Some Undiscovered Laws

ACTION'S LAW

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

ALBRECHT'S LAW

Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well-being.

ALLEN'S (or CANN'S) AXIOM

When all else fails, read the instructions.

BOREN'S FIRST LAW

When in doubt, mumble.

BOVE'S THEOREM

The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches.

BOWIE'S THEOREM

If an experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment.

BROOK'S LAW

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

CANADA BILL JONES' MOTTO

It's morally wrong to allow naive end users to keep their money.

CANN'S (or ALLEN'S) AXIOM

When all else fails, read the instructions.

CARLSON'S CONSOLATION

Nothing is ever a complete failure; it can always serve as a bad example.

CLARKE'S THIRD LAW

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

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 reporting on the nothing you are doing.

CONWAY'S LAW

In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired.

LAW OF CONTINUITY

Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way.

CORRESPONDENCE COROLLARY

An experiment may be considered a success if no more than half of your data must be discarded to obtain correspondence with your theory.

CROPP'S LAW

The amount of work done varies inversely with the amount of time spent in the office.

CUTLER WEBSTER'S LAW

There are two sides to every argument, unless a person is personally involved, in which case there is only one.

DEADLINE-DAN'S DEMO DEMONSTRATION

The higher the "higher-ups" are who've come to see your demo, the lower your chances are of giving a successful one.

DEMIAN'S OBSERVATION

There is always one item on the screen menu that is mislabeled and should read ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.

DENNISTON'S LAW

Virtue is its own punishment.

THE DILBERT PRINCIPLE

Incompetent Employees are promoted to the position where they can do the least damage - Management.
- Scott Adams

DOW'S LAW

In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the greater the confusion.

DR. CALIGARI'S COME-BACK

A bad sector disk error occurs only after you've done several hours of work without performing a backup.

ESTRIDGE'S LAW

No matter how large and standardized the marketplace is, IBM can redefine it.

FINAGLE'S LAWS

1.  Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.

2.  No matter what results are expected, someone is always willing to fake it.

3.  No matter what the result, someone is always eager to misinterpret it.

4.  No matter what occurs, someone believes it happened according to his pet theory.

FINAGLE'S RULES

1.  To study an application best, understand it thoroughly before you start.

2.  Always keep a record of data. It indicates you've been working.

3.  Always draw your curves, then plot the reading.

4.  In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.

5.  Program results should always be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way.

6.  Do not believe in miracles. Rely on them.

FINSTER'S LAW

A closed mouth gathers no feet.

FIRST RULE OF HISTORY

History doesn't repeat itself - historians merely repeat each other.

FRANKLIN'S RULE

Blessed is the end user who expects nothing, for he/she will not be disappointed.

GILB'S LAWS OF UNRELIABILITY

1.  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.

2.  Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.

3.  Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.

4.  Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.

GINSBERG'S THEOREM

1.  You can't win.

2.  You can't break even.

3.  You can't even quit the game.

GLYME'S FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.

THE GOLDEN RULE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

GOLD'S LAW

If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

GORDON'S FIRST LAW

If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well.

GOVERNMENT'S LAW

There is an exception to all laws.

GREEN'S LAW OF DEBATE

Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.

GUMMIDGES'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 a given event occurring is inversely proportional to its desirability.

HANLON'S RAZOR

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

HARP'S COROLLARY TO ESTRIDGE'S LAW

Your "IBM PC-compatible" computer grows more incompatible with every passing moment.

HARRISON'S POSTULATE

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

HELLER'S LAW

The first myth of management is that it exists.

HIGHT'S LAW OF INVERSE GRAVITATION

Wealth flows uphill and pools at the top.

HINDS' LAW OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING

1.  Any given program, when running, is obsolete.

2.  If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.

3.  If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.

4.  Any given program will expand to fill all available memory.

5.  The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.

6.  Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.

7.  Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers cannot write in English.

HOARE'S LAW OF LARGE PROGRAMS

Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.
HUBBARD'S LAW

Don't take life too seriously; you won't get out of it alive.

JENKINSON'S LAW

It won't work.

JOHNSON-LAIRD'S LAW

Toothaches tend to start on Saturday night.

LARKINSON'S LAW

All laws are basically false.

THE LAST ONE'S LAW OF PROGRAM GENERATORS

A program generator creates programs that are more "buggy" than the program generator.

LIEBERMAN'S LAW

Everybody lies; but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.

HENRY LUCE'S LAW

No good deed goes unpunished

LYNCH'S LAW

When the going gets tough, everyone leaves.

MASON'S FIRST LAW OF SYNERGISM

The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.

MAY'S LAW

The quality of correlation is inverely proportional to the density of control. (The fewer the data points, the smoother the curves.)

MENCKEN'S LAW

There is always an easy answer to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.

MESKIMEN'S LAW

There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.

MUIR'S LAW

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

MURPHY'S LAWS

1.  If anything can go wrong, it will (and at the worst possible moment).

2.  Nothing is as easy as it looks.

3.  Everything takes longer than you think it will.

4.  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.

MURPHY'S LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

Things get worse under pressure.

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 THEOREM

The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.

NOLAN'S PLACEBO

An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.

OLIVER'S LAW OF LOCATION

No matter where you are, there you are.

O'REILLY'S LAW OF THE KITCHEN

Cleanliness is next to impossible.

OSBORN'S LAW

Variables won't, constants aren't

PARKINSON'S LAW

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

PARKINSON'S LAW (MODIFIED)

The components you have will expand to fill the available space.

PEER'S LAW

The solution to a problem changes the problem.

PETER'S PRINCIPLE

In every hierarchy, each employee tends to rise to the level of his incompetence.

THE LAW OF THE PERVERSITY OF NATURE

You cannot determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.

PUDDER'S LAW

Anything that begins well will end badly. (Note: The converse of Pudder's law is not true.)

Inside every complex and unworkable program is a useful routine struggling to be free.

ROBERT E. LEE'S TRUCE

Judgement comes from experience; experience comes from poor judgement.

RUDIN'S LAW

In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, people tend to choose the worst possible course.

RULE OF ACCURACY

When working toward the solution of a problem it always helps you to know the answer.

RYAN'S LAW

Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish yourself as an expert.

SATTINGER'S LAW

It works better if you plug it in.

SAUSAGE PRINCIPLE

People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.

SHAW'S PRINCIPLE

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

SNAFU EQUATIONS

1.  Given any problem containing N equations, there will be N+1 unknowns.

2.  An object or bit of information most needed will be least available.

3.  Any device requiring service or adjustment will be least accessible.

4.  Interchangeable devices won't.

5.  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.

6.  Badness comes in waves.

STEWART'S LAW OF RETROACTION

It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

THOREAU'S THEORIES OF ADAPTATION

1.  After months of training and you finally understanding all of a program's commands, a revised version of the program arrives with an all-new command structure.

2.  After designing a useful routine that gets around a familiar "bug" in the system, the system is revised, the "bug" taken away, and you're left with a useless routine.

3.  Efforts in improving a program's "user friendliness" invariable lead to work in improving user's "computer literacy".

4.  That's not a "bug", that's a feature!

THYME'S LAW

Everything goes wrong at once.

THE LAW OF THE TOO SOLID GOOF

In any collection of data, the figures that are obviously correct beyond all need of checking contain the errors.

Corollary 1: No one you ask for help will see the error either.
Corollary 2: Any nagging intruder, who stops by with unsought advice, will spot it immediately.

UNNAMED LAW

If it happens, it must be possible.

WEILER'S LAW

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do the work.

WEINBERG'S COROLLARY

An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.

WEINBERG'S LAW

If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

WHITEHEAD'S LAW

The obvious answer is always overlooked.

WILCOX'S LAW

A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants.

WOOD'S AXIOM

As soon as a still-to-be-finished computer task becomes a life-or-death situation, the power fails.

WOODWARD'S LAW

A theory is better than its explanation.

ZYMURGY'S FIRST LAW OF EVOLVING SYSTEM DYNAMICS

Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can.

More of Murphy's Laws

• Trust everybody ... then cut the cards.
• Two wrongs are only the beginning.
• If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
• To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.
• Exceptions prove the rule ... and wreck the budget.
• Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.
• Quality assurance doesn't.
• The tough part of a Data Processing Manager's job is that users don't really know what they want, but they know for certain what they don't want.
• Exceptions always outnumber rules.
• To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
• No one is listening until you make a mistake.
• He who hesitates is probably right.
• The ideal resume will turn up one day after the position is filled.
• If somthing is confidential, it will be left in the copier machine.
• One child is not enough, but two children are far too many.
• A clean tie attracts the soup of the day.
• The hardness of the butter is in direct proportion to the softness of the butter.
• The bag that breaks is the one with the eggs.
• When there are sufficient funds in the checking account, checks take two weeks to clear. When there are insufficient funds, checks clear overnight.
• The book you spent $20.95 for today will come out in paperback tomorrow.
• The more an item costs, the farther you have to send it for repairs.
• You never want the one you can afford.
• Never ask the barber if you need a haircut or a salesman if his is a good price.
• If it says "one size fits all," it doesn't fit anyone.
• You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
• The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required on it.
• Love letters, business contracts and money due you always arrive three weeks late, whereas junk mail arrives the day it was sent.
• When you drop change at a vending machine, the pennies will fall nearby, while all other coins will roll out of sight.
• The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.
• Experience is somthing you don't get until just after you need it.
• Life can be only understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
• Interchangable parts won't.
• No matter which way you go, it's uphill and against the wind.
• If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.
• Work is accomplished by those employees who have not reached their level of incompetence.
• Progress is made on alternative Fridays.
• No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
• The hidden flaw never remains hidden.
• As soon as the stewardess serves the coffee, the airline encounters turbulence.
• For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
• People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either of them being made.
• A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
• When reviewing your notes for a test, the most important ones will be illegible.
• A free agent is anything but.
• The least experienced fisherman always catches the biggest fish.
• Never do card tricks for the group you play poker with.
• The one item you want is never the one on sale.
• The telephone will ring when you are outside the door, fumbling for your keys.
• If only one price can be obtained for a quotation, the price will be unreasonable.

The First Law of Philosophy: For every philosopher, there exists an equal and opposite philosopher.
The Second Law of Philosophy: They're both wrong.

Don't LOOK at anything in a physics lab.
Don't TASTE anything in a chemistry lab.
Don't SMELL anything in a biology lab.
Don't TOUCH anything in a medical lab.
and, most importantly,
Don't LISTEN to anything in a philosophy department.

Collective Nouns

• A grid of electrical engineers
• A set of pure mathematicians
• A field of theoretical physicists
• An amalgamation of metallurgists
• A galaxy of cosmologists
• A cloud of theoretical meteorologists
• A shower of applied meteorologists
• An intrigue of council members
• A stack of librarians
• A complex of psychologists
• A whinge of Poms (by an Australian I'm afraid)
• A body of Pathologists?

Measurement Techniques

A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given 50 pounds to measure the height of a building.
The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building.
The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building.

The engineer puts forty pounds into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building.

Breakdown

Four engineers were travelling by car to a seminar, when unfortunately, the vehicle broke down.
The chemical engineer said "Obviously, some constituent of the fuel has caused this failure to occur."
The mechanical engineer replied "I disagree, I would surmise that an engine component has suffered a catastrophic structural failure."
The electrical engineer also had a theory. "I believe an electrical component has ceased to function, thereby causing an ignition malfunction."

The software engineer thought for some time. When at last he spoke he said "What would happen if we all got out and then got back in again?"

The Engineer's Valentine

I was alone and all was dark
Beneath me and above
My life was full of volts and amps
But not the spark of love

But now that you are here with me
My heart is overjoyed
You turn the square of my heart
Into a sinusoid
You load things from my memory
Onto my system's bus
My life was once assembly code
Now it's C++
I love the way you solder things
My circuts you can fix
The voltage across your diode is
much more then just point six
With your amps and resistors
You have built my integrator
I cannot survive without you
You are my function generator

You have charged my life, increased my gain
And made my maths discrete
And now I'll end my poem here Unnatural Laws

Have you ever received a phone call the minute you stepped outside your door? Has the bus you were waiting for ever appeared from behind a parked truck the instant you light up a cigarette? Certain astute individuals have noticed that such events are not the exception but, rather, the rule. Men like Murphy, Peter and Parkinson have made it their life work to ferret out the operating principles - the laws that govern the frustrating lives that we mortals live. Here is a small sampling of these laws.

Murphy's Law

If anything can go wrong, it will.

If anything can't go wrong, it will go wrong.

If anything can't go wrong on its own, someone will make it go wrong.

O'Tool's Commentary on Murphy's Law

Murphy was an optimist.

Murphy's Law for Engineers:

The more innocuous a design change appears, the further will its influence extend.

Any error that can creep in, will. It will be in the direction that will do most damage to the calculation.

A transister protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first.

Murphy's Law for Electricians:

Any wire cut to length will be too short.

The Unspeakable Law

As soon as you mention something ....

... if it's good, it goes away

... if it's bad, it happens.

Nonreciprocal Laws of Expectations

Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results.

Howe's Law

Every man has a scheme that will not work.

Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving Systems Dynamics

Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.

Etorre's Observation

The other line moves faster.

DeVrie's Dilemma:

If you hit two typewriter keys simultaneously, the one you don't want to hit the paper does.

Skinner's Constant (Flanagan's Finagling Factor)

That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have got.

Murphy's Law of Selective Gravity

An object will fall so as to do the most damage.

Hofstadter's Law:

Everything takes longer than you think it will, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

Corollary to Hofstadter's Law:

Everything takes longer than you think it will, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law

Jenning's Corollary to Murphy's Law of Selective Gravity

The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

Gordon's First Law

If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well.

Maier's Law

If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.

Hoare's Law of Large Problems

Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

Boren's First Law

When in doubt, mumble.

The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences

Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

Barth's Distinction

There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't

Segal's Law

A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.

The Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules

The first 90 % of the task takes 90 % of the time, and the last 10 % takes the other 90 %

Farber's Fourth Law

Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.

Cole's Law

Chopped cabbage.

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