ARM Club 1/ARM_CLUB_CD.iso/contents/sillies/silly8/U/UniLaws

Text File | 1994-03-04 | 10.5 KB | 360 lines

                    The laws of the universe.
                    -------------------------

O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law:
     "Murphy was an optimist."

Boling's postulate:
     If you're feeling good, don't worry.  You'll get over it.

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 wrong 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.

Finagle's first Law:
     If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.

Finagle's second Law:
     No matter what the anticipated result, 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:
     1.  Nobody whom you ask for help will see it.
     2.  The first person who stops by, whose advice you  really
         don't want to hear, will see it immediately.

Finagle's fourth Law:
     Once  a job is fouled up, anything done to improve  it  only
     makes it worse.

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.

Simon's Law:
     Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.

Ginsberg's Theorem:
     1.  You can't win.
     2.  You can't break even.
     3.  You can't even quit the game.

Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg'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:

     1.  Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
     2.  Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break
         even.
     3.  Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can  quit
         the game.

Ehrman's Commentary:
     1.  Things will get worse before they get better.
     2.  Who said things would get better?

Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations:
     Negative expectations yield negative results.
     Positive expectations yield negative results.

Howe's Law:
     Everyone has a scheme that will not work.

Sturgeon's Law:
     90% of everything is crud.

Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability:
     Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the
     probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting
     some useful work done.

Brook's Law:
     Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later

Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom:
     Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so
     vividly manifests their lack of progress.

Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology:
     There's always one more bug.

Shaw's Principle:
     Build  a  system that even a fool can use, and only  a  fool
     will want to use it.

Law of the Perversity of Nature:
     You  cannot successfully determine beforehand which side  of
     the bread to butter.

Law of Selective Gravity:
     An object will fall so as to do the most damage.

Jenning's Corollary:
     The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side  down
     is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

Paul's Law:
     You can't fall off the floor.

Johnson's First Law:
     When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at  the
     most inconvenient possible time.

Watson's Law:
     The  reliability of machinery is inversely  proportional  to
     the number and significance of any persons watching it.

Sattinger's Law:
     It works better if you plug it in.

Lowery's Law:
     If  it jams -- force it.  If it breaks, it needed  replacing
     anyway.

Fudd's First Law of Opposition:
     Push something hard enough and it will fall over.

Cahn's Axiom:
     When all else fails, read the instructions.

Jenkinson's Law:
     It won't work.

Murphy's Law of Research:
     Enough research will tend to support your theory.

Maier's Law:
     If  the  facts do not conform to the theory,  they  must  be
     disposed of.

Corollaries:
     1.  The bigger the theory, the better.
     2.  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.

Williams and Holland's Law:
     If  enough  data  is collected, anything may  be  proven  by
     statistical methods.

Harvard Law:
     Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure,
     temperature,  volume,  humidity, and  other  variables,  the
     organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Hoare's Law of Large Problems:
     Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling  to
     get out.

Brooke's Law:
     Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool
     discovers  something  which either abolishes the  system  or
     expands it beyond recognition.

Meskimen's Law:
     There's  never time to do it right, but there's always  time
     to do it over.

Heller's Law:
     The first myth of management is that it exists.

Johnson's Corollary:
     Nobody  really  knows what is going on anywhere  within  the
     organization.

Peter's Law of Substitution:
     Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look  after
     themselves.

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 in important decision, the  good
     bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.

Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor:
     People are always available for work in the past tense.

Iron Law of Distribution:
     Them that has, gets.

H. L. Mencken's Law:
     Those who can -- do.
     Those who can't -- teach.

Martin's Extension:
     Those who cannot teach -- administrate.

Jone's Law:
     The  man  who  smiles when things go wrong  has  thought  of
     someone to blame it on.

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.

First Law of Bicycling:
     No  matter which way you ride, it's uphill and  against  the
     wind.

Boob's Law:
     You always find something in the last place you look.

Osborn's Law:
     Variables won't; constants aren't.

Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan'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 gotten.

Miksch's Law:
     If a string has one end, then it has another end.

Law of Communications:
     The    inevitable   result   of   improved   and    enlarged
     communications between different levels in a hierarchy is  a
     vastly increased area of misunderstanding.

Harris's Lament:
     All the good ones are taken.

Putt's Law:
     Technology is dominated by two types of people:
     Those who understand what they do not manage.
     Those who manage what they do not understand.

First Law of Procrastination:
     Procrastination   shortens   the   job   and   places    the
     responsibility  for its termination on someone  else  (i.e.,
     the authority who imposed the deadline).

Fifth Law of Procrastination:
     Procrastination  avoids boredom; one never has  the  feeling
     that there is nothing important to do.

Swipple's Rule of Order:
     He who shouts the loudest has the floor.

Wiker's Law:
     Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.

Gray's Law of Programming:
     'n+1'  trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in  the
     same time as 'n' tasks.

Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law:
     'n+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as 'n' trivial tasks.

Weinberg's First Law:
     Progress is made on alternate Fridays.

Weinberg's Second Law:
     If  builders  built  buildings  the  way  programmers  wrote
     programs,  then the first woodpecker that came  along  would
     destroy civilization.

Paul's Law:
     In  America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how  much
     you save.

Malek's Law:
     Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.

Weinberg's Principle:
     An  expert  is a person who avoids the  small  errors  while
     sweeping on to the grand fallacy.

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

Weiler's Law:
     Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do  it
     himself.

First Law of Socio-Genetics:
     Celibacy is not hereditary.

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, (3) a better looking and richer male friend.

Hartley's Second Law:
     Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.

Pardo's First Postulate:
     Anything  good  in  life  is  either  illegal,  immoral,  or
     fattening.

Arnold's Addendum:
     Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer  in
     rats.

Parker's Law:
     Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.

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.

Katz' Law:
     Man   and  nations  will  act  rationally  when  all   other
     possibilities have been exhausted.

Mr. Cole's Axiom:
     The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the
     population is growing.

Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy:
     Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have
     another drink.

The Kennedy Constant:
     Don't get mad -- get even.

Canada Bill Jone's Motto:
     It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.

Supplement:
     A .44 magnum beats four aces.

Jone's Motto:
     Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.

The Fifth Rule:
     You have taken yourself too seriously.

Cole's Law:
     Thinly sliced cabbage.

Hartley's First Law:
     You  can  lead a horse to water, but if you can get  him  to
     float on his back, you've got something.

                   Uploaded from the Internet.

 Hope this brightens someone's day......   de Pete G6WBJ@GB7SDN