Murphy 1

It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object
to realize that you are in a hurry.

Cole's Law:
Thinly sliced cabbage
Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.
Firestone's Law of Forecasting:
Chicken Little only has to be right once.
Manly's Maxim:
Logic is a systematic method of coming to
the wrong conclusion with confidence.
Grizzard's truism:
The trouble with most jobs is the job holder's
resemblance to being one of a sled dog team. No one
gets a change of scenery except the lead dog.
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.
MURPHY'S LAW:
If anything can go wrong, it will.
Murphy's First Corollary:
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
Murphy's Second Corollary:
It is impossible to make anything foolproof
because fools are so ingenious
Murphy's Constant:
Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value
Quantized Revision of Murphy's Law:
Everything goes wrong all at once.
O'Toole's Commentary:
Murphy was an optimist.
Scott's Second Law:
When an error has been detected and corrected,
it will be found to have been correct in the first place.

Finagle's First Law:
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Finagle's Second Law:
No matter what the experiment's result, there
will always be someone eager to:
(a) misinterpret it.
(b) fake it.
or
(c) believe it supports 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.
Finagle's Fourth Law:
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to
improve it only makes it worse.
All Finagle's laws may be bypassed by learning the simple
art of doing without thinking.
Gumperson's Law:
The probability of anything happening is in
inverse ratio to its desirability.
Rudin's Law:
In crises that force people to choose among
alternative courses of action, most people will
choose the worst one possible.
Ginsberg's Restatement of the Three Laws of Thermodynamics:
You can't win.
You can't break even.
You can't quit.
Ehrman's Commentary
Things will get worse before they will get better.
Who said things would get better?
Commoner's Second Law of Ecology:
Nothing ever goes away.
Howe's Law:
Everyone 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 bigger can.

Non-Reciprocal Law of Expectations:
Negative expectations yield negative results.
Positive expectations yield negative results.
Klipstein's Law:
Tolerances will accumulate unidirectionally toward
maximum difficulty of assembly.
Interchangeable parts won't.
You never find a lost article until you replace it.
Glatum's Law of Materialistic Acquisitiveness:
The perceived usefulness of an article is inversely proportional
to its actual usefulness once bought and paid for.
Lewis' Law:
No matter how long or hard you shop for an item, after you've
bought it, it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.
If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
You get the most of what you need the least.
The Airplane Law:
When the plane you are on is late, the plane you
want to transfer to is on time.
Etorre's Observation:
The other line moves faster.
O'Brien's Variation:
If you change lines, the one you just left will
start to move faster than the one you are now in.
The Queue Principal:
The longer you wait in line, the greater the
likelihood that you are in the wrong line.
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 I:
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.
H.B. Fyfe
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.
H.B. Fyfe
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 simpler to start all over.
Corollary I:
It is usually impractical to to worry beforehand
about interferences -- if you have none, someone
will make one for you.
H.B. Fyfe
LAWS OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING:
I. Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
II. Any given program costs more and takes longer.
III. If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
IV. If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
V. Any program will expand to fill available memory.
VI. The value of a program is proportional to the weight
of its output.
VII. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capabilities
of the programmer who must maintain it.
VIII. Any non-trivial program contains at least one bug.

IX. Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to
detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
X. Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
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.
Jennings' Corollary to the Law of Selective Gravity:
The chance of the bread falling with the butter side down
is directly proportional to the value of the carpet.
Wyszkowski's Second Law:
Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it long enough.
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.
Schmidt's Law:
If you mess with a thing long enough, it'll break.
Anthony's Law of Force
Don't force it - get a bigger hammer.
Cahn's Axiom:
When all else fails, read the instructions.
Gordon's First Law:
If a project is not worth doing at all,
it's not worth doing well.
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.
Peer's Law:
The solution to the problem changes the problem.
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something,
learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is
full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant
without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
- Bokonon
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will
remember you when he is in trouble again.
You can lead a man to slaughter,

but you can't make him think.
Don't get mad, get even.
Carson's Law:
It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick.
The Golden Rule:
He who has the gold, makes the rules.
Mark's mark:
Love is a matter of chemistry;
sex is a matter of physics.
Korman's conclusion:
The trouble with resisting temptation is it may
never come your way again.
Lennon's Law:
Life is what happens while you are making other plans.
Thomas la Mance
Maugham's Thought:
Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
Krueger's Observation:
A taxpayer is someone who does not have to take a civil
service exam in order to work for the government.
Benchley's Law of Distinction:
There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe
there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.
Harver's Law:
A drunken man's words are a sober man's thoughts.
Schmidt's Observation:
All things being equal, a fat person uses
more soap than a thin person.
Gibb's Law:
Infinity is one lawyer waiting for another.
Fools rush in where fools have been before.
Rule of Accuracy:
When working toward the solution of a problem, it always
helps if you know the answer.
Inside every small problem is a large problem struggling to get out.
Wyszowski's Law:
No experiment is reproducible.
Fett's Law:
Never replicate a successful experiment.
Brooke's Law:
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool
discovers something which either abolishes the system or
expands it beyond recognition.
The first Myth of Management:
It exists.
Spend sufficient time confirming the need and

the need will disappear.
Peter's Placebo:
An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labour:
People are always available for work in the past tense.
Wiker's Law:
Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.
Tom Wicker
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.
Clarke's Second Law:
The limits of the possible can only be defined by
going beyond them into the impossible.
Clarke's Third Law:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.
The important thing is never to stop questioning.

Albert Einstein
Segal's Law:
A man with a watch knows what time it is.
A man with two watches is never sure.
Weiler's Law:
Nothing is impossible for the man who does not have to do it himself.
Weinberg's Second Law:
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
Hartley's Second Law:
Never go to bed with anybody crazier than you are.
Beckhap's Law:
Beauty times brains equals a constant.
Katz's Law:
Men and women will act rationally when all other
possibilities have been exhausted.
Cole's Axiom:
The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant;
the population is growing.
Vique's Law:
A man without a religion is like a fish without a bicycle.
Jones' Motto:
Friends come and go but enemies accumulate.
McClaughry's Codicil:
To make an enemy, do someone a favour.
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.
The ultimate Law:

All general statements are false.
The Unspeakable Law:
As soon as you mention something;
if it is good, it goes away.
if it is bad, it happens.
The Whispered Rule:

People will believe anything if you whisper it.
The First Law of Wing Walking:
Never let hold of what you've got until
you've got hold of something else.
Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning

and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
Farnsdick's corollary:
After things have gone from bad to worse,
the cycle will repeat itself.
Lynch's Law:
When the going gets tough, everybody leaves.
Law of Revelation:
The hidden flaw never remains hidden.
Langsam's Law:
Everything depends.
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.
Grossman's Misquote:
Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers.
Ducharme's Precept:
Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.
First Postulate of Isomurphism:

Things equal to nothing else are equal to each other.
The Unapplicable Law:
Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work.
Witten's Law:
Whenever you cut your fingernails, you will find a
need for them an hour later.
Perkin's postulate:
The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
Harrison's Postulate:
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
Conway's Law:
In every organization there will always be one person
who knows what is going on.
This person must be fired.
Stewart's Law of Retroaction:
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
MacDonald's Second Law:

Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for
a number and give it back to them.
First Law of Laboratory Work:

Hot glass looks exactly the same as cold glass.
Handy Guide to Modern Science:

1. If it's green or it wiggles, it's biology.
2. If it stinks, it's chemistry.
3. If it doesn't work, it's physics.
4. If it's incomprehensible, it's mathematics.
5. If it doesn't make sense, it's either economics
or psychology.
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
The Sausage Principle:

People who love sausage and respect the law
should never watch either one being made.
Horngren's Observation: (generalized)
The real world is a special case.
Merkin's Maxim:
When in doubt, predict that the present trend will continue.
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.
Never attribute to malice that which is

adequately explained by stupidity.
Matz's warning:
Beware of the physician who is great at getting out of trouble.
Gold's Law:
If the shoe fits, it's ugly.
Lewis' Law:
People will buy anything that's one to a customer.
Sinclair Lewis
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.
Shirley's Law:
Most people deserve each other.
Forgive and remember.
Woltman's Law:
Never program and drink beer at the same time.
Gallois' 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 enobled, and no one dares
to criticize it.
Galbraith's Law of Political Wisdom:
Anyone who says he is not going to resign, four times, definitely will
.
Allen's Law:
Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.
Allen's Distinction:
The lion and the calf shall lie down together,
but the calf won't get much sleep.
You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.
Avery's Observation:
It does not matter if you fall down as long as you
pick up something from the floor while you get up.
Berra's Law:
You can observe a lot just by watching.
Bicycle Law:
All bicycles weigh
A 30 pound bicycle
A 40 pound bicycle
A 50 pound bicycle
50 pounds:
needs a 20 pound lock.
needs a 10 pound lock.
doesn't need a lock.
Cohen's Law:
What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on
the facts, not the facts themselves.
Colson's Law:
When you've got them by the balls, their hearts
and minds will follow.
Comin's Law:
People will accept your idea much more readily if you
tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.
Fourth Law of Thermodynamics:
If the probability of success is not almost one,
then it is damned near zero.
Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:
1. An object in motion will be heading in the wrong direction.
2. An object at rest will be in the wrong place.
Goldwyn's Law of Contracts.
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government:
No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while
the legislature is in session.
Jones' Principle:
Needs are a function of what other people have.
Langin's Law:
If things were left to chance,

they'd be better.
In America, it's not how much an item costs that matters,
it's how much you save.
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs,
maybe you just don't understand the situation.
Mencken's Metalaw:
For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution;
and it is always wrong.
Sevareid's Law:
The chief cause of problems is solutions.
Thoreau's Law:
If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intention
of doing you good, you should run for your life.
Peer's Law:
The solution to the problem changes the problem.
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
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.
Pournelle's Law of Costs and Schedules:
Everything costs more and takes longer.
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.
Sueker's Note:
If you need n items of anything, you will have n - 1 in stock.
Rosenfield's Regret:
The most delicate component will be dropped.
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.
Design flaws travel in groups.
You can't fight the law of conservation of energy
but you sure can bargain with it.
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.
When a man laughs at his misfortunes, he loses a great
many friends. They never forgive the loss of their perogative.
H. L. Mencken
An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better
than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
H. L. Mencken
Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country,
it is a sure sign he expects to be paid for it.
H. L. Mencken
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what
they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
H.L. Mencken
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

H. L. Mencken
Arcana Coelestica:
Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to
that obtained by Christ.
Puritanism - The haunting fear that someone, somewhere,
may be happy.
H. L. Mencken
Adultery is the application of democracy to love.
H. L. Mencken
Sin is a dangerous toy in the hands of the virtuous.

It should be left to the congenitally sinful who know
when to play with it and when to leave it alone.
H.L. Mencken
In human history, a moral victory is always a disaster
for it debauches and degrades both the victor and the
vanquished.
H.L. Mencken
There is only one sound argument for democracy, and
that is the argument that it is a crime for any man
to hold himself out as better than other men, and,
above all, a most heinous crime for him to prove it.
H.L. Mencken
The Arithmetic of Cooperation:
When you're adding up committees
there's a useful rule of thumb:
that talents make a difference,
and follies make a sum.
Piet Hein
The Ultimate Wisdom
Philosophers must ultimately find their true perfection
in knowing all the follies of mankind by introspection.
Piet Hein
Murphy's Military Laws:

1. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you are.

2. No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
3. Friendly fire ain't.

4. The most dangerous thing in the combat zone
is an officer with a map.
5. The problem with taking the easy way out is
that the enemy has already mined it.

6. The buddy system is essential to your survival;
it gives the enemy somebody else to shoot at.
7. The further you are in advance of your own positions,
the more likely your artillery will shoot short.

8. Incoming fire has the right of way.

9. If your advance is going well, you are walking into an ambush.

10. The quartermaster has only two sizes, too large and too small.

11. If you really need an officer in a hurry, take a nap.
Murphy's Miltary Laws:

12. The only time suppressive fire works is when it is used
on abandoned positions.
13. The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire
is incoming friendly fire.

14. There is nothing more satisfying than having someone take
a shot at you, and miss.

15. Don't be conspicuous. In the combat zone, it draws fire.
Out of the combat zone, it draws sergeants.
16. If your sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
17. Never worry about the bullet with your name on it.
Instead, worry about shrapnel addressed to 'occupant'.
18. All battles are fought at the junction of
two or more map sheets.
18.1 ...uphill
18.2 ...and in the rain.

19. Logistics is the ball and chain of armoured warfare.
Heinz Guderian
20. The army with the smartest dress uniform will lose.

21. What gets you promoted from one rank gets you killed
in the next rank.

22. A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
George Patton

23. If orders can be misunderstood, they have been.
Technologie don't transfer.
Conrad Stenton
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit
the national debt.
Herbert Hoover
There are four things that hold back human progress;

ignorance, stupidity, committees, and accountants.
Charles J.C. Lyall
There is something to be said for every error;
but, whatever may be said for it, the most important
thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.
G. K. Chesterton
Be kind to everyone you talk with. You never know
who's going to be on the jury.
Tiger Goldstick
The only time the world beats a path to your door
is when you are in the bathroom.
When all is said and done, more is said than done.
When all is said and done, more is said than done.
Finance is the study of money and how it violates

the rules of mathematics and common sense.
Horwood's First Law:
Good data is the data you already have.
Horwood's Second Law:
Bad data drives out good.
Horwood's Third Law:
The data you have for the present crisis was
collected to relate to the previous one.
Horwood's Fourth Law:
The respectability of existing data grows with elapsed
time and distance from the data source to the investigator.
Horwood's Fifth Law:
Data can be moved from one office to another but it
cannot be created or destroyed.
Horwood's Sixth Law:
If you have the right data you have the wrong problem;
and vice versa.
Horwood's Seventh Law:

The important thing is not what you do,
but how you measure it.
Horwood's Eighth Law:
In complex systems, there is no relationship between
information gathered and decisions made.
Horwood's Ninth Law:
Acquisition of knowledge from experience is an exception.
Horwood's Tenth Law:

Knowledge grows at half the rate at which
academic courses proliferate.
Cheops Law:
No project was ever completed on time
and within budget.
No man knows what true happiness is until he gets married.
By then, of course, its too late.
The best scale for an experiment is 12 inches to the foot.

Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher
What's source for the goose is object for the gander.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
Kelly-Bootle's Law of Programming:
The sooner you start coding, the longer it is going to take.
Gershwin's Law:
It ain't necessarily so.
Kelly-Bootle's pith poor law:
Terseness is not enough.
Science is to computer science as hydraulics is to plumbing.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
The Seven Catastrophes of Computing:
The user, the manufacturer, the model, the salesperson,

the operating system, the language, and the application.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it
is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're
unable to do it themselves.
Brendan Behan
Alinsky's Rule for Radicals
Those who are the most moral are furthest from the problem.
Where there's a will, there's a won't.
Olivier's Law
Experience is something you don't get until
just after you need it.
Weiner's Law of Libraries:
There are no answers, only cross-references.
Searle's Third Law:
You win a few, you loose a lot.
Sodd's Second Law:

Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances
is bound to occur.
Berra's Second Law:
Anyone who is popular is bound to be disliked.
Heise's Law of Anatomy:
When the mouth opens, the ears slam shut.
Foster's Law:
The only people who find what they are looking for
in life are the fault finders.
There are two kinds of people in any organization:

those who fix the problems, and those who fix the blame.
The latter are called managers.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Weatherwax's Postulate:
The degree with which you overreact to information
will be in inverse proportion to its accuracy.

Schopenhauer's Law of Entropy:
If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel of sewage,
you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a
barrel of wine, you get sewage.
Munder's Theorem:
For every '10', there are ten '1's.
Levy's Eighth Law:
No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail.
Strong's Reply:
Genius cannot be fruitful without due consideration and attention
to detail.
Zappa's Law:
There are two things which are truly universal:
hydrogen and stupidity.
Fagin's observation:
Hindsight is an exact science.
First rule of History:
History doesn't repeat itself; historians merely
repeat one another.
Ehler's First Law:
When you find out how far you can go,
you've gone too far.
Good's Rule of Bureaucracies:
When the government's remedies do not solve the problem,
you modify the problem, not the remedy.
Sigstad's Law:
When it gets to be your turn, they change the rules.
Roger's Law:
As soon as the stewardess serves coffee, the aircraft
encounters turbulence.
Davis' Explanation:
Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence.
Bachman's Law:
The greater the cost of putting a plan into operation,

the less chance of abandoning it.
Bachman's Corollary:
The higher the level of prestige accorded the people
behind a plan, the less chance of abandoning it.
Cohn's First Law:
In any bureaucracy, paperwork increases as you spend
more and more time reporting on the less and less you
are doing.
Cohn's Second Law:
In any bureaucracy, stability is achieved when you spend
all of your time reporting on the nothing you are doing.
Kushner's Law:
The chances of anybody doing anything are inversely
proportional to the number of other people who are in
a position to do it instead.
Law of Probable Distribution:
Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.
Gourd's Axiom:
A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept
and the hours are lost.
Wethern's Law:
Assumption is the mother of all screwups.
Steinbach's Advice to Systems Programmers:
Never test for an error you don't know how to handle.
Rule of Defactualization:
Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.
Maier's Second Law:
The bigger the theory, the better.
Only adults have difficulty with child proof bottles.
Barach's Rule:
An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his physician.
Matz's Medication Rule:
A drug is that substance which, when injected into a rat,
will produce a scientific report.
G.B. Shaw's Law:

Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.
Martin's Extension:
Those who can't teach, administrate.
Lyall's Insight:
The above completely explains sex education.
Conner's Second Law:
If something is confidential, it will be left in the copier.
Hane's Law:
There is no limit to how bad things can get.
Edward's Law:
If it weren't for the last minute,
nothing would get done.
Boren's
When in
When in
When in
Laws:
doubt, mumble.
trouble, delegate.
charge, ponder.
Forsyth's Law:
Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel,
the roof caves in on you.
Variables won't; constants aren't.
The one language spoken by all programmers is profanity.
The only two things a pirate will run for is money

and public office.
Yosimite Sam
If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science,
it is opinion.
Robert A. Heinlein
Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.

Robert A. Heinlein
Ninety percent of everything is crud.

Theodore Sturgeon
One good turn gets most of the blanket.
A virtual data base is a segment of your imagination.
On a clear disk, you can seek forever.
Octal is just like base 10, really,

if you're missing two fingers.
Tom Lehrer
Disks travel in packs.
I believe in computer dating, but only if the

computers are truly in love.
Groucho Marx
Reciprocity works both ways.
The Universe is not user friendly.

Kelvin Throop
Science policy is to science as bird shot is to birds.

Petr Beckman
Remember, a rut is simply a coffin with the ends knocked out.

Earl Nightengale
Computer programs are ninety percent debugged,

fifty per cent of the time.
To err is human, but to REALLY foul things up, it takes

a computer driven by a programmer who only thinks he
knows what he is doing.

Walter Aiello
Tusseman's Law:
Nothing is an inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.
One can never underestimate the intelligence of

the electorate.
Walter Aiello
Any given container designed to hold water, will leak,

and any given orifice designed to drain water, will plug up.
Walter Aiello
You don't learn less and less, you learn more and more.
Hence you should not call them lessons but rather morons.
Lewis Carroll
If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops.

Kelvin Throop
Alcoholism is what happens when good liquor falls

into the hands of amateurs.
Spider Robinson
If God had really intended man to fly, he would have

made it easier to get to the airports.
It may be that the race is not always to the swift,

nor the battle to the strong -- but thats the way to bet it.
Damon Runyon
All of life is seven to five against.

Damon Runyon
Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross

a chasm is two small jumps.
David Lloyd George
No one ever raised a statue to a critic.

Jean Sibelius
Originality is the art of concealing your source.

Franklin P. Jones
Great ideas need landing gear as well as wings.

C.D. Jackson
Old programming wizards never die, they just recurse.

Allen Supynuk
If all the economists in the world were laid end to end,

they wouldn't reach a conclusion.
Lewis Carroll
Those who live by the crystal ball must be prepared

to eat crushed glass.
Larry Long
There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action.

Goethe
If the only tool you have is a hammer,

you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Abraham Maslow
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
First Rule of Intelligent Tinkering:

Save all the parts.
Hofstadter's Law:
The time and effort required to complete a
project are always more than you expect, even when you
take into account Hofstadter's Law.
Incompetence knows no barriers of time and place.
Make it possible to write programs in English and

you will find that most programmers cannot write in English.
Block's Bombshell:
A conclusion is the place where you got
tired of thinking.
Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics:

Things get worse under pressure.
Ogden's Law:
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have
to catch up.
Shick's Law:
There is no problem a good miracle can't solve.
Spencer's Laws of Data:

Anyone can make a good decision given enough facts.
A good manager can make a decision without enough facts.
A perfect manager can operate in perfect ignorance.
Statistics are like bikinis: what they reveal is suggestive,

what they conceal is vital.
The average woman would rather have beauty than brains

because the average man can see better than he can think.
Organizations are like wine; the bottleneck is

always at the top.
The plural of spouse is spice.

Edgar Pangborn
In theory, the difference between theory and practice is small.
In practice, the difference between theory and practice
is large.
Two wrongs do not make a right; it usually takes three or four.
Mayhis Rule:
It is bad luck to be superstitious.
Bureaucaracy defends the status quo long past the time when
the quo has lost its status.
Laurence J. Peter
One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they

are hanged.
Heinrich Heine
It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favour of

vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion.
William Ralph Inge
Rascality has limits; stupidity has none.

Napoleon
Politics is occupational therapy for the morally handicapped.

Charles J.C. Lyall
Fundamental Tenet of Reform:

Reforms come from below. No man who has four aces
ever calls for a new deal.
John F. Parker
Beauregard's Law:
When you are up to your eyeballs in it,
keep your mouth shut.
Murchison's Law of Money:

Money is like manure. If you spread it around, it does
a lot of good. If you pile it up in one place, it stinks.
When all else fails, blame it on the oil industry.
Laotion Proverb:
When drowning, it is all right to be a fatalist,
but one should still move one's feet.
He who hesitates is smart.
It is only when you need to knock on wood that you realize

that the world is entirely made up of aluminum and plastic.
A person who says that something can't be done shouldn't

interrupt the person doing it.
The difference between an amateur and a professional in

the computer business is the number of backups they make.
The secret to dealing successfully with people is sincerity.

Once you can fake sincerity, you've got it made.
The person who offers unsolicited advice usually

discovers its value.
Modern journalists are much like modern novelists; they

both write fiction. The difference is that the novelists
are honest about it.
Charles J.C. Lyall
It is easy to tell when a politician is lying. Watch his lips.

If they move, he's lying.
Hell is the place where everything test perfectly

and nothing works.
John W. Campbell Jr.
Fleas can be taught nearly everything that a

congressman can.
Mark Twain
In the first place God made idiots; this was for

practice; then he made school boards.
Mark Twain
Of course, America had been discovered before Columbus,

but it had always been hushed up.
Oscar Wilde
American women expect to find in their husbands the

perfection that the English women only hope to find
in their butlers.
W. Somerset Maugham
Canadians could have enjoyed:

English Government,
French Culture,
and American know-how.
Instead they ended up with:
English know-how,
French Government,
and American culture.
John Robert Colombo
Heaven for climate; hell for society.

Mark Twain
Put not your trust in princes.

Psalms 146:3
Democracy is a form of religion. It is the worship

of jackals by jackasses.
H.L. Mencken
You just can't tell about women; and if you can,
you shouldn't.
Charles M.M. Lyall
Maxey's Maxim:
No matter what happens, there is always someone
who knew it would.
Sprinkle's Law:
Things fall at right angles.
The finer a highway is, the more people crowd

it to unusability.
Always leave a way out.

Myer's First Law:

Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them.
Myer's Second Law:

Experiments must be reproducible -- they should
fail the same way.
Myer's Third Law:

Always verify your witchcraft.
Myer's Fourth Law:

First draw your curves -- then plot your readings.
Myer's Fifth Law:
Be sure to obtain meteorological information before
leaving on vacation.
Myer's Sixth Law:
A record of data is useful -- it indicates that
you have been working.
Myer's Seventh Law:

Experience is directly proportional to equipment ruined.
Myer's Eighth Law:

To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly
before you start.
Myer's Ninth Law:

In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
In an experiment, nothing can go wrong; we can always rely

on the physical universe to run as designed.
Wayne Batteau
Alma Hill's Corollary's to Murphy's Law:

- If we loose much by having things go wrong, take
all possible care.
- If we have nothing to loose by change, relax.
- If we have everything to gain by change, relax.
- If it doesn't matter - it does not matter.
If you can't detect it, why worry?

John W. Campbell
Rothstein's Observation:
The one part that the fabriacation plant forgot to ship
you supports seventy five per cent of the balance of the
shipment.
Rothstein's Corollory:
Not only did they forget to ship it; fifty per cent of the
time they haven't even made it..
Rothstein's Note:
Truck deliveries that normally take one day will
take five when you're waiting for the truck.
Rothstein's Advice:
The eye of the Chief Inspecting Engineer is more accurate
than the finest instrument.
Nobody likes being proven wrong.

A scientist is a man who develops powerful proofs.
Therefore, nobody likes scientists.
Law of the Too, Too Solid Point:
In any collection of data, the figure that is most

obviously correct -- beyond any need of checking -is the mistake.
Corollary I:
No one whom you ask for help will see it either.
Corollary II:
Everyone who stops by with unsought advice will
see it immediately.
H.B. Fyfe
If the liberal arts do nothing else, they provide
engaging metaphors for the thinking they displace.
Roger Zelazny
The only thing wrong with doing nothing is that

you never know when you are finished.
Remember, the absent are always wrong.
Coffee makes a worker wise and able to see through

half closed eyes.
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
Nothing motivates an employee more than to see

the boss do an honest day's work.
Law of Forgetfulness:
The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional
to ... proportional to ... to ... .
Nine tenths of a woman's intuition is suspicion.

Bob Edwards
Blessed are the pretty girls, for they shall inherit

the men.
Bob Edwards
A woman's idea of heaven is a place where she won't

have to wash the dishes.
Bob Edwards
It's awfully hard for a woman to pretend not to know

the things she ought to know.
Bob Edwards
We actually need women in provincial politics. Women

could never possibly participate in any graft system,
owing to their inability to keep a secret. As publicity
is the remedy for most political ills, women in politics
should function admirably.
Bob Edwards (1911)
Women will never make good on juries until they get

to be as ignorant as men.
Bob Edwards
Politics has not ceased to make strange bedfellows, or,

at least the politicians of both parties continue to
share the same bunk. You know the kind of bunk we mean.
Bob Edwards
Politicians resemble shoes in one respect -- the higher grade

is not machine made.
Bob Edwards
It seems as if the world is divided into two sets of people -one set engaged in making money by productive labour and
the other set are simultaneously engaged in taking it away
from them.
Bob Edwards
A man can claim to have "arrived" when his private

affairs begin to interest the public.
Bob Edwards
A girl seldom falls in love with a man unless there is

some reason why she shouldn't.
Bob Edwards
Every man has his favourite bird. Ours is the bat.

Bob Edwards
The report that whiskey drinking is declining in Calgary

will cause no surprise. Most of the politicians are out of
town telling the festive farmer which way to vote.
Bob Edwards
Soaking the brain in alcohol does not improve the mind.

Bob Edwards
The water wagon is certainly a more dangerous vehicle

than the automobile. At least more people fall off it.
Bob Edwards
Call a girl a chick and she smiles; call a woman a hen

and she howls. Call a young woman a witch and she is
pleased; call an old woman a witch and she is indignant.
Call a girl a kitten and she rather likes it; call a
woman a cat and she hates you. Women are queer.
Bob Edwards
A man who hesitates is lost. So is a woman who doesn't.

Bob Edwards
A girl's kisses are like pickles in a bottle -- the first

are hard to get, but the rest come easy.
Bob Edwards
Too much distance between husband and wife may result in

other enchantments. (This is a deep one.)
Bob Edwards
The only thing that beats a good wife is a bad husband.

Bob Edwards
It is easy for a man to manage his wife. All he has to do

is follow her instructions.
Bob Edwards
When we hear a woman say that all men are alike we wonder
how she found out.
Bob Edwards
All the world's a stage, and the majority of us sit in

the gallery and throw things at the performers.
Bob Edwards
If you want anything done well, do it yourself. This is

why most people laugh at their own jokes.
Bob Edwards
The things that come to a man who waits are seldom the
things he has been waiting for.
Bob Edwards
A man begins to get his life into proper perspective when

he quits expecting to find pearls in his oysters and is
extremely gratified when he gets oysters.
Bob Edwards
It is a waste of life to be sensible all the time.

Bob Edwards
No man does as much today as he is going to do tomorrow.

Bob Edwards
Most of the entries in the human race are also rans.

Bob Edwards
Remorse is memory that has begun to ferment.

Bob Edwards
A man never looses money on fast horses. It is the

slow ones that cause all the damned trouble.
Bob Edwards
Don't you think "absolutely" a much overworked word,

Absolutely.
Bob Edwards
If money talks, all it ever said to me was goodbye.

Bob Edwards
When Solomon said that there was a time and a place for
everything he had not encountered the problem of
parking an automobile.
Bob Edwards
The first thing a man with a new automobile runs into

is debt.
Bob Edwards
The trouble with being efficient is that it makes

everybody hate you so.
Bob Edwards
The income tax returns would indicate that there is

untold wealth in Canada.
Bob Edwards
Taking things philosophically is easy if they don't concern you.

Bob Edwards
Never exaggerate your faults; your friends will attend to that.
Bob Edwards
Forgive your enemies -- but if you have no enemies,

forgive a few of your friends.
Bob Edwards
A tongue, like a race horse, generally runs faster

the less weight it carries.
Bob Edwards
Most of life's shadows result from standing in your own light.

Bob Edwards
The man who has never tried has no sympathy for the
man who has tried and failed.
Bob Edwards
Some people might as well be crazy for all the sense they have.
Bob Edwards
Meanwhile the meek are a long time inheriting the earth.

Bob Edwards
A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a lot of

ignorance is just as bad.
Bob Edwards
Isn't it queer that only sensible people agree with you?

Bob Edwards
The way of the transgressor is ever popular.

Bob Edwards
If its all the same to history, it need not

repeat itself anymore.
Bob Edwards
Well, at all events, the Canadian Navy will be able to lick

the Swiss Navy. This is one comfort for which we should be
thankful.
Bob Edwards
Not all women are as bad as they paint themselves.

Bob Edwards
If men could read woman's thoughts, they would take
more risks than they do.
Bob Edwards
It is as easy to recall an unkind word as to draw back

a bullet after firing a gun.
Bob Edwards
Never judge a man by the opinion his wife has of him.

Be fair.
Bob Edwards
McCrum's Maxim:
ASCII no questions and I'll TELETYPE you no lies.
Trial marriages are very dangerous. If you're not

careful, they could lead to the real thing.
Warren Beatty
The greater the number of laws and enactments, the

more thieves and robbers there will be.
Lao-Tzu (604-531 B.C.)
No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow

man without at last finding the other end fastened
about his own neck.
Frederick Douglas, 1883
Ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing. At the

battle at Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse was an ignorant
savage and George Custer was an educated military tactician
and strategist. Custer was also stupid; Crazy Horse wasn't.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Feminist theologians tell us that God is female. But,

what about the devil? What about her?
Charles J.C. Lyall
Never try to explain integrity to a lawyer.

Charles J.C. Lyall
There may be a market for artificial intelligence but

there is a larger market for artificial stupidity.
Charles J.C. Lyall
In a severe crisis, make sure you have a good stock of

the precious metals; gold, silver, and lead. The first
two make lousy bullets.
Charles J.C. Lyall
There are only three predators that strike fear into the
average man; the man eating shark, a pack of wolves, and
the tax department.
Charles J.C. Lyall
The early worm gets eaten.
Never tell an accountant that he is a credit to his profession.

A good accountant is a debit to his profession.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Consultants know more ways of doing things than their clients

and they can do it better than their clients; most of the time,
they end up doing it the client's way and trying to make the
client like it. Consultants are the business equivalent of the
high priced whore.
Charles J.C. Lyall
The problem with the war between the sexes is that

neither side has much compassion for the casualties.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Any computer system can be rendered ineffective by its users.

Charles J.C. Lyall
No one can design a completely idiot proof system; idiots

are too smart.
Charles J.C. Lyall
A poorly managed manual system cannot be improved by

automation. The problem is not the system, it's the manager.
Charles J.C. Lyall
All systems have three aspects: there is the official system

which is written down; there is the system which the managers
administer, and there is the system actually implemented by
the employees. It is very similar to the Christian theology
of the holy trinity.
Charles J.C. Lyall
The best way to improve the educational system would be

to turn it over to private enterprise. Not that the companies
could necessarily do it any better, but the education department

would suddenly find the deficiencies intolerable.
Charles J.C. Lyall
A person in the 100% tax bracket is called a slave.

Charles J.C. Lyall
Statistics are methods of quantifying ignorance. When an

intellectual tells you that it is only a probability that
the sun will rise tomorrow morning, he is indicating his
ignorance of Newton's Laws.
Charles J.C. Lyall
A cynic is a person who refuses to share your illusions.

Charles J.C. Lyall
Media is the plural of mediocre.

Rocky Bridges
They don't make things like they used to, and what's more
they never did.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Don't lie. It is a crime to impersonate a politician.
Don't steal. It is a crime to compete with the government.
The Lord giveth and the government taketh away.
Socialists, like aristocrats, divide people into social classes

and encourage discrimination against the "out" classes. Fascists,
on the other hand, divide people by nationality and discriminate
against the "out" nationalities.
Fascism is very popular these days, especially among the socialists.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Nationalism is an infantile idea; it is the measles of mankind.
Albert Einstein
A bureaucracy is an organization that has raised stupidity

to the status of a religeon.
Frank Herbert
In one respect the Greeks had a firmer grasp of psychology than
we do. When their society produced a sociopathic personality,
they banished him; we elect him.
Charles J.C. Lyall
A bureaucracy will first act to save its own existence and

secondly it will act to expand itself. It will never act in
a fashion that will ensure its own destruction. The anticancer bureaucracy will never find a cure for cancer.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Some people think that the tax department are thieves. This
is nonsense. The tax department does not steal; it simply
threatens you with dire consequences if you do not give them
the money they want. This is not theft.
It is extortion.
Charles J.C. Lyall
The beaver has a completely unjustified reputation for hard
work. What it energetically dot with a vicious temper and is the
perfect symbol for the Canadian government.
Charles J.C. Lyall
There are several occupations that should be de-criminalized
because they provide a useful social function. Among them are
prostitution and political assassination.
Charles J.C. Lyall
When a person says that technology is "out of control", he
usually means that it is out of his control.
This is usually a good thing.
Charles J.C. Lyall
The greatest deficiency in educational systems is that they

almost never offer courses in thinking.
It has been determined that mankind and chimpanzees have 99 per
cent of their genetic material in common. This annoys both the
creationists and the chimps.

Charles J.C. Lyall
The more obvious the defect in a plan, the more likely it will
be approved.
The AIDS epidemic may well bring the end of our species.
Homo Sapien will be supplanted by Hetero Sapien.
Schedules are never drawn up by the people who will
have to keep them.
The more sensible and simple your plan, the more likely
your supervisor will change it.
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than it is for a plan to pass unchanged through a committee.
Lyall's Regret
Waist not, diet not.
In the ultimate utopia, only three things would be illegal:
- the initiation of force;
- the act of fraud and;
- Monday mornings.
Charles J.C. Lyall
You've gotta know when to code 'em, know when to modem,

Know when to load 'em up, know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the keyboard;
There'll be time enough for countin' when the program's done.
-Anonymous
(With apologies to Kenny Rogers)
You can slide further on bullshit than you can on sand.
Don McKee
Marriage is made in heaven; so is thunder and lightning.
Hindsight is diffraction limited.

R.E. Fisher
Many students treat knowledge as a liquid to be swallowed

rather than as a solid to be chewed, and then they wonder why
it provides so little nourishment.
Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and vigour.
First Law of Business Meetings:

The probability that the lead pencil will break is
directly proportional to the importance of the notes being taken.
The Grocery Bag Law:

The candy bar you had planned to eat on the way home
from the market is hidden at the bottom of the grocery bag.
Brasington's First Law:

You will never use the backup copy you just made.
Brasington's Second Law:

The only backup copy you will ever need is either:
- the one you didn't have time to make, or;
- the one you did make but cannot read.
Brasington's Third Law:

There is no danger in x-raying a scratch disk or tape.
However, a boy scout's magnet can destroy the only copy
of a file at 50 yards.
Brasington's Fourth Law:

The probability that a given program will conform to
expectations is inversely proportional to the programmer's
confidence in his ability to do the job.
Brasington's Fifth Law:

When a programmer tells you "no problem", you have a
serious problem.
Brasington's Wisdom:
When a programmer commits to a completion date, make
sure it includes day, month, and year.
Brasington's Irrefutable Observation:

State of the art software is not.
User friendly software also is not.
State of the art user friendly software, is an edp insider's joke.
Brasington's Sixth Law:

No system is ever completely debugged. Attempts to debug it
invariably introduce new bugs which are even harder to find.
Brasington's Seventh Law:

Projects progress quickly until they become 90% complete,
then they remain 90% complete forever.
Brasington's Insight:
One advantage of fuzzy project objectives is that they let
you avoid the embarrassement of estimating the costs.
Brasington's Eighth Law:

If project content is allowed to change freely, the rate of
change will exceed the rate of progress.
Brasington's Ninth Law:

A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to
complete than expected; a carefully planned one will take
only twice as long.
Brasington's Note:
Project teams detest project reporting because it vividly
manifests their lack of progress.
Liebling's Truth:
Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.
A.J. Liebling
Austen's Aphorism:
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor,
which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.
People fail to respect the law when the laws fail to deserve
respect.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Traditions are solutions for which we have forgotten

the problems.
Information is power. To give out correct information

at the correct time is to control the present; to withhold
information at the correct time is to control the future.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Our analytical tools are primitive; almost all of our

problems are solvable but few yield to analysis. Consider
the future; we cannot predict it, but assuredly we are
creating it. Most of our problems are subsets of this
solvable problem.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Mankind makes tools; we use them to augment our hands,

arms and legs. The computer augments the brain and
this makes it very unpopular with totalitarians.
Charles J.C. Lyall
Life's a batch, and then you submit.

Steve Rosborough.
Every life form on Earth either has become extinct or

will become extinct. That is why the human race will
build star ships.
Charles J.C. Lyall
The only people that successfully resist change in

society are the dead.
Charles J.C. Lyall
A hug is the perfect gift -- one size fits all, and nobody
minds if you exchange it.
Ivern Ball
Absolutely nothing in the world is as friendly as a wet dog.

Dan Bennet
The medieval alchemist said there were four states of matter:

Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. On the other hand, we know that
there really are four states of matter: Solid, Liquid, Gas and
Plasma. Thank God for progress.
Kelvin Throop
Once you get to orbit, you're halfway to anywhere.

Robert A. Heinlein
An economist is a man who tells you what to do with the money

you would not have if you had followed his proposal in the
first place.
Kelvin Throop
Policy: A common substitute for good judgement.

Kelvin Throop
Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make President.
Kelvin Throop
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. If that

doesn't work, look for a better solution.
Kelvin Throop
And the Lord said unto Job, "There's no reason for it.
It's just policy."
Kelvin Throop
If the mind were exercised as much as the mouth, we

would be a race of geniuses.
Kelvin Throop
A self addressed envelope would be addressed "envelope".

Kelvin Throop
In matters of belief, he who is absolutely sure he

is right is almost certainly dead wrong.
Kelvin Throop
God doesn't want to make it too easy for his children -many of them are spoiled enough as it is.
Kelvin Throop
To get the attention of a large animal, be it an

elephant or a bureaucracy, it helps to know what
part of it feels pain. Be very sure, though, that
you want its full attention.
Kelvin Throop
There is no such thing as a functional illiterate.

Kelvin Throop
The number of people who agree or disagree with you has

absolutely no bearing on whether you're right. The universe
has a way of deciding that for itself.
Kelvin Throop
Just because we're not currently using a technology doesn't

mean that it doesn't work anymore.
Kelvin Throop
Jargon (or "technical terminology") is a marvelous way to

convey a lot of information to the knowledgeable. It's
also a superb way to intimidate the uninitiated. Why do
you suppose it was developed?
Kelvin Throop
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at

science fiction listen to weather reports and economists.
Kelvin Throop
Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.

Lily Tomlin
Tradition is what you resort to when you don't have the time
or the money to do it right.
Kurt Herbert Adler
Love is the answer, but while you're waiting for the answer,
sex raises some pretty good questions.
Woody Allen
Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right.

Woody Allen
Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major

catagories -- those that don't work, those that break down, and
those that get lost.
Russel Baker
Heblock's Horror:
If it's good, they'll stop making it.
Creativity is inverse to experience.

Decision levels are inverse to comprehension.
Size of error is inverse to elapsed time.
Derek Hutchins
Cayo's Law:
The only things that start on time are those that you're
late for.
Arndt's Truism:
If you have never made a mistake,
you have never made anything.
Lyall's curmudgeonly addendum:
... or anyone.
More programming sins are committed in the name of efficiency

(without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single
reason including stupidity.
William A. Wulf
Porter's Strategem for future dilemmas:

We'll burn that bridge when we come to it.
Walton's Observation:
Given two choices, you'll make the wrong one -- twice.
Takeovers are always announced one day after you sell the
stock of the target company.
Gluskin-Fagan Report
Time-tested investment strategies stop working as soon

as you put your money into them.
The next bull market will begin on the day you swear
never to touch another stock as long as you live.
The only hot stock market tips that work are those you have ignored.
The trouble with planners is that they often undertake vast

projects using half vast ideas.
Brilliance is typically the act of an individual, but

incredible stupidity can usually be traced to an
organization.
Jon Bentley
Testing can show the presence of bugs but not their absence.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Bert Lance
If we can't fix it, it ain't broke.
Walt Weir
If it might break, don't go near it.
Herbert Stein
The fastest I/O is no I/O.

Nils-Peter Nelson
The cheapest, fastest and most reliable components of a

computer system are those that aren't there.
Gorden Bell
Eschew Clever Rules.

Joe Condon
Make it work first before you make it work fast.

Bruce Whiteside
Bulls do not win bullfights: people do. People do not win

people fights: lawyers do.
Norman R. Augustine
Augustine's Fundamental Law of Aeronautics:
Never fly on an airplane with a tail number less than 10.
Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs

nothing, and obeys the second law of thermodynamics: i.e.,
it always increases.
Norman R. Augustine
It is better to be a reorganizer than a reorganizee.

Norman R. Augustine
The optimum committee has no members.

Norman R. Augustine
The early bird gets the worm. The early worm--gets eaten.
Norman R. Augustine
Two thirds of the earth's surface is covered with water.

The other two thirds is covered with auditors from
headquarters.
Norman R. Augustine
If the error rate is high enough to be measured, it's too high.

Bill Godbout
The most effective way to increase the reliability of software that

we currently know about is simply to make it understandable
and predictable.
Nancy Leveson
Experiment and theory often show remarkable agreement when

performed in the same laboratory.
Daniel Bershader
The world is divided into three kinds of people -- those who

can count and those who can't.
Mick Racky
Swanson's Principle of Prelusive Programming:

Hardware will learn to emulate any software bug within one
hour of its removal.
A human mind is monumentally harder to change than a bed.

Lois McMaster Bujold
There are three kinds of medical experiments:

Single Blind: The patients don't know if they got the drug
or the placebo.
Double blind: The doctors don't know either.
Triple Blind: The administrators have lost the key and nobody
will ever know.
Newton's Law - revised in Ottawa:

For each and every decision, an equal amount of time,
energy, and money shall be spent auditing that decision.
Boyle's First Law:

The success of any venture will be helped by prayer, even
in the wrong denomination.
Boyle's Second Law:

An original idea will never emerge from a committee in
the original form.
Boyle's Third Law:

If not controlled, work will flow to the competent employee
until he or she is submerged.
Dieter's Law:
Food that tastes best has the highest number of calories.
Foster's Query:
If the polls are so accurate, why are there so many polling
companies?
Those who know little soon repeat it.
The less an organization produces, the more frequently

it re-organizes.
Mediocrity imitates.
No boss will keep an employee who is right all of the time.
An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.
Trivial laws are promptly voted in; important ones never are.
Nothing is illegal if 100 business men decide to do it.
Otto's Observation:
The color of any paint formula, as shown by the manufacturer's
sample, bears no resemblance to the actual color of that
formula when applied to any surface.
Otto's Corollary:
No two samples of any paint formula, when prepared at two different
times, look anything like each other.
The Price/Earnings ratio doesn't mean anything when there is no E.
Raymond Rose
To catch a mouse, make a noise like a cheese.

Lewis Kornfeld
The disagreements between theoretical and experimental results can

generally be resolved if one multiplies the experimental findings
by a factor equal to the ratio of the theoretical expectation to
the experimental measurement.
Wilder Bancroft
The ratio is also known as Finnagle's variable constant.
CJCL
Adding people to speed up a late software project just makes it later.

Fred Brooks
Attempting to read a roadmap while driving causes all traffic

lights to turn green.
Rene Augustine
When forty million people believe in a dumb idea, it's still

a dumb idea.
O'Brien's Principle:
Auditors always reject any expense account with a bottom line
divisible by 5 or 10.
Round numbers are always fake.
Morton's Law:
If rats are experimented on, they will develop cancer.
Booth's Observation:
The best parachute folders are those who jump themselves.
Sorting out the truth with a lawyer is like sorting balloons

with a pitchfork.
An engineer is a man who can do for a dime what any damn

fool can do for a dollar.
Nevil Shute
Contraceptives should be used at every conceivable occassion.
A computer user will tell you everything you ask about and
nothing more.
Crayne's Law:
All computers wait at the same speed.
Standards aren't standard.

Gerald Weinburg
If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong.
Norm Schryer
The second rule of program optimization:

Don't do it yet!
Michael Jackson
God created economists to give credibility to astrologers.
First rule of program optimization;

Don't do it!
Michael Jackson
Malpractice makes malperfect.
Meyer's Law:
In all emotional conflicts, the thing you find hardest to do
is the thing you should do.
John D. MacDonald
When the tough get going, they let sleeping dogs lie.
The generation of random numbers is too important

to be left to chance.
The early worm catches the fish.
Never trust a perscription that has one pill in it.

C.J. Cherryh
Edelstein's First Law of Benchmarks:

Every commercial product has its best performance on
standard benchmarks.
Edelstein's Second Law of Benchmarks:

In any fair benchmark, the DBMS you want to win, will win.
Edelstein's Corollory:
If the system you wanted to win, didn't, the benchmark wasn't fair.
Benchmarking is to computer science as creationism is

to evolution.
Herb Edelstein
Timmins' Tautology:
That quantity which, when mathematically manipulated into a set
of experimental results, will produce the predicted results, is
known as a constant.
An experiment may be considered successful if no more than half

the data must be discarded to obtain agreement with your pet
theory.
Past experience is always true; do not be mislead by present facts.
When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
The shortest distance between two points is closed for

construction.
Nollie Altito
Any theory that fits all of the facts is bound to be wrong

since some of the facts are misleading.
Francis Crick
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win,
you're still a rat.
Lily Tomlin
People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.
Abigail Van Buren
Ever notice that, when operating blinds, you always pull the
wrong string first?
P.R. Engele
Woollcott's Wisdom:
Nothing risque, nothing gained.
Seeger's Law:
Anything in parenthesis can (not) be ignored.
The toughest thing in business is minding your own.
The only time to be positive is when you're positive

you are wrong.
Two monologues don't make a dialogue.
Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they

are blind.
Marston Bates
When it comes to broken marriages most husbands will split

the blame -- half his wife's fault and half her mother's.
There will be sex after death; we just won't be able to feel it.
Lily Tomlin
Weston's Wisdom:
A fox is a wolf who sends flowers.
Rule of Failure:
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all
evidence that you have tried.
A business is too big when it takes a week for gossip to go

from one end of the office to the other.
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame.
The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself

without one.
The Word Processor's Rule:

Nothing highlights a document as much as a failure in the
spele checker.
Arild Jensen
If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt.
Dean Martin
Swing at the strikes.

Yogi Berra
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Yogi Berra
Byrne's Law of Concrete Placement:

When you pour, it rains.
Caffyn's Rule on Pronouncements:

The rosier the news, the higher ranking the official
who announces it.
Buechner's Principle:
The simplest explanation is that it just doesn't make sense.
Canning's Law:
Nothing is so fallacious as facts -- except figures.
Chilton's Theological-Clerical Rule:

If you work in a church office you have to keep all of
your equipment locked up because nothing is sacred.
Civil Service Maxim:

The pension is mightier than the sword.
Clark's Law of Leadership:

A leader should not get too far in front of his troops or
he will get shot in the arse.
Conrad's Definition:
A problem drinker is the one who never buys.
Conrad's consolation:
One advantage of getting older is that there are more
younger women all the time.
Corcoran's Laws of Nonsense:

1 - There are no laws of nonsense because laws are logical
and nonsense is not.
2 - Since the previous law is nonsense, ignore Corcoran's
First Law of Nonsense.
3 - If you don't like the first two laws of nonsense, come up
with your own.
Craine's Laws of Simplicity:

For every simple solution, there are a number of complex
problems.
For every simple problem there are a number of complex problems.
Crisp's Creed:
Don't try to keep up with the Joneses; drag them down to your level.
Cruikshank's Observation:
We have met the enemy, in fact we elected him.
Brown's Insight:
The only game that can't be fixed is peek-a-boo.
Cuppy's Note:
All modern men are descended from wormlike creatures, but it
shows more on some people.
Blattenbenberger's Marital Principle:

Marriages are like union contracts in that six weeks after
the event, both parties feel that they could have done better
if they had held out longer.
Blick's Rule of Life:

You have two chances -- slim and none.
Bobbitt's Law of TV:

Television network trouble never occurs except during the most
exciting part of your favourite program.
Boettcher's Attribution:
If you have a bunch of clowns, you're going to have a circus.
Boorstein's Observation:
Two centuries ago, when a great man appeared, people looked for
God's purpose in him; now we look for his press agent.
Boorstlemann's Rule:
If everything seems to be coming your way, you're probably
in the wrong lane.
Boucher's Corollary to Murphy's Law:

Murphy's Law holds no more than eighty per cent of the time;
unfortunately, it is impossible to predict when.
Bradley's Reminder:
Everything comes to him who waits, including death.
Brauer's Warning:
He who tries to pick all the flowers, is sure to get some
poison ivy.
Brecht's Hierarchy of Needs:

Grub first -- then ethics.
Bressler's Law:
There is no crisis to which academics will not respond with
a seminar.
Brewster's Exception:
Every rule has its exceptions except this one: a man must be
present when he's being shaved.
Brother's Sexist Comment:

The biggest difference between men and boys is the price of
their toys.
Buchwald's First Sans Souci Rule:

Any rumour that survives forty eight hours is probably true.
Buchwald's Second Sans Souci Rule:

When a cabinet minister comes to dine, everybody's lunch is tax
deductible.
Astor's Economic Insight:

A man who has a million dollars is as well off as if he were rich.
Austin's Law:
It tastes better at someone else's house.
Barber's Rule:
Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.
Schwabb's Truth:
You can get as drunk on water as you can on land.
Baker's Bylaw:
When you are over the hill, you pick up speed.
Ballweg's Discovery:
Whenever there is a flat surface, someone will find something
to put on it.
Banacek's Rule:
When an owl shows up at the mouse picnic, he's not there to
enter the sack race.
Barne's Law of Probability:

There's a fifty per cent chance of anything. Either it will
happen or it won't.
Baron's Law:
The world is divided between victims and predators, and
you have to defend you yourself against both.
Barrymore's Conclusion:
The thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes
the most amount of trouble is sex.
Beiser's Brass Tack:

Facts without theory are trivia; theory without facts is bullshit.
Big's Oblique Rule:

Don't try to stem the tide; move the beach.
Albert's Law of the Sea:

The more they are in a fog, the more boats (and people)
toot their horns.
Ackley's Axiom:
The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional
to the level of management.
Agrait's Law:
A rumour will travel fastest to the place where it will do the
most damage.
Albinak's Algorithm:
When graphing a function, the width of the line should be
inversely proportional to the precision of the data.
Anderson's First Maxim:

Colleges and universities are immune to their own knowledge.
Anderson's Second Maxim:

You can't out-think a person who isn't thinking.
Arnofy's Law of the Post Office:

The likelyhood of a letter getting lost in the mail is
directly proportional to its importance.
Daugherty's Dictum:
The computer is most likely to crash during backup.
Hanlon's Assertion:
An unwatched printer always falters.
Bontchev's Laws of Computer viruses:

1 - If the virus can be made, it will be.
2 - If the virus cannot be made, it will be anyway.
Nestor's Nostrum:
Anything worth doing makes a mess
McFee's McFact:
Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.
However, it can be lost.
Epps Law of Elevators:
A crowded elevator smells different to short people.
Never assume anything except a 4 percent mortgage.

Dave Kindred
No one is ever old enough to know better.

Holbrook Jackson
Throw strikes. Home plate don't move.

Satchel Paige
Inskip's Rules:
1 - Don't sweat the small stuff.
2 - It's all small stuff.
Saul's Saw:
When fastening down something held by several screws,
don't tighten any of them until they are all in place.
Never change diapers in mid-stream.

Don Marquis
If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt.

Dean Martin
No amount of planning can replace dumb luck.

Marc Keralla
Never slap a man who chews tobacco.

Willard Scott
Two plus two equals five -- for large values of two.
Venturi's Law:
There are two great rules in life: never tell everything
at once.
Don't eat yellow snow.

W.P. Kinsella
Too much of anything is bad, but too much of good whiskey

is barely enough.
Mark Twain
Atkin's Adage:
Miserable penny pinching, never-spend-a-dime people are not
much fun to live with, but they make wonderful ancestors.
Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Watson's Wisdom:
Show me a man with both feet on the ground and I'll show
you a man who can't get his pants on.
A rumour without a leg to stand on will get around

some other way.
John Tudor
The more experienced the fortune-teller, the more likely

they won't predict that their customer is a plain clothes
officer.
Knebel's Knews:
Smoking is the leading cause of statistics.
Comroe's Definition:
Serendipity is looking in a haystack for a needle and
finding the farmer's daughter.
When things go wrong, don't go with them.
Up is by definition the direction which broadens your horizons.

A. Cygni
Coull's Comment:
Every new project requires a tool that you don't have.
Coull's First Corollory:
The required tool is probably out of stock.
Coull's Second Corollory:
If the required tool is in stock, it is more expensive than
any tool in your present kit.
Coggins' Cold Truth:

Conventional wisdom may be conventional but it is not wisdom.
Skelton's First Law:

Advice is correct, if and only if it is not taken.
Finagle's Principle:
The perversity of the universe has no bounds.
Four of every three citizens are against the state.
Grandma Solderquist's Conclusion:

There are more horses' asses in the world than there are
horses.
Anderson's Axiom:
Throw it out -- worth a fortune. Keep it -- junk.
Theory is like mist on glasses. Obscures facts.

"Charlie Chan"
(Warner Orland)
It takes one woman nine months to produce a baby, no
matter how many men you put on the job.
There aren't nearly enough crutches in the world for all

the lame excuses.
Earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do.

Californa Engineer
A problem is just an opportunity dereferenced with a null pointer.
Capra's Wisdom:
A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.
Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work

he is supposed to be doing at the moment.
Robert Benchley
Life is like golf. If you keep in the fairway, you never

have to ask for a ruling.
Chi Chi Rodriquez
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.
Three Laws of Crises
A person must rock the boat to get ahead.
Technological hierarchies abhor perfection.
The maximum rate of promotion is achieved at a level of crises
only slightly less than that which will result in dismissal.
The Law of Failure

Technology abhors little failures but rewards big ones.
Laws Governing Values

The value of an idea is measured by its contents rather than by
the structure of the hierarchy in which it is pronounced.
The value of a technical article when first published is

proportional to the sum of the prestige of its authors,
but its ultimate value is proportional to the sum of the
subsequent references to it.
Three Laws of Advice

The correct advice to give is the advice that is desired.
The correct advice is revealed by the structure of the hierarchy,
not by the structure of the technology.
Simple advice is the best advice.
Unsolicited advice is always bad advice.
Five Laws of Decision Making

Managers make decisions.
Any decision is better than no decision.
A decision is judged by the conviction with which is it uttered.
Technical analysis have no value above the mid-management level.
Decision are justified by benefits to the organization;
decisions are made by considering benefits to the decision makers.
There is no theorem saying the interesting things in the

world are conserved--only the total of everything.
Richard Feynman
Just because your doctor has a name for your condition

doesn't mean your doctor knows what it is.
Corollory I:
If the name of your condition includes the word "intrinsic",
then nobody knows what it is.
All wiring access holes are either too small or in the wrong place.
All wiring tray you need to string a new cable is full.
The person who snores falls asleep first.
The wise are pleased when they discover the truth; fools are
pleased when they discover falsehood.
The number of thorys that can explain any given phenomenon

is infinite.
The number of loopholes in any legal system is always greater

than the number of laws.
You can't outtalk a person who knows what they are talking about.
You can't out bullshit a person who doesn't.
Parker's rule of parliamentary procedure:

A motion to adjourn is always in order.
The most important aspect of this rule is that it is false.
CJCL
The Iron Law of Secretaries:

As soon as you get a fresh cup of coffee, the boss will ask
you to do something that will last until the coffee is cold.
Wooden legs are not hereditary; wooden heads are.
There are two kinds of people, the righteous and the

unrighteous, and the righteous do the dividing.
On any project, the real expert is the person who predicts

the highest cost and length of time for the project.
Never try to outwait a bureaucrat.
To decide not to decide is to decide.

To fail to decide is failure.
Crime does not pay but professional criminals are still rich.
( Waka's paradox )
If you kill a man, you are a criminal.

If you kill a hundred, you make a genocide.
If you kill'em all, you are a god.
( Megadeth )
Everibody can do a job usefull ( to him !).
There are more pigs in world then pig buts.

( Waka's conclusion )

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It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object

to realize that you are in a hurry.

it will be found to have been correct in the first place.

recan them is to use a bigger can.

In simple cases, presenting one obvious right way

LAWS OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING:

You can lead a man to slaughter,

Don't get mad, get even.

Spend sufficient time confirming the need and

Clarke's First Law:

The important thing is never to stop questioning.

The ultimate Law:

The Whispered Rule:

Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning

the cycle will repeat itself.

First Postulate of Isomurphism:

MacDonald's Second Law:

First Law of Laboratory Work:

Handy Guide to Modern Science:

To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.

The Sausage Principle:

Never attribute to malice that which is

If things were left to chance,

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

Sin is a dangerous toy in the hands of the virtuous.

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

3. Friendly fire ain't.

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Miltary Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

Murphy's Military Laws:

There are four things that hold back human progress;

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

Finance is the study of money and how it violates

Horwood's Seventh Law:

Horwood's Tenth Law:

The best scale for an experiment is 12 inches to the foot.

The user, the manufacturer, the model, the salesperson,

Sodd's Second Law:

There are two kinds of people in any organization:

will be in inverse proportion to its accuracy.

The greater the cost of putting a plan into operation,

G.B. Shaw's Law:

Variables won't; constants aren't.

The one language spoken by all programmers is profanity.

The only two things a pirate will run for is money

Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.

Ninety percent of everything is crud.

One good turn gets most of the blanket.

A virtual data base is a segment of your imagination.

On a clear disk, you can seek forever.

Octal is just like base 10, really,

Disks travel in packs.