|
|
 |
|
|
|
register |
bbs |
search |
rss |
faq |
about
|
|
|
meet up |
add to del.icio.us |
digg it
|
|
|
|
Funny Murphy's laws
* * * PLAGIARISMS OF SOMEBODYS THEORIES * * *
* * * * MURPHY WAS AN OPTOMIST * * * * *
A collection of laws that prove the "Murphy" never really lived.
1. If rats are experimented on, they will develop cancer.
2. With extremely few exceptions, nothing is worth the trouble.
3. It is bad luck to be superstitious.
4. No child throws up in the bathroom.
5. If there is an opinion, facts will be found to support it.
6. Rich folks get more strokes.
7. If A=B and B=C, then A=C except where prohibited by law.
8. Law of Window Cleaning: It's on the other side.
9. Anything that happens enough times to irritate you, will
happen at least once more.
10. Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad
check.
11. A quarter ounce of chocolate equals four pounds of fat.
12. There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is
attracted to light objects; and the light kind, which is
attracted to dark objects.
13. Law of Frisbee: The most powerful force in the world is
that of a disc straining to land under the middle of a car.
14. Whatever isn't forbidden is required; thus, if there is no
reason why something shouldn't exist, then it must exist.
15. Bodies in motion tend to remain in motion, bodies at rest
tend to remain in bed.
16. The probability of someone watching you is proportional to
the stupidity of your action.
17. Inflation is directly proportional to the cost of the
periodical that reports it.
18. The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional
to ..... to ...... to ........
19. Paper is always strongest at the perforations.
20. Any tool dropped while repairing an automobile will roll under
the car to the vehicles exact geographic center.
21. The elevator is NEVER going in the direction you want to go.
22. Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
23. While byrographic systems 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 rotary motion. One notices in
such cases an absence of the otherwise typical accretion of
byrophyta; we can therefore conclude that: A rolling stone
gathers no moss.
24. Always listen to the experts - they will tell you what can't
be done and why. Then do it.
25. If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science, it is
opinion.
26. Most "scientists" are bottle washers and button sorters.
27. An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.
28. The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its
credibility, and vice versa.
29. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
30. Natural laws have no pity.
31. Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get.
32. A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
33. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more so.
Corollary: At the source of every error blamed on a computer you
will find at least two human errors, including the error of
blaming it on the computer.
34. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
35. The first myth of management is that it exists.
36. Inside every large computer program, there is a small
program struggling to get out.
37. The organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a
septic tank - - the REALLY big chunks always rise to the top.
38. The Iron Law of Distribution: Them what has - gets.
39. In order to get a loan you must first prove you don't need it.
40. The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of
someone he can blame it on.
41. Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
42. Any given computer program, when running, is obsolete.
43. If a computer program is useful, it will have to be changed.
44. If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
45. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the
programmer who must maintain it.
46. An object will fall so as to do the most damage. (Also known
as the "Buttered Side Down Law")
47. You are not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on
48. Things get worse under pressure.
49. If it jams...force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing
anyway.
50. PRIME AXIOM: In any field of endeavor, anything that can
go wrong will.
50a. If the possibility exists of several things going wrong, the
one the will go wrong is the one that will do the most damage.
50b. Everything will go wrong at one time.
50b.1 That time is always when you least expect it.
50c. If nothing can go wrong - something will.
50d. Nothing is as easy as it looks.
50e. Everything takes longer than you think.
50f. Left to themselves, things always go from bad to worse.
50g. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
51. The universe is not indifferent to intelligence - it is
actively hostile to it.
52. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously
overlooked something.
53. If in any problem you find yourself doing an immense amount
of work, the answer can be obtained by simple inspection.
54. Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be
found to make it complex and wonderful.
55. If it doesn't fit, use a hammer.
56. If it still doesn't fit, use a bigger hammer.
57. In any given calculation, the fault will never be placed if
more than one person is involved.
58. Likewise - in any given discovery, the credit will never be
properly placed if more than one person is involved.
59. All warranty and guarantee clauses become invalid upon
payment of the final invoice.
60. In any given estimate, the cost of the equipment will exceed
estimated expendature by a factor of 3.
61. Dimensions will always be expressed in the least useable
terms. For example, velocity will be expressed in
furlongs/fortnight.
62. In any collection of data, the figures that are obviously
correct, beyond all need of checking, contain the errors.
63. Information necessitating a change in design will be
conveyed to the designer, after the plans are complete.
64. If a project requires n components, there will be n-1
components available.
65. Interchangeable parts won't.
66. Components that must not and can not be assembled improperly
will be.
67. The most delicate component will be dropped.
68. The construction and operation manual will be discarded
with the packing material. The garbage truck will have it
picked up five minutes before the mad dash to the rubbish can.
69. A component selected at random from a group having a 99%
reliability, will be a member of the 1% group.
70. After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will
be found on the bench.
71. Any wire cut to length, will be too short.
72. A self starting oscillator won't.
73. A fail safe circuit will destroy all others.
74. A transistor protected by a fast acting fuse will protect
the fuse by blowing first.
75. Laws of Trouble Shooting: After the 24th cabinet to chassis screw
has been removed to replace an under chassis fuse, it will be
observed that the line cord plug has become disengaged from the
A.C. receptacle.
75b. After the 24th cabinet to chassis screw has been replaced, the
driver tube will be found under the schematic on the bench.
75c. When all else fails, read the directions.
76. When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
77. Experiments must be reproducable, they should fail the same
way each time.
78. First draw your curves, then plot your data.
79. Experience is directly proportional to the equipment ruined.
80. A record of data is essential, it shows you were working.
81. To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before
you start.
82. To do a lab really well, have your report done well in advance.
83. If you can't get the answer in the usual manner, start at the
answer and derive the question.
83a. If that doesn't work, start at both ends and try to find a
common middle.
84. In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
85. Do not believe in miracles, - rely on them.
86. Team work is essential - it allows you to blame someone else.
87. In any collection of data, the figures that most closely
confirm the theory are wrong.
88. No one you ask for help will see the mistake either.
88a. Any nagging intruder who stops by with unsought advice will
see them immediately.
89. An experiment may be considered successful if no more than
half the data must be discarded to agree with the theory.
90. No experiment is ever a complete failure. It can serve as a
bad example.
91. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic.
92. The probability of a given event is inversly proportional to
its desirability.
93. If, of the eight hours you spend at work, seven hours and
fifty five minutes are spent working at your desk, and the rest
of the time you throw the bull with your cubicle-mate, the time
at which your supervisor will walk in and ask what you are doing
can be determined to within five minutes.
94. Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it
himself.
95. The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications
between different levels in a hierarchy is - a vastly increased
area of misunderstanding.
96. When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary
not to make a decision.
97. Internal consistancy is valued more highly than efficiency.
98. Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to
incompetence in their colleagues.
99. An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
100. Anything that begins well, ends badly.
101. There is a tendency for the person most powerful in an
organization to spend all his time serving on committees and
signing letters.
102. In any hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the
greater the confusion.
103. It works better if you plug it in.
104. No executive devotes effort to proving himself wrong.
105. First Law of Business: Cash in must exceed cash out.
106. Management capability is always less than the organization
actually needs.
107. If sophisticated calculations are needed to justify an
action, don't do it.
108. The easiest way to make money is to stop losing it.
109. 20% of the customers account for 80% of the turnover;
20% of the parts account for 80% of the cost and so forth.
(the 20/80 law)
110. 90% of everything is bullshit.
111. Once you open a can of worms, the only way you can recan them
is to use a larger can.
112. Variable won't - constants aren't.
113. Given any problem containing n equations, there will be
n=1 unknowns.
114. The object or bit of information most needed will be least
available.
115. The device requiring service or adjustment will be least
accessible.
116. In any human endeavor, once you have exhausted all the
possibilities and failed, there will be one solution, simple,
obvious, and highly visible to everyone else.
117. The chief cause of problems is solutions.
118. It is better to have a horrible ending than to have
horrors without end.
119. The usefullness of any meeting is in inverse proportion
to the attendance.
120. It is much harder to find a job than to keep one.
121. Auditors always reject any expense account with a bottom
line divisible by 5 or 10
122. If two wrongs don't make a right - - try three.
123. Never trust anyone who volunteers to assume authority.
124. Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.
125. Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
126. Expendatures rise to meet income.
127. The number of people in any working group tends to increase
regardless of the amount of work to be done.
128. The shortest distance between two points is under
construction.
129. No books are lost by loaning - except those you really
wanted to keep.
130. In every hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his
level of incompetence. Every post tends to be filled by an
employee incompetent to execute its duties.
131. No matter what result is anticipated, there is always
someone willing to fake it.
132. No matter what the result, there is always someone eager
to misinterpret it.
133. No matter what happens, there is always someone who believes
it happened according to his pet theory.
134. On a seasonally adjusted basis, there are only six months
in a year.
135. All scientific discoveries are first recorded on napkins
or tablecloths. Engineering advances are drawn inside matchbook
covers. Keep supplies of them handy at all times.
136. Whatever must be done, something else must be done first.
137. Do not worry about interruptions, they will be plentifully
supplied.
138. Adding manpower to a late project makes it later.
139. A Smith and Wesson beats four aces.
140. Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not be
disappointed.
141. Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of
pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables.
the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
142. The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent
of the time, the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
143. The solution to a problem changes the problem.
144. When working toward the solution of a problem, it always
helps to know the answer.
145. Badness comes in waves.
146. Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will
want to use it.
147. An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while
sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
148. Any safety factor set as a result of practical experience
will be exceeded.
149. If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote
programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy
civilization.
150. The desire for racial integration increases with the square
of the distance from the actual event.
|
|
|
To the best of our knowledge, the text on this page may be freely reproduced and distributed.
If you have any questions about this, please check out our Copyright Policy.
totse.com certificate signatures
|
|
|
About | Advertise | Bad Ideas | Community | Contact Us | Copyright Policy | Drugs | Ego | Erotica
FAQ | Fringe | Link to totse.com | Search | Society | Submissions | Technology
|
|
|
|
|
|
