Murphy's 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, 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. Everything takes longer than you think.
5. 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.
6. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
7. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
8. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
9. Mother nature is a bitch.
10. Nothing is as easy as it looks.
11. Every solution breeds new problems.
12. Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.

O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws

Murphy was an optimist.

Murphy's Love Laws

1. All the good ones are taken.
2. If the person isn't taken, there's a reason. (corr. to 1)
3. The nicer someone is, the farther away (s)he is from you.
4. Brains x Beauty x Availability = Constant.
5. The amount of love someone feels for you is inversely proportional to how much you love them.
6. Money can't buy love, but it sure gets you a great bargaining position.
7. The best things in the world are free --- and worth every penny of it.
8. Every kind action has a not-so-kind reaction.
9. Nice guys/girls finish last.
10. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
11. Availability is a function of time. The minute you get interested is the minute they find someone else.

Murphy's Laws of sex

1. The more beautiful the woman is who loves you, the easier it is to leave her with no hard feelings.
2. Nothing improves with age.
3. No matter how many times you've had it, if it's offered take it, because it'll never be quite the same again.
4. Sex has no calories.
5. Sex takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble.
6. There is no remedy for sex but more sex.
7. Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got.
8. No sex with anyone in the same office.
9. Sex is like snow; you never know how many inches you are going to get or how long it is going to last.
10. A man in the house is worth two in the street.
11. If you get them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
12. Virginity can be cured.
13. When a man's wife learns to understand him, she usually stops listening to him.
14. Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
15. The qualities that most attract a woman to a man are usually the same ones she can't stand years later.
16. Sex is dirty only if it's done right.
17. It is always the wrong time of month.
18. The best way to hold a man is in your arms.
19. When the lights are out, all women are beautiful.
20. Sex is hereditary. If your parents never had it, chances are you won't either.
21. Sow your wild oats on Saturday night -- Then on Sunday pray for crop failure.
22. The younger the better.
23. The game of love is never called off on account of darkness.
24. It was not the apple on the tree but the pair on the ground that caused the trouble in the garden.
25. Sex discriminates against the shy and the ugly.
26. Before you find your handsome prince, you've got to kiss a lot of frogs.
27. There may be some things better than sex, and some things worse than sex. But there is nothing exactly like it.
28. Love your neighbor, but don't get caught.
29. Love is a hole in the heart.
30. If the effort that went in research on the female bosom had gone into our space program, we would now be running hot-dog stands on the moon.
31. Love is a matter of chemistry, sex is a matter of physics.
32. Do it only with the best.
33. Sex is a three-letter word which needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning.
34. One good turn gets most of the blankets.
35. You cannot produce a baby in one month by impregnating nine women.
36. Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
37. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
38. Thou shalt not commit adultery.....unless in the mood.
39. Never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you.
40. Abstain from wine, women, and song; mostly song.
41. Never argue with a women when she's tired -- or rested.
42. A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the women he couldn't.
43. What matters is not the length of the wand, but the magic in the stick.
44. It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
45. Never say no.
46. A man can be happy with any woman as long as he doesn't love her.
47. Folks playing leapfrog must complete all jumps.
48. Beauty is skin deep; ugly goes right to the bone.
49. Never stand between a fire hydrant and a dog.
50. A man is only a man, but a good bicycle is a ride.
51. Love comes in spurts.
52. The world does not revolve on an axis.
53. Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation; the other eight are unimportant.
54. Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking.
55. Don't do it if you can't keep it up.
56. There is no difference between a wise man and a fool when they fall in love.
57. Never go to bed mad, stay up and fight.
58. Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
59. "This won't hurt, I promise."

Ginsberg's Theorems

1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't even quit the game.

Forsyth's Second Corollary to Murphy's Laws

Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the roof caves in.

Weiler's Law

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

The Laws of Computer Programming

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 math 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.

Brook's Law

If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set!

Grosch's Law

Computing power increases as the square of the cost.

Golub's Laws of Computerdom

1. Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs.
2. A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned project takes only twice as long.
3. The effort required to correct course increases geometrically with time.
4. Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress.

Osborn's Law

Variables won't; constants aren't.

Gilb's Laws of Unreliability

1. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
2. Any system that depends upon human reliability is unreliable.
3. Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
4. Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.

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 improper 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.

Gummidge's Law

The amount of expertise varies in inverse ratio to the number of statements understood by the general public.

Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving System Dynamics

Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can (old worms never die, they just worm their way into larger cans).

Harvard's Law, as Applied to Computers

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

Sattinger's Law

It works better if you plug it in.

Jenkinson's Law

It won't work.

Wapnitsky's Corrolary to Sattinger and Jenkinson

It won't work even after you plug it in.

Horner's Five Thumb 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.

Zymurg's Seventh Exception to Murphy's Law

When it rains, it pours.

Pudder's Laws

1. Anything that begins well ends badly.
2. Anything that 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 highest 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.

Atwoods Corollary

No books are lost by lending except those you particularly wanted to keep.

Johnson's Third Law

If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue that contains the article, story or installment you were most anxious to read.

Corollary to Johnson's Third Law

All of your friends either missed it, lost it or threw it out.

Harper's Magazine Law

You never find the article until you replace it.

Brooke's Law

Adding manpower to a late software makes it later.

Finagle's Fourth Law

Once a job is fooled 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.