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1993-07-24
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ASSORTED LAWS AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MURPHY'S LAWS
-------------
1) If anything can go wrong, it will.
2) If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, then the
one that will cause the most damage will be the first one to go
wrong.
3) If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
4) If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something
can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared
for, will promptly develop.
5) Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
6) If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked
something.
7) Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
8) Mother nature is a bitch.
O'TOOLE'S COMMENTARY ON MURPHY'S LAWS
-------------------------------------
Murphy was an optimist.
FORSYTH'S SECOND COROLLARY TO MURPHY'S LAWS
-------------------------------------------
Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the roof caves
in.
WEILVER'S LAW
-------------
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
THE LAWS OF COMPUTER PORGRAMMING
--------------------------------
1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
2) Any given program costs more and takes longer each time it is run.
3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
5) Any given program will expand to fill all the available memory.
6) The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of
its output.
7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the
programmer who must maintain it.
PIERCE'S LAW
------------
In any computer system, the machine will always misinterpret,
misconstrue, misprint, or not evaluate any maths or subroutines or fail
to print any output on at least the first run through.
COROLLARY TO PIERCE'S LAW
-------------------------
When a compiler accepts a program without error on the first run, the
program will not yield the desired output.
ADDITION TO MURPHY'S LAWS
-------------------------
In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going
right...something is wrong.
OSBORN'S LAW
------------
Variables won't; constants aren't.
LUBARSKY'S LAW OF CYBERNETIC ENTOMOLOGY
---------------------------------------
There's always one more bug.
TROUTMAN'S POSTULATE
--------------------
1) Profanity is the one language understood by all programmers.
2) Not until a program has been in production for six months will the
most harmful error be discovered.
3) Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in impropor
order will be.
4) Interchangeable tapes won't.
5) 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.
6) If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems
will malfunction.
WEINBERG'S SECOND LAW
---------------------
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
GUMPERSON'S LAW
---------------
The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its
desirability.
SATTINGER'S LAW
---------------
It works better if you plug it in.
JENKINSON'S LAW
---------------
It won't work.
HORNER'S FIVE THIMB POSTULATE
-----------------------------
Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
CHEOP'S LAW
-----------
Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
RULE OF ACCURACY
----------------
When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you
know the answer.
PUDDER'S LAWS
-------------
1) Anything that begins well ends badly.
2) Anything the begins badly ends worse.
WESTHEIMER'S RULE
-----------------
To estimate the time it takes to do a task: estimate the time you think
it should take, multiply by two and change the unit of measure to the
next heighest unit. Thus, we allocate two days for a one hour task.
STOCKMAYER'S THEOREM
--------------------
If it looks easy, it's tough. If it looks tough, it's damn near
impossible.
BROOKE'S LAW
------------
Adding manpower to late software makes it later.
FINAGLE'S FOURTH LAW
--------------------
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it will only make it
worse.
FEATHERKILE'S RULE
------------------
Whatever you did, that's what you planned.
FLAP'S LAW
----------
Any inanimate object, regardless of its position, configuration, or
purpose, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected
manner for reasons that are either entirely obscure or else completely
mysterious.
HAYLETT'S LAWS OF COMPUTING
===========================
1) A disk will corrupt if one or more of the following
circumstances are met:
i) Some important information is stored on the above-mentioned
disk.
ii) Data on the disk is required the following day.
iii) The information on the disk can lead to personal gain.
2) The decrease of the disk space is NOT inversely proportional to
the increase of information placed therein.
3) Unless a disk is kept in a foam-filled air bag, the metal cover
is highly likely to snap off and therefore present no protection
to the magnetic diskette inside.
4) Only when you pull back the metal protector of a disk will there
be any sudden gusts or breezes (of any velocity) which will result
in a large mass of dust resting upon the most important track of
your unprotected diskette.
5) When a file corrupts, it is ALWAYS and ONLY the one you next wanted
to access/read/write to etc.
6) When selecting a disk-modifying option from any disk editor program,
the computer can change, at it's will, the arrangement of options in
the menu, resulting in every option reading "ERASE DISK".
7) The write protect tab, although alleged otherwise, will provide
NO PROTECTION WHATSOEVER to any virii, corruptii, or destructive
data UNLESS the data was specifically meant to be there in the first
place.
8) A computer will only crash out when one or more of the following
circumstances are met:
i) The user was just about to save any memory-held data.
ii) There is some important information in memory.
iii) Damage can be caused to the computer itself.
iv) Damage can be caused to any external peripherals (ie. Keyboard,
Modem, Printer, Moniter, etc.)
v) Damage can be caused to the user him/herself.
9) A computer game will only be compatable with any computer as long as
you have had to sell/swap/give extensive repair to, or otherwise
invalidate the warranty of the computer prior to playing the game.
10) A computer can understant ANY language you attempt to interface
with it as long as it is not the one you are using at the present
time.
11) Joysticks (especially micro-switches) are specifically designed to
snap withing the first month of use UNLESS the computer predicts
that the user/gamesplayer will achieve a hiscore/new level/
important part of a game etc. after the maximum use time, in which
case the joystick is THEN likely to snap.
12) During most games (especially shoot 'em ups) the collision
detection zone around the player's ship will expand to a multiple
of between 1.5 and 3.25 resulting in a larger hit-area for
attacking enemies.
13) Inside two and a half minutes of gamesplaying, the collision
detection zone of the enemies ships will decrease by the multiple
directly proportional to that of the player's ship's zone area
increase.
14) A virus killer either only hides a virus, or contracts the virus
into memory, ready to be spread among other clean disks.
15) A new game/demo will only work when you are about to format the
disk.
16) The cheat codes for games are subject to change at any time due
to the preference of the computer, and the user has no right
whatsoever to the acknowledgement of the above-mentioned alteration
(unless rule 15 is about to be enacted).
17) The programmer of a game has no absolute control over the game
itself, but only gives the computer a rough idea of the game for
it to base it's own rules around.
18) Computers CAN lie.
19) The dirt around the mouse-ball is not contracted through the mouse
base, but through the cartridge port of the computer, which is then
passed through the circuitry and down the mouse wire. This can also
cause damage to the cartridge port and to the circuit boards.
20) If the environment around the computer is not warm, colourful, and
otherwise pleasing to the eye, then the computer can, at it's will,
enact any or all of the above.