's
Law:
- When you
are right, be logical. When you are
wrong, be-fuddle.
- McLaughlin's
Law (and see Parson's Third Law):
- The length
of any meeting is inversely proportional
to the length of the agenda for that
meeting.
- McLean's
Maxim:
- There are
only two problems with people. One is
that they don't think. The other is that
they do.
- McNaughton's
Rule:
- Any
argument worth making within the
bureaucracy must be capable of being
expressed in a simple declarative
sentence that is obviously true once
stated.
- Margaret
Mead's Law of Human Migration:
- At least
fifty percent of the human race doesn't
want their mother-in-law within walking
distance.
- Melcher's
Law:
- In a
bureaucracy, every routing slip will
expand until it contains the maximum
number of names that can be typed in a
single vertical column.
- H. L.
Mencken's Law:
- Those who
can -- do.
- Those who
cannot -- teach.
- Those who
cannot teach -- administrate. (Martin's
Extension)
- Mencken's
Metalaw:
- For every
human problem, there is a neat, simple
solution; and it is always wrong.
- Merkin's
Maxim:
- When in
doubt, predict that the present trend
will continue.
- Merrill's
First Corollary:
- There are
no winners in life; only survivors.
- Merrill's
Second Corollary:
- In the
highway of life, the average happening is
of about as much true significance as a
dead skunk in the middle of the road.
- Meskimen's
Laws: 1) When they want it bad (in a
rush), they get it bad. 2) There's never
time to do it right, but always time to
do it over.
- Michehl's
Theorem:
- Less is
more.
- Pastore's
Comment on Michehl's Theorem:
- Nothing is
ultimate.
- Mickelson's
Law of Falling Objects:
- Any object
that is accidentally dropped will hide
under a larger object.
- Miksch's
Law:
- If a
string has one end, then it has another
end.
- Miller's
Law:
- You can't
tell how deep a puddle is until you step
into it.
- Mills's
Law of Transportation Logistics:
- The
distance to the gate from which your
flight departs is inversely proportional
to the time remaining before the
scheduled departure of the flight.
- Corollaries
(Woods): 1) This remains true even as you
rush to catch the flight. 2) From this it
follows that you are invariably rushing
the wrong way.
- MIST Law
(Man In The Street):
- The number
of people watching you is directly
proportional to the stupidity of your
action.
- Mobil's
Maxim:
- Bad
regulation begets worse regulation.
- Moer's
Truism:
- The
trouble with most jobs is the resemblance
to being in a sled dog team. No one gets
a change of scenery, except the lead dog.
- Money
Maxim:
- Money
isn't everything. (It isn't plentiful,
for instance.)
- Montagu's
Maxim:
- The idea
is to die young as late as possible.
- Morley's
Conclusion:
- No man is
lonely while eating spaghetti.
- Morton's
Law:
- If rats
are experimented upon, they will develop
cancer. ("What this country needs
are some stronger white rats.")
- Mosher's
Law:
- It's
better to retire too soon than too late.
- Munnecke's
Law:
- If you
don't say it, they can't repeat it.
- Murchison's
Law of Money:
- Money is
like manure. If you spread it around, it
does a lot of good. But if you pile it up
in one place, it stinks like hell.
- Nader's
Law:
- The speed
of exit of a civil servant is directly
proportional to the quality of his
service.
- NASA
Skylab Rule:
- Don't do
it if you can't keep it up.
- NASA
Truisms:
- Research
is reading two books that have
never been read in order to write
a third that will never be read.
- A
consultant is an ordinary person
a long way from home.
- Statistics
are a highly logical and precise
method for saying a half-truth
inaccurately.
- Law of
Nations:
- In an
underdeveloped country, don't drink the
water; in a developed country, don't
breathe the air.
- Navy Law:
- If you can
keep your head when all about you others
are losing theirs, maybe you just don't
understand the situation.
- Evvie
Nef's Law:
- There is a
solution to every problem; the only
difficulty is finding it.
- Nessen's
Law:
- Secret
sources are more credible.
- Newman's
Law:
- Hypocrisy
is the Vaseline of social intercourse.
- Newton's
Little-known Seventh Law:
- A bird in
the hand is safer than one overhead.
- Nick the
Greek's Law:
- All things
considered, life is 9-to-5 against.
- Nienberg's
Law:
- Progress
is made on alternate Fridays.
- Nies's
Law:
- The effort
expended by the bureaucracy in defending
any error is in direct proportion to the
size of the error.
- Ninety-ninety
Rule of Project Schedules:
- The first
ninety percent of the task takes ninety
percent of the time, and the last ten
percent takes the other ninety percent.
- Nixon's
Rule:
- If two
wrongs don't make a right, try three.
- Nobel
Effect:
- There is
no proposition, no matter how foolish,
for which a dozen Nobel signatures cannot
be collected. Furthermore, any such
petition is guaranteed page-one treatment
in the New York Times.
- Noble's
Law of Political Imagery:
- All other
things being equal, a bald man cannot be
elected President of the United States.
- Corollary:
- Given a
choice between two bald political
candidates, the American people will vote
for the less bald of the two.
- North
Carolina Equine Paradox:
- Vyarzerzomanimororsezassezanzerareorses?
- No. 3
Pencil Principle:
- Make it
sufficiently difficult for people to do
something, and most people will stop
doing it.
- Corollary:
If no one uses something, it isn't
needed.
- Nursing
Mother Principle:
- Do not
nurse a kid who wears braces.
- Nyquist's
Theory of Equilibrium:
- Equality
is not when a female Einstein gets
promoted to assistant professor; equality
is when a female schlemiel moves ahead as
fast as a male schlemiel.
- Oaks's
Unruly Laws for Lawmakers:
- Law
expands in proportion to the
resources available for its
enforcement.
- Bad
law is more likely to be
supplemented than repealed.
- Social
legislation cannot repeal
physical laws.
- O'Brien's
First Law of Politics:
- The more
campaigning, the better.
- O'Brien's
Principle (The $357.73 Theorem):
- Auditors
always reject any expense account with a
bottom line divisible by five or ten.
- O'Brien's
Rule:
- Nothing is
ever done for the right reason.
- The
Obvious Law:
- Actually,
it only SEEMS as though you mustn't be
deceived by appearances.
- Occam's
Electric Razor:
- The most
difficult light bulb to replace burns out
first and most frequently.
- Occam's
Razor:
- Entities
ought not to be multiplied except from
necessity.
- Reformulations:
- The
explanation requiring the fewest
assumptions is the most likely to
be correct.
- Whenever
two hypotheses cover the facts,
use the simpler of the two.
- Cut
the crap.
- Oesner's
Law (Oeser's Law?):
- There is a
tendency for the person in the most
powerful position in an organization to
spend all his time serving on committees
and signing letters.
- Old and
Kahn's Law:
- The
efficiency of a committee meeting is
inversely proportional to the number of
participants and the time spent on
deliberations.
- Old
Children's Law:
- If it
tastes good, you can't have it. If it
tastes awful, you'd better clean your
plate.
- Olum's
Observation (and see Martha's Maxim and
Farrow's Finding):
- If God had
intended us to go around naked, He would
have made us that way.
- Oppenheimer's
Observation:
- The
optimist thinks this is the best of all
possible worlds, and the pessimist knows
it.
- Optimum
Optimorum Principle:
- There
comes a time when one must stop
suggesting and evaluating new solutions,
and get on with the job of analyzing and
finally implementing one pretty good
solution.
- Ordering
Principle:
- Those
supplies necessary for yesterday's
experiment must be ordered no later than
tomorrow noon.
- Orion's
Law:
- Everything
breaks down.
- Orwell's
Law of Bridge:
- All bridge
hands are equally likely, but some are
more equally likely than others.
- Osborn's
Law:
- Variables
won't; constants aren't.
- Otten's
Law of Testimony:
- When a
person says that, in the interest of
saving time, he will summarize his
prepared statement, he will talk only
three times as long as if he had read the
statement in the first place.
- Otten's
Law of Typesetting:
- Typesetters
always correct intentional errors, but
fail to correct unintentional ones.
- Ozian
Option:
- I can't
give you brains, but I can give you a
diploma.
- Panic
Instruction:
- When you
don't know what to do, walk fast and look
worried.
- Paperboy's
rule of Weather
- No matter
how clear the skies are, a thunderstorm
will move in 5 minutes after the papers
are delivered.
- Paradox of
Selective Equality:
- All things
being equal, all things are never equal.
- Pardo's
Postulates:
- Anything
good is either illegal, immoral,
or fattening.
- The
three faithful things in life are
money, a dog, and an old woman.
- Don't
care if you're rich or not, as
long as you live comfortably and
can have everything you want.
- Pareto's
Law (The 20/80 Law):
- 20% of the
customers account for 80% of the
turnover, 20% of the components account
for 80% of the cost, and so forth.
- Parker's
Rule of Parliamentary Procedure:
- A motion
to adjourn is always in order.
- Parker's
Law of Political Statements:
- The truth
of a proposition has nothing to do with
its credibility, and vice versa.
- Parker's
Third Rule of Tech Support:
- If you
can't navigate a one-level, five-item
phone tree, you didn't need a computer
anyway.
- Parkin's
Law of Irritation:
- Anything
that happens enough times to irritate you
will happen at least once more.
- Parkinson's
Axioms:
- An
official wants to multiply
subordinates, not rivals.
- Officials
make work for each other.
- Parkinson's
First Law:
- Work
expands to fill the time available for
its completion; the thing to be done
swells in perceived importance and
complexity in a direct ratio with the
time to be spent in its completion.
- Parkinson's
Second Law:
- Expenditures
rise to meet income.
- Parkinson's
Third Law:
- Expansion
means complexity; and complexity decay.
- Parkinson's
Fourth Law:
- The number
of people in any working group tends to
increase regardless of the amount of work
to be done.
- Parkinson's
Fifth Law:
- If there
is a way to delay an important decision
the good bureaucracy, public or private,
will find it.
- Parkinson's
Sixth Law:
- The
progress of science varies inversely with
the number of journals published.
- Parkinson's
Law of Delay:
- Delay is
the deadliest form of denial.
- Parkinson's
Law of Medical Research:
- Successful
research attracts the bigger grant which
makes further research impossible.
- Parkinson's
Law of the Telephone:
- The
effectiveness of a telephone conversation
is in inverse proportion to the time
spent on it.
- Parkinson's
Law of 1000:
- An
enterprise employing more than 1000
people becomes a self-perpetuating
empire, creating so much internal work
that it no longer needs any contact with
the outside world.
- Parkinson's
Principle of Non-Origination:
- It is the
essence of grantsmanship to persuade the
Foundation executives that it was THEY
who suggested the research project and
that you were a belated convert, agreeing
reluctantly to all they had proposed.
- Mrs.
Parkinson's Law:
- Heat
produced by pressure expands to fill the
mind available, from which it can pass
only to a cooler mind.
- Parson's
Laws:
- If
you break a cup or plate, it will
not be the one that was already
chipped or cracked.
- A
place you want to get to is
always just off the edge of the
map you happen to have handy.
- A
meeting lasts at least 1 1/2
hours however short the agenda.
- Dolly
Parton's Principle:
- The bigger
they are, the harder it is to see your
shoes.
- Pastore's
Truths:
- Even
paranoids have enemies.
- This
job is marginally better than
daytime TV.
- On
alcohol: four is one more than
more than enough.
- Patricks's
Theorem:
- If the
experiment works, you must be using the
wrong equipment.
- Patton's
Law:
- A good
plan today is better than a perfect plan
tomorrow.
- Paturi
Principle:
- Success is
the result of behavior that completely
contradicts the usual expectations about
the behavior of a successful person.
- Corollary:
The amount of success is in inverse
proportion to the effort involved in
attaining it.
- Paul
Principle:
- People
become progressively less competent for
jobs they once were well equipped to
handle.
- Paul's
Law:
- You can't
fall off the floor.
- Paulg's
Law:
- In
America, it's not how much an item costs,
it's how much you save.
- Peck's
Programming Postulates (Philosophic
Engineering applied to programming):
- In
any program, any error which can
creep in will eventually do so.
- Not
until the program has been in
production for at least six
months will the most harmful
error be discovered.
- Any
constants, limits, or timing
formulas that appear in the
computer manufacturer's
literature should be treated as
variables.
- The
most vital parameter in any
subroutine stands the greatest
chance of being left out of the
calling sequence.
- If
only one compiler can be secured
for a piece of hardware, the
compilation times will be
exorbitant.
- If
a test installation functions
perfectly, all subsequent systems
will malfunction.
- Job
control cards that positively
cannot be arranged in improper
order, will be.
- Interchangeable
tapes won't.
- If
more than one person has
programmed a malfunctioning
routine, no one is at fault.
- If
the input editor has been
designed to reject all bad input,
an ingenious idiot will discover
a method to get bad data past it.
- Duplicated
object decks which test in
identical fashion will not give
identical results at remote
sites.
- Manufacturer's
hardware and software support
ceases with payment for the
computer.
- Peckham's
Law (Beckhap's Law?):
- Beauty
times brains equals a constant.
- Peers's
Law:
- The
solution to a problem changes the
problem.
- Captain
Penny's Law:
- You can
fool all of the people some of the time,
and some of the people all of the time,
but you can't fool MOM.
- Perelman's
Point:
- There is
nothing like a good painstaking survey
full of decimal points and guarded
generalizations to put a glaze like a
Sung vase on your eyeball.
- Perkin's
postulate:
- The bigger
they are, the harder they hit.
- Perlsweig's
Law:
- People who
can least afford to pay rent, pay rent.
People who can most afford to pay rent,
build up equity.
- Persig's
Postulate:
- The number
of rational hypotheses that can explain
any given phenomenon is infinite.
- Law of the
Perversity of Nature:
- You cannot
successfully determine beforehand which
side of the bread to butter.
- Peter
Principle:
- In every
hierarchy, whether it be government or
business, each employee tends to rise to
his level of incompetence; every post
tends to be filled by an employee
incompetent to execute its duties.
- Corollaries:
- Incompetence
knows no barriers of time or
place.
- Work
is accomplished by those
employees who have not yet
reached their level of
incompetence.
- If
at first you don't succeed, try
something else.
- Peter's
Hidden Postulate According to Godin:
- Every
employee begins at his level of
competence.
- Peter's
Inversion:
- Internal
consistency is valued more highly than
efficiency.
- Peter's
Law of Evolution:
- Competence
always contains the seed of incompetence.
- Peter's
Law of Substitution:
- Look after
the molehills and the mountains will look
after themselves.
- Peter's
Observation:
- Super-competence
is more objectionable than incompetence.
- Peter's
Paradox:
- Employees
in a hierarchy do not really object to
incompetence in their colleagues.
- Peter's
Perfect People Palliative:
- Each of us
is a mixture of good qualities and some
(perhaps) not-so-good qualities. In
considering our fellow people we should
remember their good qualities and realize
that their faults only prove that they
are, after all, human. We should refrain
from making harsh judgments of people
just because they happen to be dirty,
rotten, no-good sons-of-bitches.
- Peter's
Placebo:
- An ounce
of image is worth a pound of performance.
- Peter's
Prognosis:
- Spend
sufficient time in confirming the need
and the need will disappear.
- Peter's
Rule for Creative Incompetence:
- Create the
impression that you have already reached
your level of incompetence.
- Peter's
Theorem:
- Incompetence
plus incompetence equals incompetence.
- Peterson's
Law:
- History
shows that money will multiply in volume
and divide in value over the long run.
Or, expressed differently, the purchasing
power of currency will vary inversely
with the magnitude of the public debt.
- Phases of
a Project:
- Exultation.
- Disenchantment.
- Confusion.
- Search
for the Guilty.
- Punishment
of the Innocent.
- Distinction
for the Uninvolved.
- Phelps's
Laws of Renovation:
- Any
renovation project on an old
house will cost twice as much and
take three times as long as
originally estimated.
- Any
plumbing pipes you choose to
replace during renovation will
prove to be in excellent
condition; those you decide to
leave in place will be rotten.
- Phelps's
Law of Retributive Statistics:
- An
unexpectedly easy-to-handle sequence of
events will be immediately followed by an
equally long sequence of trouble.
- Theory of
the International Society of Philosophic
Engineering:
- In
any calculation, any error which
can creep in will do so.
- Any
error in any calculation will be
in the direction of most harm.
- In
any formula, constants
(especially those obtained from
engineering handbooks) are to be
treated as variables.
- The
best approximation of service
conditions in the laboratory will
not begin to meet those
conditions encountered in actual
service.
- The
most vital dimension on any plan
or drawing stands the greatest
chance of being omitted.
- If
only one bid can be secured on
any project, the price will be
unreasonable.
- If
a test installation functions
perfectly, all subsequent
production units will
malfunction.
- All
delivery promises must be
multiplied by a factor of 2.0.
- Major
changes in construction will
always be requested after
fabrication is nearly completed.
- Parts
that positively cannot be
assembled in improper order will
be.
- Interchangeable
parts won't.
- Manufacturer's
specifications of performance
should be multiplied by a factor
of 0.5.
- Salespeople's
claims for performance should be
multiplied by a factor of 0.25.
- Installation
and Operating Instructions
shipped with the device will be
promptly discarded by the
Receiving Department.
- Any
device requiring service or
adjustment will be least
accessible.
- Service
Conditions as given on
specifications will be exceeded.
- If
more than one person is
responsible for a miscalculation,
no one will be at fault.
- Identical
units which test in an identical
fashion will not behave in an
identical fashion in the field.
- If,
in engineering practice, a safety
factor is set through service
experience at an ultimate value,
an ingenious idiot will promptly
calculate a method to exceed said
safety factor.
- Warranty
and guarantee clauses are voided
by payment of the invoice.
- Phone
Booth Rule:
- A lone
dime always gets the number nearly right.
- Pierson's
Law:
- If you're
coasting, you're going downhill.
- Pike Law
of Punditry:
- The
successful pundit is provided more
opportunities to say things than he has
things worth saying.
- Axiom of
the Pipe. (Trischmann's Paradox)
- A pipe
gives a wise man time to think and a fool
something to stick in his mouth.
- Plotnick's
Law:
- The time
of departure will be delayed by the
square of the number of people involved.
- Law of
Political Erosion:
- Once the
erosion of power begins, it has a
momentum all its own.
- Politicians'
Rules:
- When
the polls are in your favor,
flaunt them.
- When
the polls are overwhelmingly
unfavorable, either (a) ridicule
and dismiss them or (b) stress
the volatility of public opinion.
- When
the polls are slightly
unfavorable, play for sympathy as
a struggling underdog.
- When
too close to call, be surprised
at your own strength.
- The
Pollyanna Paradox:
- Every day,
in every way, things get better and
better; then worse again in the evening.
- Potter's
Law:
- The amount
of flak received on any subject is
inversely proportional to the subject's
true value.
- Poulsen's
Law:
- When
anything is used to its full potential,
it will break.
- Pournelle's
Law of Costs and Schedules:
- Everything
costs more and takes longer.
- Powell's
Law:
- Never tell
them what you wouldn't do.
- Law of
Predictive Action:
- The second
most powerful phrase in the world is
"Watch this!" The most powerful
phrase is "Oh yeah? Watch
this!"
- Preudhomme's
Law of Window Cleaning:
- It's on
the other side.
- Price's
Law of Politics:
- It's
easier to be a liberal a long way from
home.
- Price's
Law of Science:
- Scientists
who dislike the restraints of highly
organized research like to remark that a
truly great research worker needs only
three pieces of equipment -- a pencil, a
piece of paper, and a brain. But they
quote this maxim more often at academic
banquets than at budget hearings.
- The
Principle Concerning Multifunctional
Devices:
- The fewer
functions any device is required to
perform, the more perfectly it can
perform those functions.
- Law of
Probable Dispersal:
- Whatever
hits the fan will not be evenly
distributed. (also known as the How Come
It All Landed On Me Law)
- Laws of
Procrastination:
- Procrastination
shortens the job and places the
responsibility for its
termination on someone else (the
authority who imposed the
deadline).
- It
reduces anxiety by reducing the
expected quality of the project
from the best of all possible
efforts to the best that can be
expected given the limited time.
- Status
is gained in the eyes of others,
and in one's own eyes, because it
is assumed that the importance of
the work justifies the stress.
- Avoidance
of interruptions including the
assignment of other duties can be
achieved, so that the obviously
stressed worker can concentrate
on the single effort.
- Procrastination
avoids boredom; one never has the
feeling that there is nothing
important to do.
- It
may eliminate the job if the need
passes before the job can be
done.
- Productivity
Equation:
- The
productivity, P, of a group of people is:
- P = N x T
x (.55 - .00005 x N x (N - 1) )
- where N is
the number of people in the group and T
is the number of hours in a work period.
- Professional's
Law:
- Doctors,
dentists, and lawyers are only on time
for appointments when you're not.
- Project
scheduling "99" rule
- The first
90 percent of the task takes 90 percent
of the time. The last 10 percent takes
the other 90 percent.
- Proverbial
Law:
- For every
proverb that so confidently asserts its
little bit of wisdom, there is usually an
equal and opposite proverb that
contradicts it.
- Public
Relations Client Turnover Law:
- The minute
you sign a client is the minute you start
to lose him.
- First Rule
of Public Speaking:
- Nice guys
finish fast.
- Pudder's
Law:
- Anything
that begins well ends badly. Anything
that begins badly ends worse.
- Puritan's
Law:
- Evil is
live spelled backwards.
- Corollary:
If it feels good, don't do it.
- Putney's
Law:
- If the
people of a democracy are allowed to do
so, they will vote away the freedoms
which are essential to that democracy.
- Putt's
Law:
- Technology
is dominated by two types of people --
those who understand what they do not
manage, and those who manage what they do
not understand.
- Q's Law:
- No matter
what stage of completion one reaches in a
North Sea (oil) field, the cost of the
remainder of the project remains the
same.
- Rakove's
Laws of Politics:
- The
amount of effort put into a
campaign by a worker expands in
proportion to the personal
benefits that he will derive from
his party's victory.
- The
citizen is influenced by
principle in direct proportion to
his distance from the political
situation.
- Ralph's
Observation:
- It is a
mistake to allow any mechanical object to
realize that you are in a hurry.
- Randolph's
Cardinal Principle of Statecraft:
- Never
needlessly disturb a thing at rest.
- Rangnekar's
Modified Rules Concerning Decisions:
- If
you must make a decision, delay
it.
- If
you can authorize someone else to
avoid a decision, do so.
- If
you can form a committee, have
them avoid the decision.
- If
you can otherwise avoid a
decision, avoid it immediately.
- Rapoport's
Rule of the Roller-Skate Key:
- Certain
items which are crucial to a given
activity will show up with uncommon
regularity until the day when that
activity is planned, at which point the
item in question will disappear from the
face of the earth.
- Raskin's
Zero Law:
- The more
zeros found in the price tag for a
government program, the less
Congressional scrutiny it will receive.
- Law of
Raspberry Jam:
- The wider
any culture is spread, the thinner it
gets.
- Rather's
Rule:
- In dealing
with the press do yourself a favor. Stick
with one of three responses: (a) I know
and I can tell you, (b) I know and I
can't tell you, or (c) I don't know.
- Rayburn's
Rule:
- If you
want to get along, go along.
- Fundamental
Tenet of Reform:
- Reforms
come from below. No man with four aces
howls for a new deal.
- Law of
Reruns:
- If you
have watched a TV series only once, and
you watch it again, it will be a rerun of
the same episode.
- Law of
Research:
- Enough
research will tend to support your
theory.
- Law of
Restaurant Acoustics:
- In a
restaurant with seats which are close to
each other, one will always find the
decibel level of the nearest conversation
to be inversely proportional to the
quality of the thought going into it.
- Law of
Revelation:
- The hidden
flaw never remains hidden.
- 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.)
- Corollary:
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.
- 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.
- Third Law
of Revision:
- If, when
completion of a design is imminent, field
dimensions are finally supplied as they
actually are -- instead of as they were
meant to be -- it is always easier to
start all over.
- Corollary:
It is usually impractical to worry
beforehand about interferences -- if you
have none, someone will make one for you.
- Fourth Law
of Revision:
- After
painstaking and careful analysis of a
sample, you are always told that it is
the wrong sample and doesn't apply to the
problem.
- Richard's
Complementary Rules of Ownership:
- If
you keep anything long enough you
can throw it away.
- If
you throw anything away, you will
need it as soon as it is no
longer accessible.
- Richman's
Inevitables of Parenthood:
- Enough
is never enough.
- The
sun always rises in the baby's
bedroom window.
- Birthday
parties always end in tears.
- Whenever
you decide to take the kids home,
it is always five minutes earlier
that they break into fights,
tears, or hysteria.
- Riddle's
Constant:
- There are
coexisting elements in frustration
phenomena which separate expected results
from achieved results.
- Riesman's
Law:
- An
inexorable upward movement leads
administrators to higher salaries and
narrower spans of control.
- Rigg's
Hypothesis:
- Incompetence
tends to increase with the level of work
performed. And, naturally, the
individual's staff needs will increase as
his level of incompetence increases.
- Law of
Road Construction:
- After
large expenditures of federal, state, and
county funds; after much confusion
generated by detours and road blocks;
after greatly annoying the surrounding
population with noise, dust, and fumes --
the previously existing traffic jam is
relocated by one-half mile.
- Robertson's
Law:
- Everything
happens at the same time with nothing in
between.
- The Three
Laws of Robotics:
- A
robot may not injure a human
being or, through inaction, allow
a human being to come to harm.
- A
robot must obey the orders given
it by human beings except where
such orders would conflict with
the First Law.
- A
robot must protect its own
existence as long as such
protection does not conflict with
the First or Second Laws.
- Rodovic's
Rule:
- In any
organization, the potential is much
greater for the subordinate to manage his
superior than for the superior to manage
his subordinate.
- Rodriguez's
Observation:
- A
consultant is someone who, when hired to
find out what time it is, borrows your
watch to find out.
- Corollary
(Martin): If you hire a consultant to
read your own watch to you, you got your
money's worth.
- Roemer's
Law:
- The rate
of hospital admissions responds to bed
availability. If we insist on installing
more beds, they will tend to get filled.
- Roger's
Ratio:
- One-third
of the people in the United States
promote, while the other two-thirds
provide.
- Rosenbaum's
Rule:
- The
easiest way to find something lost around
the house is to buy a replacement.
- Rosenfield's
Regret:
- The most
delicate component will be dropped.
- Rosenstock-Huessy's
Law of Technology:
- All
technology expands the space, contracts
the time, and destroys the working group.
- (Al)
Ross's Law:
- Bare feet
magnetize sharp metal objects so they
always point upward from the floor --
especially in the dark.
- (Charles)
Ross's Law:
- Never
characterize the importance of a
statement in advance.
- Rudin's
Law:
- In a
crisis that forces a choice to be made
among alternative courses of action, most
people will choose the worse one
possible.
- Runamok's
Law:
- There are
four kinds of people: those who sit
quietly and do nothing, those who talk
about sitting quietly and doing nothing,
those who do things, and those who talk
about doing things.
- Runyon's
Law:
- The race
is not always to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong, but that's the way
to bet.
- First Rule
of Rural Mechanics:
- If it
works, don't fix it.
- Ryan's
Law:
- Make three
correct guesses consecutively and you
will establish yourself as an expert.
- Sadat's
Reminder:
- Those who
invented the law of supply and demand
have no right to complain when this law
works against their interest.
- Sam's
Axioms:
- Any
line, however short, is still too
long.
- Work
is the crabgrass of life, but
money is the water that keeps it
green.
- Sattinger's
Law:
- It works
better if you plug it in.
- Sattler's
Law:
- There are
32 points to the compass, meaning that
there are 32 directions in which a spoon
can squirt grapefruit; yet, the juice
almost invariably flies straight into the
human eye.
- Saunders's
Discovery:
- Laziness
is the mother of nine inventions out of
ten.
- Sayre's
Third Law of Politics:
- Academic
politics is the most vicious and bitter
form of politics, because the stakes are
so low.
- Schenk's
First Principle of Industrial Market
Economics:
- Good
salesmen and good repairmen will never go
hungry.
- Schickel's
TV Theorems:
- Any
dramatic series the producers
want us to take seriously as a
representation of contemporary
reality cannot be taken seriously
as a representation of anything
-- except a show to be ignored by
anyone capable of sitting upright
in a chair and chewing gum
simultaneously.
- The
only programs a grown-up can
possibly stand are those intended
for children. Or, more properly,
those that cater to those
pre-adolescent fantasies that
most have never abandoned.
- Schmidt's
Law:
- Never eat
prunes when you're hungry.
- Schmidt's
Law (probably a different Schmidt):
- If you
mess with something long enough, it'll
break.
- Schuckit's
Law:
- All
interference in human conduct has the
potential for causing harm, no matter how
innocuous the procedure may be.
- Schultze's
Law:
- If you
can't measure output, then you measure
input.
- Schumpeter's
Observation of Scientific and
Nonscientific Theories:
- Any theory
can be made to fit any facts by means of
appropriate additional assumptions.
- Old
Scottish Prayer:
- O Lord,
grant that we may always be right, for
Thou knowest we will never change our
minds.
- Scott's
First Law:
- No matter
what goes wrong, it will probably look
right.
- Scott's
Second Law:
- When an
error has been detected and corrected, it
will be found to have been correct in the
first place.
- Corollary:
After the correction has been found in
error, it will be impossible to fit the
original quantity back into the equation.
- Screwdriver
Syndrome:
- Sometimes,
where a complex problem can be
illuminated by many tools, one can be
forgiven for applying the one he knows
best.
- Segal's
Law:
- A man with
one watch knows what time it is; a man
with two watches is never sure.
- Law of
Selective Gravity (the Buttered Side Down
Law):
- An object
will fall so as to do the most damage.
- Corollary
(Klipstein): The most delicate component
will be the one to drop.
- Sells's
Law:
- The first
sample is always the best.
- Laws of
Serendipity:
- In
order to discover anything you
must be looking for something.
- If
you wish to make an improved
product, you must already be
engaged in making an inferior
one.
- Sevareid's
Law:
- The chief
cause of problems is solutions.
- Shaffer's
Law:
- The
effectiveness of a politician varies in
inverse proportion to his commitment to
principle.
- Shalit's
Law:
- The
intensity of movie publicity is in
inverse ratio to the quality of the
movie.
- Shanahan's
Law:
- The length
of a meeting rises with the square of the
number of people present.
- Sharkey's
Fourth Law of Motion:
- Passengers
on elevators constantly rearrange their
positions as people get on and off so
there is at all times an equal distance
between all bodies.
- Shaw's
Principle:
- Build a
system that even a fool can use, and only
a fool will want to use it.
- Shelton's
Laws of Pocket Calculators:
- Rechargeable
batteries die at the most
critical time of the most complex
problem.
- When
a rechargeable battery starts to
die in the middle of a complex
calculation, and the user
attempts to connect house
current, the calculator will
clear itself.
- The
final answer will exceed the
magnitude or precision or both of
the calculator.
- There
are not enough storage registers
to solve the problem.
- The
user will forget mathematics in
proportion to the complexity of
the calculator.
- Thermal
paper will run out before the
calculation is complete.
- Shirley's
Law:
- Most
people deserve each other.
- Short's
Quotations:
- Any
great truth can -- and eventually
will -- be expressed as a cliche.
A cliche is a sure and certain
way to dilute an idea. For
instance, my grandmother used to
say, "The black cat is
always the last one off the
fence." I have no idea what
she meant, but at one time it was
undoubtedly true.
- Half
of being smart is knowing what
you're dumb at.
- Malpractice
makes malperfect.
- Neurosis
is a communicable disease.
- The
only winner in the War of 1812
was Tchaikovsky.
- Nature
abhors a hero. For one thing, he
violates the law of conservation
of energy. For another, how can
it be the survival of the fittest
when the fittest keeps putting
himself in situations where he is
most likely to be creamed?
- A
little ignorance can go a long
way.
- Learn
to be sincere. Even if you have
to fake it.
- There
is no such thing as an absolute
truth -- that is absolutely true.
- Understanding
the laws of nature does not mean
we are free from obeying them.
- Entropy
has us outnumbered.
- The
human race never solves any of
its problems -- it only outlives
them.
- Hell
hath no fury like a pacifist.
- Law of
Selective Gravity:
- An object
will fall so as to do the most damage.
- Sevareid's
Law:
- The chief
cause of problems is solutions.
- Mother
Sigafoos's Observation:
- A man
should be greater than some of his parts.
- Simmon's
Law:
- The desire
for racial integration increases with the
square of the distance from the actual
event.
- Simon's
Law:
- Everything
put together sooner or later falls apart.
- Sinner's
Law of Retaliation:
- Do
whatever your enemies don't want you to
do.
- Skinner's
Constant (Flannegan's Finagling Factor):
- That
quantity which, when multiplied by,
divided into, added to, or subtracted
from the answer you got, gives you the
answer you should have gotten.
- Skole's
Rule for Antique Dealers:
- Never
simply say, "Sorry, we don't have
what you're looking for." Always
say, "Too bad, I just sold one the
other day."
- Law of
Slide Presentation:
- In any
slide presentation, at least one slide
will be upside down or backwards, or
both.
- Smith's
Principles of Bureaucratic Tinkertoys:
- Never
use one word when a dozen will
suffice.
- If
it can be understood, it's not
finished yet.
- Never
be the first to do anything.
- Snafu
Equations:
- Given
any problem containing n
equations, there will be n+1
unknowns.
- An
object or bit of information most
needed, will be least available.
- In
any human endeavor, once you have
exhausted all possibilities and
fail, there will be one solution,
simple and obvious, highly
visible to everyone else.
- Badness
comes in waves.
- First Law
of Socio-Economics:
- In a
hierarchical system, the rate of pay for
a given task increases in inverse ratio
to the unpleasantness and difficulty of
the task.
- First Law
of Socio-Genetics:
- Celibacy
is not hereditary.
- Woods's
Refutation of the First Law of
Socio-Genetics:
- On the
contrary, if you never procreate, neither
will your kids.
- Sociology's
Iron Law of Oligarchy:
- In every
organized activity, no matter the sphere,
a small number will become the
oligarchical leaders and the others will
follow.
- Sodd's
First Law:
- When a
person attempts a task, he or she will be
thwarted in that task by the unconscious
intervention of some other presence
(animate or inanimate). Nevertheless,
some tasks are completed, since the
intervening presence is itself attempting
a task and is, of course, subject to
interference.
- Sodd's
Second Law:
- Sooner or
later, the worst possible set of
circumstances is bound to occur.
- Corollary:
Any system must be designed to withstand
the worst possible set of circumstances.
- Sodd's
Other Law:
- The degree
of failure is in direct proportion to the
effort expended and to the need for
success.
- Grandma
Soderquist's Conclusion:
- A chicken
doesn't stop scratching just because the
worms are scarce.
- Spare
Parts Principle:
- The
accessibility, during recovery of small
parts which fall from the work bench,
varies directly with the size of the part
and inversely with its importance to the
completion of the work underway.
- Spark's
Ten Rules for the Project Manager:
- Strive
to look tremendously important.
- Attempt
to be seen with important people.
- Speak
with authority; however, only
expound on the obvious and proven
facts.
- Don't
engage in arguments, but if
cornered, ask an irrelevant
question and lean back with a
satisfied grin while your
opponent tries to figure out
what's going on -- then quickly
change the subject.
- Listen
intently while others are arguing
the problem. Pounce on a trite
statement and bury them with it.
- If
a subordinate asks you a
pertinent question, look at him
as if he had lost his senses.
When he looks down, paraphrase
the question back at him.
- Obtain
a brilliant assignment, but keep
out of sight and out of the
limelight.
- Walk
at a fast pace when out of the
office -- this keeps questions
from subordinates and superiors
at a minimum.
- Always
keep the office door closed. This
puts visitors on the defensive
and also makes it look as if you
are always in an important
conference.
- Give
all orders verbally. Never write
anything down that might go into
a "Pearl Harbor File."
- Specht's
Meta-Law:
- Under any
conditions, anywhere, whatever you are
doing, there is some ordinance under
which you can be booked.
- Sprinkle's
Law:
- Things
always fall at right angles.
- Stamp's
Statistical Probability:
- The
government is extremely fond of amassing
great quantities of statistics. These are
raised to the nth degree, the cube roots
are extracted, and the results are
arranged into elaborate and impressive
displays. What must be kept ever in mind,
however, is that in every case, the
figures are first put down by a village
watchman, and he puts down anything he
damn well pleases.
- Steele's
Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy:
- Everyone
should believe in something -- I believe
I'll have another drink.
- Steinbeck's
Law:
- When you
need towns, they are very far apart.
- Stephens's
Soliloquy:
- Finality
is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing
is perfect. There are lumps in it.
- Stewart's
Law of Retroaction:
- It is
easier to get forgiveness than
permission.
- Stockbroker's
Declaration:
- The market
will rally from this or lower levels.
- Stock
Market Axiom:
- The public
is always wrong.
- Stock's
Observation:
- You no
sooner get your head above water than
someone pulls your flippers off.
- Stockmayer's
Theorem:
- If it
looks easy, it's tough. If it looks
tough, it's damn well impossible.
- Sturgeon's
Law:
- Ninety
percent of EVERYTHING is crud.
- Sueker's
Note:
- If you
need n items of anything, you will have n
- 1 in stock.
- Suhor's
Law:
- A little
ambiguity never hurt anyone.
- Law of
Superiority:
- The first
example of superior principle is always
inferior to the developed example of
inferior principle.
- Law of
Superstition:
- It's bad
luck to be superstititious.
- Survival
Formula for Public Office:
- Exploit
the inevitable (which means, take
credit for anything good which
happens whether you had anything
to do with it or not).
- Don't
disturb the perimeter (meaning
don't stir up a mess unless you
can be sure of the result).
- Stay
in with the Outs (the Ins will
make so many mistakes, you can't
afford to alienate the Outs).
- Don't
permit yourself to get between a
dog and a lamppost.
- Sutton's
Law:
- Go where
the money is.
- Swipple's
Rule of Order:
- He who
shouts loudest has the floor.
- Taxi
Principle:
- Find out
the cost before you get in.
- Terman's
Law:
- There is
no direct relationship between the
quality of an educational program and its
cost.
- Terman's
Law of Innovation:
- If you
want a track team to win the high jump
you find one person who can jump seven
feet, not seven people who can jump one
foot.
- Fourth Law
of Thermodynamics:
- If the
probability of success is not almost one,
then it is damn near zero.
- Thinking
Man's Tautology:
- If you
think you're wrong, you're wrong.
- Corollary:
If you think you're wrong, you're right.
- Thoreau's
Law:
- If you see
a man approaching with the obvious intent
of doing you good, run for your life.
- Thoreau's
Rule:
- Any fool
can make a rule, and every fool will mind
it.
- Thurber's
Conclusion:
- There is
no safety in numbers, or in anything
else.
- Thwartz's
Theorem of Low Profile:
- Negative
expectation thwarts realization, and
self-congratulation guarantees disaster.
(Or, simply put: If you think of it, it
won't happen quite that way.)
- Tipper's
Law:
- Those who
expect the biggest tips provide the worst
service.
- Titanic
Coincidence:
- Most
accidents in well-designed systems
involve two or more events of low
probability occurring in the worst
possible combination.
- Torquemada's
Law:
- When you
are sure you're right, you have a moral
duty to impose your will upon anyone who
disagrees with you.
- Transcription
Square Law:
- The number
of errors made is equal to the sum of the
squares employed.
- Travel
Axiom:
- He travels
fastest who travels alone . . . but he
hasn't anything to do when he gets there.
- First Law
of Travel:
- No matter
how many rooms there are in the motel,
the fellow who starts up his car at five
o'clock in the morning is always parked
under your window.
- Trischmann's
Paradox (Axiom of the Pipe):
- A pipe
gives a wise man time to think and a fool
something to stick in his mouth.
- Law of
Triviality:
- The time
spent on any item of the agenda will be
in inverse proportion to the sum
involved.
- Troutman's
Laws of Computer Programming (and see
Peck's Programming Postulates)
- Any
running program is obsolete.
- Any
planned program costs more and
takes longer.
- Any
useful program will have to be
changed.
- Any
useless program will have to be
documented.
- The
size of a program expands to fill
all available memory.
- The
value of a program is inversely
proportional to the weight of its
output.
- The
complexity of a program grows
until it exceeds the capability
of its maintainers.
- Any
system that relies on computer
reliability is unreliable.
- Any
system that relies on human
reliability is unreliable.
- Make
it possible for programmers to
write programs in English, and
you will find that programmers
cannot write in English.
- Profanity
is the one language all
programmers know best.
- Truman's
Law:
- If you
cannot convince them, confuse them.
- Tuccille's
First Law of Reality:
- Industry
always moves in to fill an economic
vacuum.
- Turnauckas's
Observation:
- To err is
human; to really foul things up takes a
computer.
- Turner's
Law:
- Nearly all
prophecies made in public are wrong.
- Twain's
Rule:
- Only
kings, editors, and people with tapeworm
have the right to use the editorial
"we".
- Tylk's
Law:
- Assumption
is the mother of all foul-ups.
- Ubell's
Law of Press Luncheons:
- At any
public relations luncheon, the quality of
the food is inversely related to the
quality of the information.
- Uhlmann's
Razor:
- When
stupidity is a sufficient explanation,
there is no need to have recourse to any
other.
- Corollary
(Law of Historical Causation): "It
seemed like the thing to do at the
time."
- The
Ultimate Law:
- All
general statements are false.
- The
Ultimate Principle:
- By
definition, when you are investigating
the unknown, you do not know what you
will find.
- Umbrella
Law:
- You will
need three umbrellas: one to leave at the
office, one to leave at home, and one to
leave on the train.
- The
Unapplicable Law:
- Washing
your car to make it rain doesn't work.
- Universal
Field Theory of Perversity (Mule's Law):
- The
probability of an event's occurring
varies directly with the perversity of
the inanimate object involved and
inversely with the product of its
desirability and the effort expended to
produce it.
- Unnamed
Law:
- If it
happens, it must be possible.
- The
Unspeakable Law:
- As soon as
you mention something, if it's good, it
goes away; if it's bad, it happens.
- Vail's
Axiom:
- In any
human enterprise, work seeks the lowest
hierarchical level.
- Vance's
Rule of 2 1/2:
- Any
military project will take twice as long
as planned, cost twice as much, and
produce only half of what is wanted.
- Lucy Van
Pelt's Observation:
- There must
be one day above all others in each life
that is the happiest.
- Corollary:
What if you've already had it?
- Vique's
Law:
- A man
without religion is like a fish without a
bicycle.
- Von
Braun's Law of Gravity:
- We can
lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork
is overwhelming.
- Vonnegut's
Corollary:
- Beauty may
be only skin deep, but ugliness goes
right to the core.
- Waddell's
Law of Equipment Failure:
- A
component's degree of reliability is
directly proportional to its ease of
accessibility (i.e., the harder it is to
get to, the more often it breaks down).
- Waffle's
Law:
- A
professor's enthusiasm for teaching the
introductory course varies inversely with
the likelihood of his having to do it.
- Wain's
Conclusion:
- The only
people making money these days are the
ones who sell computer paper.
- Waldo's
Observation:
- One man's
red tape is another man's system.
- Walinsky's
Law:
- The
intelligence of any discussion diminishes
with the square of the number of
participants.
- Walinsky's
First Law of Political Campaigns:
- If there
are twelve clowns in a ring, you can jump
in the middle and start reciting
Shakespeare, but to the audience, you'll
just be the thirteenth clown.
- Walker's
Law:
- Associate
with well-mannered persons and your
manners will improve. Run with decent
folk and your own decent instincts will
be strengthened. Keep the company of bums
and you will become a bum. Hang around
with rich people and you will end by
picking up the check and dying broke.
- Wallace's
Observation:
- Everything
is in a state of utter dishevelment.
- Walters's
Law of Management:
- If you're
already in a hole, there's no use to
continue digging.
- Washington's
Law:
- Space
expands to house the people to perform
the work that Congress creates.
- Watson's
Law:
- The
reliability of machinery is inversely
proportional to the number and
significance of any persons watching it.
- Rule of
the Way Out:
- Always
leave room to add an explanation if it
doesn't work out.
- Weaver's
Law:
- When
several reporters share a cab on an
assignment, the reporter in the front
seat pays for all.
- Corollary
(O'Doyle): No matter how many reporters
share a cab, and no matter who pays, each
puts the full fare on his own expense
account.
- Corollary
(Germond): When a group of newsmen go out
to dinner together, the bill is to be
divided evenly among them, regardless of
what each one eats and drinks.
- Weber-Fechner
Law:
- The least
change in stimulus necessary to produce a
perceptible change in response is
proportional to the stimulus already
existing.
- Weidner's
Queries:
- The
tide comes in and the tide goes
out, and what have you got?
- They
say an elephant never forgets,
but what's he got to remember?
- Weiler's
Law:
- Nothing is
impossible for the man who doesn't have
to do it himself.
- Weinberg's
Law:
- If
builders built buildings the way
programmers wrote programs, then the
first woodpecker that came along would
destroy civilization.
- Corollary:
An expert is a person who avoids the
small errors while sweeping on to the
grand fallacy.
- Weisman's
Law of Examinations:
- If you're
confident after you've just finished an
exam, it's because you don't know enough
to know better.
- Wells's
Law:
- A parade
should have bands OR horses, not both.
- Westheimer's
Rule:
- To
estimate the time it takes to do a task:
estimate the time you think it should
take, multiply by 2, and change the unit
of measure to the next highest unit. Thus
we allocate 2 days for a one hour task.
- Whispered
Rule:
- People
will believe anything if you whisper it.
- White Flag
Principle:
- A military
disaster may produce a better postwar
situation than victory.
- White's
Chappaquiddick Theorem:
- The sooner
and in more detail you announce bad news,
the better.
- White's
Observations of Committee Operation:
- People
very rarely think in groups; they
talk together, they exchange
information, they adjudicate,
they make compromises. But they
do not think; they do not create.
- A
really new idea affronts current
agreement.
- A
meeting cannot be productive
unless certain premises are so
shared that they do not need to
be discussed, and the argument
can be confined to areas of
disagreement. But while this kind
of consensus makes a group more
effective in its legitimate
functions, it does not make the
group a creative vehicle -- it
would not be a new idea if it
didn't -- and the group, impelled
as it is to agree, is
instinctively hostile to that
which is divisive.
- White's
Statement:
- Don't lose
heart . . .
- Owen's
Comment on White's Statement: . . . they
might want to cut it out . . .
- Byrd's
Addition to Owen's Comment on White's
Statement: . . . and they want to avoid a
lengthy search.
- Whole
Picture Principle:
- Research
scientists are so wrapped up in their own
narrow endeavors that they cannot
possibly see the whole picture of
anything, including their own research.
- Corollary:
The Director of Research should know as
little as possible about the specific
subject of research he is administering.
- Wicker's
Law:
- Government
expands to absorb revenue, and then some.
- Wilcox's
Law:
- A pat on
the back is only a few centimeters from a
kick in the pants.
- Williams
and Holland's Law:
- If enough
data is collected, anything may be proven
by statistical methods.
- Will's
Rule of Informed Citizenship:
- If you
want to understand your government, don't
begin by reading the Constitution. (It
conveys precious little of the flavor of
today's statecraft.) Instead read
selected portions of the Washington
telephone directory containing listings
for all the organizations with titles
beginning with the word
"National".
- Flip
Wilson's Law:
- You can't
expect to hit the jackpot if you don't
put a few nickles in the machine.
- Wilson's
Law of Demographics:
- The public
is not made up of people who get their
names in the newspapers.
- Wingo's
Axiom:
- All
Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning
the simple art of doing without thinking.
- First Law
of Wing-Walking:
- Never
leave hold of what you've got until
you've got hold of something else.
- Witten's
Law:
- Whenever
you cut your fingernails, you will find a
need for them an hour later.
- Wober's
SNIDE Rule (Satisfied Needs Incite Demand
Excesses):
- Ideal
goals grow faster than the means of
attaining new goals allow.
- Wolf's Law
(An Optimistic View of a Pessimistic
World):
- It isn't
that things will necessarily go wrong
(Murphy's Law), but rather that they will
take so much more time and effort than
you think if they are not to go wrong.
- Wolf's Law
of Decision-Making:
- Major
actions are rarely decided by more than
four people. If you think a larger
meeting you're attending is really
"hammering out" a decision,
you're probably wrong. Either the
decision was agreed to by a smaller group
before the meeting began, or the outcome
of the larger meeting will be modified
later when three or four people get
together.
- Wolf's Law
of History Lessons:
- Those who
don't study the past will repeat its
errors. Those who do study it will find
OTHER ways to err.
- Wolf's Law
of Management:
- The tasks
to do immediately are the minor ones;
otherwise, you'll forget them. The major
ones are often better to defer. They
usually need more time for reflection.
Besides, if you forget them, they'll
remind you.
- Wolf's Law
of Meetings:
- The only
important result of a meeting is
agreement about next steps.
- Wolf's Law
of Planning:
- A good
place to start from is where you are.
- Wolf's Law
of Tactics:
- If you
can't beat them, have them join you.
- Woltman's
Law:
- Never
program and drink beer at the same time.
- Woman's
Equation:
- Whatever
women do, they must do twice as well as
men to be thought half as good. Luckily,
this is not difficult.
- Wood's
Law:
- The more
unworkable the urban plan, the greater
the probability of implementation.
- Woods's
Incomplete Maxims:
- All's
well that ends.
- A
penny saved is a penny.
- Don't
leave things unfinishe
- Woods's
Laws of Procrastination:
- Never
put off till tomorrow what you
can do the day after tomorrow.
- Procrastinate
today! (Tomorrow may be too
late.)
- NOW
is the time to do things later!
- If
at first you don't succeed, why
try again?
- Woodward's
Law:
- A theory
is better than an explanation.
- Worker's
Dilemma Law (Management's Put-Down Law):
- No
matter how much you do, you'll
never do enough.
- What
you don't do is always more
important than what you do do.
- Wynne's
Law:
- Negative
slack tends to increase.
- Wyszkowski's
Theorem:
- Regardless
of the units used by either the supplier
or the customer, the manufacturer shall
use his own arbitrary units convertible
to those of either the supplier or the
customer only by means of weird and
unnatural conversion factors.
- Wyszowski's
First Law:
- No
experiment is reproducible.
- Wyszkowski's
Second Law:
- Anything
can be made to work if you fiddle with it
long enough.
- Yapp's
Basic Fact:
- If a thing
cannot be fitted into something smaller
than itself, some dope will do it.
- Yolen's
Guide for Self-Praise:
- Proclaim
yourself "World Champ" of
something -- tiddly-winks, rope- jumping,
whatever -- send this notice to
newspapers, radio, TV, and wait for
challengers to confront you. Avoid
challenges as long as possible, but
continue to send news of your
achievements to all media. Also, develop
a newsletter and letterhead for
communications.
- Young's
Handy Guide to the Modern Sciences:
- If it is
green or it wiggles -- it is Biology.
- If it
stinks -- it is Chemistry.
- If it
doesn't work -- it is Physics.
- Young's
Law:
- All great
discoveries are made by mistake.
- Corollary:
The greater the funding, the longer it
takes to make the mistake.
- Zellar's
Law:
- Every
newspaper, no matter how tight the news
hole, has room for a story on another
newspaper increasing its newsstand price.
- Zimmerman's
Law:
- Regardless
of whether a mission expands or
contracts, administrative overhead
continues to grow at a steady rate.
- Zimmerman's
Law of Complaints:
- Nobody
notices when things go right.
- Zusmann's
Rule:
- A
successful symposium depends on the ratio
of meeting to eating.
- Zymurgy's
First Law of Evolving System Dynamics:
- Once you
open a can of worms, the only way to
recan them is to use a larger can. (Old
worms never die, they just worm their way
into larger cans.)
- Zymurgy's
Seventh Exception to Murphy's Laws:
- When it
rains, it pours.
- Zymurgy's
Law of Volunteer Labour:
- People are
always available for work in the past
tense.
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