Murphy’s laws origin
The following article was excerpted from The Desert Wings March 3, 1978
Murphy’s Law (“If anything can go wrong, it will”) was born at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949 at North Base. It was named after Capt. Edward A. Murphy, an engineer working on Air Force Project MX981, (a project) designed to see how much sudden deceleration a person can stand in a crash. One day, after finding that a transducer was wired wrong, he cursed the technician responsible and said, “If there is any way to do it wrong, he’ll find it.” The
contractor’s project manager kept a list of “laws” and added this one, which he called Murphy’s Law. Actually, what he did was take an old law that had been around for years in a more basic form and give it a name. Shortly afterwards, the Air Force doctor (Dr. John Paul Stapp) who rode a sled on the deceleration track to a stop, pulling 40 Gs, gave a press conference. He said that their good safety record on the project was due to a firm belief in Murphy’s Law and in the necessity to try and circumvent it. Aerospace manufacturers picked it up and used it widely in their ads during the next few months, and soon it was being quoted in many news and magazine articles. Murphy’s Law was born.
The Northrop project manager, George E. Nichols, had a few laws of his own. Nichols’ Fourth Law says, “Avoid any action with an unacceptable outcome.”
The doctor, well-known Col. John P. Stapp, had a paradox: Stapp’s Ironical Paradox, which says, “The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle.”
Nichols is still around. At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, he’s the quality control manager for the Viking project to send an unmanned spacecraft to Mars.
Murphy’s Law or Sod’s Law?
While I admit that the name of Murphy’s laws is a pleasant one as is the story of how it came to light, but the original name for ‘if anything can go wrong it will’ was sod’s law because it would happen to any poor sod who needed such a catastrophic event the least. It also removes the ability to say “I coined this phrase!” because sod’s law has been around long before any living man and has existed in many forms for hundreds of years. In the English County of Yorkshire I know it to have been around for generations because it has been passed through several Yorkshire families I know. But this original name is dying out because sod over here is a cursory so is not used much. Murphy’s on the other hand is nothing insulting or lacking in hope I hope this clears any problems up and while this maybe hard to come to terms with, think about it, would such an obvious piece of logic have only come about in the second half of the 20th century????
Chris Monkman In the late 1960’s I read an article that was photocopied from a magazine where I saw the term “Murphy’s Law” coined. Should I say, I believe the term was coined in this article. It had a photo of a bearded man in the upper right corner. The article began simply by describing all the things that had gone wrong in Murphy’s life. Near the end of the first section of the article it described the formalization of Murphy’s Law, as Murphy was waiting for the pending birth of his first child.
Later in the article other formulations/corollaries of Murphy’s law were described. The most memorable one was the mathematical formulation. It was pictured in the text as 1 + 1 -> 2, where the -> was a hand with the index finger pointing to the right. The text defined -> as “hardly every equals”.
What prompted me to write this was the foot note on this page, where the author of this comment indicated that the law was not formalized at Edwards Air Force Base, but rather another source. To the best of my memory, it was in or about the fall of 1968, I saw the photo copied article that presented Murphy’s Law. I do not remember the magazine or it’s date.
What lead me to this site was the quest for the article described above. To my suprise and disappointment, no one has included the article.
I would be interesting to publish this description and see if anyone else remembers the article or any other facts that would help find it.
Joe Smith One more thing about the origin of Murphy Law
One important fact about Murphy’s Law was that it was not actually coined by Murphy, but by another man of the same name.
Michael Another thing about the origin of Murphy Law
can anyone originate a law? I thought that they could only be discovered Erin How Mr. Murphy died:
One dark evening (in the U.S.), Mr. Murphy’s car ran out of gas. As he hitchhiked to a gas station, while facing traffic and wearing white, he was struck from behind by a British tourist who was driving on the wrong side of the road.
Terry Maynard Another story about the origin of Murphy’s Law
Commander J. Murphy USN was a procurement officer for the US Navy in the 1930’s.
He was in charge of the procurement of aircraft. When monitoring the design and development of new aircraft, he tried to instill simplicity of maintenance into the likes of Douglas and Grumman. Apparently one of his most belabored expressions was:
”If an aircraft fitter on one of our carriers can re-install a serviced component wrongly, then one day he will.”
Gradually, this got changed into the more familiar version we know today, according to the version on the origin of Murphy’s Law I heard. Incidentally, a lot of Brits think that Murphy’s Law is an Irish joke. Murphy is an Irish name of course, and the Irish have been the butt of jokes from Brits for a long time. Anyway, a lot of Brits seem to think that what Murphy’s Law refers to is that the Irish are to blame for things going wrong because they are careless or stupid or both, at least according to British mythology on the Irish.
Murphy’s laws
•
If anything can go wrong, it will
MacGillicuddy’s Corollary: At the most inopportune time
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong
• If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway
• 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
Corollary: It will be impossible to fix the fifth fault, without breaking the fix on one or more of the others
• Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse
• If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something
• Nature always sides with the hidden flaw
Corollary: The hidden flaw never stays hidden for long.
• Mother nature is a bitch.
• Murphy’s Law of Thermodynamics
Things get worse under pressure.
• The Murphy Philosophy
Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.
• Quantization Revision of Murphy’s Laws
Everything goes wrong all at once.
• Murphy’s Constant
• Murphy’s Law of Research
Enough research will tend to support whatever theory.
• Research supports a specific theory depending on the amount of funds dedicated to it.
• Addition to Murphy’s Laws
In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going right ... something is wrong.
• More Laws
• Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
• It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
• Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
• Rule of Accuracy: When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.
Corollary: Provided, of course, that you know there is a problem.
• Nothing is as easy as it looks.
• Everything takes longer than you think.
• Everything takes longer than it takes.
• If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
• Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
• Every solution breeds new problems.
• The legibility of a copy is inversely proportional to its importance.
• No matter how perfect things are made to appear, Murphy’s law will take effect and screw it up.
• You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.
• The chance of the buttered side of the bread falling face down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
• More Laws of Selective Gravitation.
• A falling object will always land where it can do the most damage.
• A shatterproof object will always fall on the only surface hard enough to crack or break it.
• A paint drip will always find the hole in the newspaper and land on the carpet underneath (and will not be discovered until it has dried).
• A dropped power tool will always land on the concrete instead of the soft ground (if outdoors) or the carpet (if indoors) - unless it is running, in which case it will fall on something it can damage (like your foot).
• If a dish is dropped while removing it from the cupboard, it will hit the sink, breaking the dish and chipping or denting the sink in the process.
• A valuable dropped item will always fall into an inaccessible place (a diamond ring down the drain, for example) - or into the garbage disposal while it is running.
• If you use a pole saw to saw a limb while standing on an aluminum ladder borrowed from your neighbor, the limb will fall in such a way as to bend the ladder before it knocks you to the ground.
• If you pick up a chunk of broken concrete and try to pitch it into an adjacent lot, it will hit a tree limb and come down right on the driver’s side of your car
• More Laws of Selective Gravitation were sent by Jack from the Classic CKLW Page
• The greater the value of the rug, the greater the probability that the cat will throw up on it.
• You will always find something in the last place you look.
• If you’re looking for more than one thing, you’ll find the most important one last.
• It is never in the last place you look. It is in the first place you look, but never discovered on the first attempt.
• After you bought a replacement for something you’ve lost and searched for everywhere, you’ll find the original.
• You have to look where you lost it.
• No matter how long or how hard you shop for an item, after you’ve bought it, it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.
• The other line always moves faster.
• In order to get a loan, you must first prove you don’t need it.
• Anything you try to fix will take longer and cost you more than you thought.
• If you fool around with a thing for very long you will screw it up.
• If it jams - force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.
• When a broken appliance is demonstrated for the repairman, it will work perfectly.
• Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it.
• Everyone has a scheme for getting rich that will not work.
• In any hierarchy, each individual rises to his own level of incompetence, and then remains there.
• There’s never time to do it right, but there’s always time to do it over.
• When in doubt, mumble. When in trouble, delegate.
• Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral or fattening.
• Murphy’s golden rule: whoever has the gold makes the rules.
• A Smith & Wesson beats four aces.
• In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
• Never argue with a fool, people might not know the difference.
• Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.
• No good deed goes unpunished.
• Where patience fails, force prevails..
• Erma Bombeck
”Anything dropped in the bathroom will fall in the toilet..
• Heisenberg indetermination principle applied to ill luck: The better you know the amount of ill luck that will strike you, the worse you know when this will happen,
and vice-versa.
and Relativistic correction of Murphy’s law:
Whether things can go wrong or not, it depends on your frame of reference. Corollary (otherwise said: ill luck is actually absolute):
Regardless of your frame of reference, things will go wrong anyway.
• If you think you are doing the right thing, chances are it will back-fire in your face.
• When waiting for traffic, chances are that when one lane clears the other is congested.
• Just when you think things cannot get any worse, they will.
• Remember the “Boomer-rang” effect; Whatever you do will always come back.
• If you re-act to actions, you’ve acted on actions.
• He who angers you controls you, there-fore you have no control over your anger.
• Any time you put an item in a “safe place”, it will never be seen again.
• Your best golf shots always occur when playing alone.
• The worst golf shots always occur when playing with someone you are trying to impress.
• No matter how hard you try, you cannot push a string.
(getting everyone in the family to the car at the same time for example)
• The fish are always biting....yesterday!
• You will never leave a parking space without someone in an adjacent space leaving at the same time.
• The cost of the hair do is directly related to the strength of the wind.
• Great ideas are never remembered and dumb statements are never forgotten.
• The clothes washer/dryer will only eat one of each pair of socks.,
• When you see light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel will cave in. Or in another version
The light at the end of the tunnel is a train
• Being dead right, won’t make you any less dead. and
Having the right of way, won’t make you any less dead. Sent by anonymous
• Whatever you want, you can’t have, what you can have, you don’t want.
• Whatever you want to do, is Not possible, what ever is possible for you to do, you don’t want to do it.
• Traffic is inversely proportional to how late you are, or are going to be.
• The complexity and frustration factor is inversely proportional to how much time you have left to finish, and how important it is.
• Crespins law of observation:
the probability of being observed is in direct proportion to the stupidity of ones actions
• If you go to bed with an itchy ass, you wake up with smelly fingers.
• A knowledge of Murphy’s Law is no help in any situation.
• If you apply Murphy’s Law, it will no longer be applicable.
• If you say something, and stake your reputation on it, you will lose your reputation.
• no matter where I go, there I am
• Where patience fails, force prevails.
• Murphy’s Law Current Revision
Any thing that can go wrong, HAS Already Gone Wrong! You just haven’t been notified.
• The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” but “That’s funny...”
Said by Isaac Asimov
• A former colleague of Russell Cooper once claimed that Murphy had plagiarized his “Gamble’s Law” which says that “The letter box is always on the other side of the road”
• If many things can go wrong, they will all go wrong at the same time.
• If anything can go wrong, it will happen to the crankiest person.
• Waxman’s Law:
Everything tastes more or less like chicken.
• Skarstad’s Observation
You will never find any more loose change than you have already lost.
• If authority was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
• all good things come to those who wait...
but , don’t wait too long or they will pass you by... like 2 ships that pass in the night...
never again to return that same exact site.
• If anything was worth doing, it would’ve already been done. Corollary: Nothing is worth doing.
• You can do anything except light a paper match on a marshmallow under wate
• Ants will always infest the nearest food cupboard.
• Long’s Law
Those who know the least will always know it the loudest.
• McFalls’ Maxim
No degree of acceptance can ever change the facts.
Translation: You may come to terms with being screwed, but nevertheless you’re still screwed.
• Hunter’s Corollary to Murphy’s Law: Things always go from bad to worse.
• Hunter’s Observation on Beauty:
Beauty is only skin deep, fashion even shallower.
• Hunter’s Observation on Experts:
An expert is someone with an opinion and a word processor.
• Hunter’s Observation on Sugarcoating:
All pornography is air-brushed or computer-enhanced.
• Hunter’s Observation on hypocrites:
A person without values or standards can never be a hypocrite.
• Hunter’s Observation on Education and Oz:
”We can give you a diploma, but we can’t give you a brain.”
• Sgt. Murphy’s Law
Don’t get into a pissing contest with a skunk.
• The Law of Stupid Tricks
Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
• Garbage abhors a vacuum. It will grow to fill available space. Corollary: The more space you have, the more junk you’ll have.
• Things are never as good as they are bad.
• Chaos always wins, because it’s better organized.
• The Wingwalker’s Rule:
Don’t let go of something until you have a hold of something else. Sent by D. Kinloch.
• A bird in the hand is messy.
• The mud that won’t come off on the doormat immediately adheres to the carpet.
• When you wear new shoes for the first time, everyone will step on them.
• If Murphy’s law is correct, everything East of the San Andreas Fault will slide int
• If Murphy’s Law can go wrong it will.
• Cheer up, the worst is yet to come...
• If at first you don’t succeed destroy all evidence that you ever tried.
• Mrs. Murphy’s Law:
If anything can go wrong it will go wrong when Mr. Murphy is out of town....
• If all else fails, hit it with a big hammer.
• Warneke Law
You cannot force Murphy’s Law to happen and you can’t use it in reverse.
• When something goes wrong, you cannot find the solution in the instruction booklet, but someone else always does.
• Everything in life is important, important things are simple, simple things are never easy.
Think about it, complete the circle.
• The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, the pessimist fears this is true.
• You will find an easy way to do it, after you’ve finished doing it.
• Hofstadter’s Law:
It always takes longer than you think, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.
• In Las Vegas, wherever you want to go in a casino, it’s as far as possible from where you are, no matter where you are.
• The wind will always blow opposite to your hairdo
• Wind velocity increases directly with the cost of the hairdo.
• The probability of the toast landing peanut-butter-side-down is directly proportionate to the cost of the carpeting.
• Laundry Math:1 Washer + 1 Dryer + 2 Socks = 1 Sock
• Window polishing:
It’s always on the other side.
• Hall’s Law:
Anyone who isn’t paranoid simply isn’t paying attention.
• A valuable falling in a hard to reach place will be exactly at the distance of the tip of your fingers.
• If a valuable falls in a hard to reach place at a distance shorter than the tip of your finger, as soon as you try to reach it you’ll push it to that distance.
• If it looks good, And it taste good, And it feels good,
There has got to be something wrong some where, So be careful.
• Two heads are better than one, even if one is a sheep head.
• The probability of rain is inversely proportional to the size of the umbrella you carry around with you all day.
• No matter how hard you try, every once in a while, something is going right.
• Behind every little problem there’s a larger problem, waiting for the little problem to get out of the way.
• When you really need something, its either not available, or can’t be found. When you don’t need it, its either available, or lays around in plain sight.
• Whenever you cut your finger nails, you find a need for them an hour later.
• Law of Conservation of Filth:
In order for something to get clean, something else must get dirty. Conclusion to the Law of Conservation of Filth:
It is possible for everything to get dirty and nothing to get clean.
• The file you are looking for is always at the bottom of the largest pile.
• Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself.
• Gumperson’s Law:
The likelihood of something happening is in inverse proportion to the desirability of it happening.
• Uffelman’s Razor:
[Given Murphy’s law, ...] One should not attribute to evil design any unfortunate result which can be attributed to error. A mistake (or series of mistakes) is the simpler and more likely explanation.
Conspiracy Corollary to Uffelman’s Razor:
Nothing should be attributed to conspiracy that can be explained by error or a succession of errors.
o Example 1: The alleged conspiracy to “fake” the Apollo moon landing.
Such an undertaking would be so likely to result in multiple glitches that it would be nearly impossible to pull off. Thus, conspiracy is an unlikely explanation of events. Accordingly, the “evidence” of the “faked” landing is more likely a result of the errors of those interpreting the evidence than of the evil design of the alleged conspirators.
o Example 2: The Warren Report.
Any open questions in the Warren Report are more likely the result of the errors of the Warren commission, or the errors of those interpreting the Warren Report, than the result of a conspiracy to cover up the true facts.
• Probability law:
Probabilities serve only and exclusively to determine the degree of improbability of the catastrophes that actually take place.
Corollary: If something is likely to happen AND desirable, it won’t happen.
• Common Sense Is Not So Common
• Power Is Taken... Not Given
• Two wrongs don’t make a right. It usually takes three or four.
• If the truth is in your favor no one will believe you.
• Laws are like a spider web, in that it snares the poor and weak while the rich and powerful brake them.
Solon, ancient Greece
• key to happiness is to be O.K. with not being O.K.
• The two most abundant things in all the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
• Stupidity is the fundamental driving force of the Universe, which explains why stupid people always go wrong.
• Every rule has an exception except the Rule of Exceptions.
• If your action has a 50% possibility of being correct, you will be wrong 75% of the time.
• If you plan for something to go wrong, and it doesn’t go wrong, it would have been ultimately profitable for it to go wrong.
• Common sense isn’t.
• The difference between Stupidity and Genius is that Genius has its limits.
• The universe is great enough for all possibilities to exist.
• Those who don’t take decisions never make mistakes.
• The only price you pay for greatness is knowing that it can’t last forever.
• Anything that cant possible in a million years go wrong, will go wrong.
• Anything that seems right, is putting you into a false sense of security.
• If everything seems great, its already gone wrong.
• The only time you’re right, is when its about being wrong.
• The only times something’s right, is when everyone agrees its wrong.
• If a Murphy law is tried to be used to have a desired outcome, the law will backfire.
• Its never so bad it couldn’t be worse.
• Murphy’s Metalaw
Knowing Murphy’s Law will never help.
• Occult Principle of Murphism
To know Murphy’s Law is to draw its attention.
• Avoidance Law
If for some reason Murphy’s Law fails to operate, it is building up for something big.
• Hermetic Murphism As above, so below.
• The big catastrophes are made up of smaller ones.
• Buddha’s Version of Murphy’s Law
Decay is inherent in all things, strive unceasingly.
• Fleming’s corollary: Nothing ever gets better.
• Murphologist’s Curse
Given time one can develop a sense of how Murphy’s Law will act, but the Murphy Sense will tingle only after it is too late to keep the excreta from impacting the rotating blade based wind generator.
• The probability that something can go wrong is directly proportional to the square of the amount of inconvenience it can cause you
• Everything that could possibly go wrong for anyone else always seems to happen to you
• Law of cooperatives
In any particular situation, if three things can go wrong, they usually do in sequence, each facilitating the occurrence of the next
• Mr. Murphy warning:
Don’t mess with Mrs. Murphy
• Mrs. Murphy’s Law:
If something goes wrong, it’s Mr. Murphy’s fault.
• Mrs. Murphy’s Law
If anything can go wrong it will, and when it does, the woman will get the blame
• Lewis’ Axiom
The person ahead of you in the queue, will have the most complex transaction possible
• Every problem is replaceable with a bigger one.
• Another name for Murphy’s law: The law of conservation of misery
• Carvalheiro’s deduction
If in a particular circumstance Murphy’s law don’t apply, then something must be wrong
• Sharad’s Law
If Murphy’s law is right then it will go wrong
• A law about websites:
The more important it is to get to a website, the greater the chance the server is down.
• Laws about this site:
The More the number of laws you claim to have, the more the number of laws you are going to miss.
• This site won’t open when you want to show someone what exactly Murphy laws are
• Remember: Shit happens
• Murphy’s law is intrinsic.
• And on the eighth day God said;”O.K. Murphy, you take over!
• Larry Niven’s summary of Murphy’s Law:
The perversity of the universe tends to a maximum.
• The road to success is always under construction
• and never forget O’Toole’s Corollary or Sod’s Law or
McGillicuddy Law
Murphy was an optimist
Well, there are a lot of people who think he was an optimist, aren’t there? Or in other words:
someone else always seems to get the credit for your work.
The harder you work the more people there will be to claim credit except when it backfires.
You get all the credit for the dumb move.
• And we’ll end this page with something optimistic (don’t hit me).
Don’t worry about Murphy’s Law, you know it’s gonna happen anyway, so just get on with it and get it over with!
• The humor of Murphy’s Law leaves you laughing at the end of the day. If you make it through a Murphy Day...you win!
Murphy’s love laws
• All the good ones are taken.
• If the person isn’t taken, there’s a reason.
• The nicer someone is, the farther away (s)he is from you.
• Brains x Beauty x Availability = Constant. This constant is always zero.
• The amount of love someone feels for you is inversely proportional to how much you love them.
• Money can’t buy love, but it sure gets you a great bargaining position.
• The best things in the world are free --- and worth every penny of it.
• Every kind action has a not-so-kind reaction.
• Nice guys (girls) finish last.
• The good ones die first.
• If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
• Availability is a function of time. The minute you get interested is the minute they find someone else.
• The more beautiful the woman is who loves you, the easier it is to leave her with no hard feelings.
• Nothing improves with age.
• No matter how many times you’ve had it, if it’s offered take it, because it’ll never be quite the same again.
• Sex has no calories.
• Sex takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble.
• There is no remedy for sex but more sex.
• Sex appeal is 50% what you’ve got and 50% what people think you’ve got.
• No sex with anyone in the same office.
• Sex is like snow; you never know how many inches you are going to get or how long it is going to last.
• A man in the house is worth two in the street.
• If you get them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
• Virginity can be cured.
• When a man’s wife learns to understand him, she usually stops listening to him.
• Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
• The qualities that most attract a woman to a man are usually the same ones she can’t stand years later.
• Sex is dirty only if it’s done right.
• It is always the wrong time of month.
• The best way to hold a man is in your arms.
• Sex is hereditary. If your parents never had it, chances are you won’t either.
• Sow your wild oats on Saturday night—Then on Sunday pray for crop failure.
• The game of love is never called off on account of darkness.
• It was not the apple on the tree but the pair on the ground that caused the trouble in the garden.
• Sex discriminates against the shy and the ugly.
• Before you find your handsome prince, you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs.
• There may be some things better than sex, and some things worse than sex. But there is nothing exactly like it.
• Love your neighbor, but don’t get caught.
• Love is a hole in the heart.
• 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.
• Love is a matter of chemistry, sex is a matter of physics.
• Do it only with the best.
• Sex is a three-letter word which needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning.
• One good turn gets most of the blankets.
• You cannot produce a baby in one month by impregnating nine women.
• Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
• It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Anonymous comment:
The person who said that it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all...NEVER loved and lost!
• Thou shalt not commit adultery...unless in the mood.
• Never lie down with a woman who’s got more troubles than you.
• Abstain from wine, women, and song; mostly song.
• Never argue with a women when she’s tired—or rested.
• A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the women he couldn’t.
• What matters is not the length of the wand, but the magic in the stick.
• It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
• Never say no.
• A man can be happy with any woman as long as he doesn’t love her.
• Folks playing leapfrog must complete all jumps.
• Beauty is skin deep; ugly goes right to the bone.
• Never stand between a fire hydrant and a dog.
• A man is only a man, but a good bicycle is a ride.
• Love comes in spurts.
• The world does not revolve on an axis.
• Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation; the other eight are unimportant.
• Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking.
• Don’t do it if you can’t keep it up.
• There is no difference between a wise man and a fool when they fall in love.
• Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
• “This won’t hurt, I promise.”
• Nothing improves with age.
• An ex-wife/husband will always be “till death do us part”.
• When a man wants his wife to hear, she doesn’t listen.
When that same man doesn’t want his wife to hear, she’s all ears.
• It’s always easier to get a partner if you already have one.
• Although it may seem like that on the outside, no one is having fun being single
• If you’re heart is broken, sweep up the pieces.
There will always be someone who will want to put it back together.
• Love and high-school must NEVER go together.
• If a man speaks deep in the forest and there is no woman there to hear him; is he still wrong?
• Show me a husband who won’t, I’ll show you a neighbor who will
• It doesn’t matter HOW good it was, if you end up worrying or regretting it, it was bad sex
• You get the best sex from the worst one for you
• Never trust a woman who acts like you are so sexy she can’t help herself but drag you to bed
• No one is as fascinating as they think
• If you believe a relationship can’t work, but feel the need to try, it won’t. Corollary: You will later find out that your lack of belief caused it to fail.
• The duration of a relationship to a person is inversely proportionate to the importance of person to you.
• The Key to a woman’s heart is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time. Sent by Finding Forrester.
• The two thing no man can ever understand; Women and what makes all men complete damm fools over women.
• Love makes believers of us all.
Translation: Love obscures common sense.
• Being taken attracts women. Being single makes them avoid you like the plague.
• If you go behind a girl you are heading to trouble.
• In the eternal battle of the sexes, women are already the winners.
• When with your girlfriend you will always have gas.
• Celibacy is not heredity.
• The hornier someone is, the less likely that it will be they have sex. Corollary Horniness is inversely related to one’s chance of scoring
• The man shalt not win the argument he started
• The man shalt not win the argument he didn’t start
• If a man won an argument, it was just in his head
• (for the ladies) Try and try as you might, there will still be times where men are just assholes. We can’t help it and we’re sorry
• A love will tell you they love you endlessly. A true love will tell everyone else they love you endlessly despite the embarrassment factor
• When all else fails, have hope
• In Romance; and in Finance we play with Figures.
• A cauliflower resembles a rose, if your eyesight is not 6/6
• Before falling in love do take your backup, it always helps in recovery.
• if a man has it he won’t want it, the guy who buys it won’t use it,
the guy who uses it could give a shit about it, so don’t give a shit and you will have it all.
• Love has all the answers. But till then sex brings up some good questions.
• Sex on the TV can’t hurt you unless you fall off.
• Anticipation is 98% of the pleasure
• The amount of members of the opposite sex you pursue is inversely proportional to pretty much everything about you, such as intelligence.
• If you are interested in someone, a close friend will grab their attention. This is especially likely if they:
A.) Don’t want the attention of said person and/or B.) Are already dating someone else
• The ABC rule:
If A is attracted to B, and you are attracted to C, A has a better chance with B than you do with C.
B and C are often the same person.
• The uglier the girl the closer she lives.
• If any things will happen on the first date, you won’t have a condom.
• The size of the pencil is not as important as the quality of the writing. Corollaries: The quality of the writing is affected by the quality of the paper. Regardless of how well one writes, it is difficult to write at all unless there is lead in the pencil.
• Marriage is the greatest leveler.
• Girls are like toilet rooms. Either it is taken, or full of sh*t.
• If you’re having difficulties choosing between potential two girls, you’ll always pick the wrong one.
• If it seems perfect today, tomorrow it will end.
• If a girl tell you “let’s stay friends”, she won’t call ever again. If you call, she won’t answer.
• You’ll always catch fever before the first date.
• Never make love in your back garden. Love is blind, but not your neighbors. Or in another version:
Don’t make love by the garden gate, love is blind but the neighbors ain’t.
• Love is blind. Marriage is an eye opener
• When it comes to love and lost, doing the right thing always hurts.
• Being honest with someone will always turn that person into an enemy.
• When you’re girlfriend says that you have to talk the relationship is over.
• The day you decide to tell you’re girlfriend you could not live without her she will leave you the next day.
• You’re best friend stop being you’re best friend the instant a beautiful woman walks in and you both are attracted to her.
• When she says: “Don’t buy me anything expensive” and you listen, expect to be single.
• Even the most beautiful woman in the world has at least one guy who is tired of her.
• If you marry a beautiful girl she’ll turn into her mother. If you marry a plain girl she’ll turns into her dad.
• Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. But they never said anything about their daughter.
• The mother of the man, or the father of the woman you love will invariably hate you.
• The best men (or women) are always taken—or crazy.
• When you take your time getting ready your date will arrive 20 min. early; when you’re on time they’re 30 min. late.
• As soon as you break up the man (or woman) who couldn’t commit TO YOU will get married.
• A good women/men are like parking spots, all the good ones are taken.
• Procrastination is a lot like masturbation, it feels good until you realize your just fucking yourself
Last two laws were sent by Ryan Shuck
• Women are like boats: they require constant maintenance and attention, and they cost a lot of money.
Men are like buses: another one will eventually come along. Sent by Neil
• Never forget: Don’t fuck with Mrs. Murphy! Sent by Dave Holloway
• Kracke/Malenka Law:
Good from far, far from good.
• Walter/Kerwin Law:
Any good looking person you see that isn’t alone, will be accompanied by a person of the opposite sex who doesn’t deserve to be with them.
The last two laws were sent by Warneke
• The length of a relationship is directly related to how much you are attracted to your significant other best friend.
• No woman\men is better than two The last two laws were sent by Bangi
• Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question - YES is the answer. Sent by Ross Henderson
• Romanceis when common sense flies out of the window.
• Being told your the nicest guy they know is the kiss of death. Sent by Ryan Shuck
• Everybody is most horny when alone. Sent by Timothy Boilard
• Beauty is directly proportional to the number of drinks consumed.
Corollary: Beauty is also directly related to the time remaining until last call.
• The other side lawyers are always better then yours. The last two laws were sent by Murphy
• the partner you want don’t want you. The ones that want you are not made for you.
Sent by Argiris
• Any “Why” question, has no answer, and if it does, that answer is not logical. Sent by Alexandra
• Love will cause people to do stupid things.
• Loving someone to much may be cause for a restraining order.
• If you love a person let them go. If they don’t come back they weren’t worth it.
• Sex ends all interest.
• Cute now equal annoying later.
The last five laws were sent by Nicolina DiRuscio
• Not everything takes longer than you expect. Sent by Suresh
• It’s only kinky the first time you do it. Sent by Brian Clinton
• Halmos law:
To get your significant other you need: Time. Money and Energy. The sum of the three is constant.
If you are short of one of them, you need quite a lot of the remaining two. If you are short of two of them, you need tremendous amount of the remaining one.
If you are short of all the three, no hope. Otherwise the result is always success. Sent by Tony Halmos. Age: 67
• The love of your life will only want you back once you are in another serious relationship.
Sent by Ana M.
• You don’t pay for sex, you pay him/her to leave after you’re done. Sent by Ryan Shuck
• Beaches law:
If you think a girl is beautiful, her boyfriend will always be there to confirm it.
• Seduction law:
Your seduction potential is inversely proportional to your willingness to seduce The last two laws were sent by Sylvain Galibert
• The most intelligent statements will be thought of at the most inappropriate times. (i.e. during a make out session, strike up a law of Quantum physics, thus
demonstrating that you are not interested in the other person). Sent by David Poole
• You never truly know a significant other until you meet him/her in a court of law.
• No matter how beautiful/wonderful s/he may seem to be, there’s always someone out there that’s sick and tired of his/her s**t too.
The last two laws were sent by Bob.
• The boyfriend of the girl you like is a ... Sent by C
• If (s)he wants to dump you, (s)he will find a reason. or
If (s)he wants to dump you, (s)he will. Sent by Anjana G. Ranasooriya
• (wo)man = time + money time = money
(wo)man = money2
Money = √evil (money is root of evil) man = evil
Sent by AFsoldier
I know the math here doesn’t hold. but it’s funny, so I’ll leave it here.
• Marriage is like a dog with a bone, he might not touch it, just doesn’t let another dogs come near it.
Sent by Airbornemonty
• Everything that glitters, is not WET. Sent by Ashish Chandra
• When you finally bed the attractive blond/e, s/he’ll nick your wallet and watch. Unless you owe him/her fifty quid.
Sent by Ed Smith
• Marriage is the ending of a perfectly good sex life Sent by askingduncan
• Albert Einstein Gravity Law
Gravity cannot be held responsible for 2 people falling in love. Sent by John A. Oxford
• The difference between love and the common cold is that for the common cold there is a vaccine.
Sent by Takura Razemba
• The Tommy Lee/Pamela Anderson law for celebrity couple Persona-polarization: The most beautiful women in the world, always marry the most ugly men.
The Carmen Electra/ Dennis Rodman corollary
The most beautiful men in the world ALSO marry the most ugly AND most crazy men in the world.
Sent by Bob Schreib Jr.
• If you love her/him, s/he doesn’t love you
• If you are in love, he/she isn’t
• If you want love, you don’t get it
• If a beautiful wo/man loves you, it’s fake
• If you are happy together, wait till you are married The last five laws were sent by Stefan Farkas
• It’s always the quiet ones that have the two dozen corpses in their basements. Sent by Bo Zhang
• love can be your best friend and/or your worst enemy Sent by Jennifer W.
• Wedding cake cures nymphomania. Sent by Juggy
• Everyone believe in love, but wonder if it exists Sent by Sushil Choudhari
• You may get off on a cheap hooker but you can’t get off on a cheap lawyer Sent by Ryan Shuck
• The one thing that will almost certainly come between two friends is a girl Sent by Aditya
• The sexier a man is, the better the chances that he is gay Sent by M.
• Being told that someone doesn’t want to date you because you’re such a good friend, is like being told that you didn’t get the job because you’re overqualified Sent by Vin Burgh
• When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow Sent by Joe Fox
• the girl/boyfriend who says s/he is... isn’t Sent by Micah Tolbert
• You don’t fall in love, you fall in a hole. The depth of the hole is proportionate to how oblivious you are of the fall.
Sent by R. Jones
• The best way to get over a woman...is to get over another Sent by Huzaifa Ayaz
• You always need a more patient partner no matter how patient s/he is Sent by Aman J Singh
• Even when a man is listening, he’s gonna get it wrong. Sent by Cy Hilterman
• Absence makes the heart go wander. Sent by ???
• The person you want the most will end up with the person you hate the most.
• If you get it, it will be taken away.
The last two laws were sent by Peter V. Garalde
• The perfection of a person is proportional to how much you love him/her.
• The imperfection of a person is proportional to how much you hate him/her. The last two laws were sent by Safwan Aumari
• Rebillot’s Law of Infertility:
You never know that you’re infertile until you try to fertilize.
• In any married couple, both members think that they will be the first one to die, which means that at least 50% of the people will be wrong.
The last two laws were sent by John Rebillot
• You’ll think of a great line to say to someone the moment after your chance is gone.
Sent by Adrian Piñeiro
Murphy’s technology laws
• Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
• Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
• If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
• The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of the firm.
• The attention span of a computer is only as long as it electrical cord.
• An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
• Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he’ll have to touch to be sure. great
discoveries are made by mistake.
• Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.
• Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
• All’s well that ends.
• A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.
• The first myth of management is that it exists.
• A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.
• New systems generate new problems.
• To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
• We don’t know one millionth of one percent about anything.
• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clark
• A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make.
• Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss putting in an honest day’s work.
• Some people manage by the book, even though they don’t know who wrote the book or even what book.
• The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman.
• To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most.
• After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.
• Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.
• A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
• If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number.
• Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
• .Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into a “Pearl Harbor File.”
• Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
• The more cordial the buyer’s secretary, the greater the odds that the competition already has the order.
• In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be totaled correctly after 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The correct total will become self-evident at 8:15 a.m. on Monday.
• Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. And scratch where it itches.
• All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.
• The only perfect science is hind-sight.
• Work smarder and not harder and be careful of yor speling.
• If it’s not in the computer, it doesn’t exist.
• If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
• When all else fails, read the instructions.
• If there is a possibility of several things going wrong the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
• Everything that goes up must come down. Corollary: Not always
The corollary was sent by the Dark Templar
• Any instrument when dropped will roll into the least accessible corner.
• Any simple theory will be worded in the most complicated way.
• Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.
• The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the level of management.
• A difficult task will be halted near completion by one tiny, previously insignificant detail.
• There is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.
• The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches.
• If there is ever the possibility of several things to go wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
Sent by - Anthony Johnson
• If something breaks, and it stops you from doing something, it will be fixed when you:
1. no longer need it
2. are in the middle of something else
3. don’t want it to be fixed, because you really don’t want to do what you were supposed to do
• Each profession talks to itself in it’s own language, apparently there is no Rosetta Stone
• The more urgent the need for a decision to be made, less apparent become the identity of the decision maker
The last two laws were sent by - Foes Arvin
• It is never wise to let a piece of electronic equipment know that you are in a hurry. Sent by - Charles L. Mays
• Don’t fix something that ain’t broke, ‘cause you’ll break it and you still can’t fix it
• You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track. Chong Kwong Sheng addition:
Only by the splatter of the blood stains
The last two laws were sent by Chong Kwong Sheng
• Dobie’s Dogma:
If you are not thoroughly confused, you have not been thoroughly informed. Sent by Richard Bobbitt
• A screw will never fit a nut.
• Standard parts are not.
The last two laws were sent by Kent Berg
• When working on a motor vehicle engine, any tool dropped will land directly under the center of the engine.
Sent by king Ed
• Interchangeable tapes won’t. Sent by Jeff Webb
• Never trust modern technology. Trust it only when it is old technology. Sent by The High Rabbit
• The bolt that is in the most awkward place will always be the one with the tightest thread.
Sent by Stan Gajda
• The most ominous phrase in science: “_Uh_-oh . . .” Sent by Yael Dragwyla
• The 2nd worst thing you can hear the tech say is “Oops!” The worst thing you can
hear the tech say is “oh s**t!”
• Any example of hardware/software can be made fool-proof. It cannot, however, be made damn-fool-proof.
The last two laws were sent by Guy Dunn
• The Rossemblat Graphic Insult Theory:
When any technological change is made, we have a graphic insult curve. No mater how high the insult curve climb, the important thing is how long it goes. Sent by Leon Rossemblat
• Bahaman’s Law:
for any given software, the moment you manage to master it, a new version of that software appears.
Sent by Bahaman. Yakko’s addition:
The new version always manages to change the one feature you need most. Sent by Yakko
• In today’s fast-moving tech environment, it is a requirement that we forget more than we learn.
Sent by Beverly Harris
• It is simple to make something complex, and complex to make it simple. Sent by Fred Buterbaugh
• Measurements will be quoted in the least practical unit; velocity, for example, will be measured in ‘furlongs-per-fortnight’.
• In electronics repair the part with the highest failure rate will always be located in the least accessible area of the equipment.
Sent by Richard
• Multi-million pound technology is worthless in the hands of morons. Sent by Danny
• The rule of Protection:
If you install a 50¢ fuse to protect a 100$ component, the 100$ component will blow to protect the 50¢ fuse.
Sent by Bob Holdener
• Karl Imhoff was a German engineer who developed sewage treatment systems in the early 1900’s. His biggest contribution was the Imhoff Tank, which allows sewage to settle. The Imhoff Law relates to bosses everywhere. The law goes as follows:
The largest chunks always rise to the top. Sent by P R Suhr
• High tech man-year = 730 people trying to finish a project before lunch. Sent by Eric
• An expert will always state the obvious. Sent by Lawman
• The boss is always right.
Corollary: If the boss is wrong, refer back to the rule. Sent by RC
• On a cruise ship, the one, most important part you don’t have in stock always breaks on a Friday evening, just when you left harbor and the next time you will be in harbor is a Sunday or Christmas eve.
Sent by Jouni Sironen - a long time sound & light technician on cruise ships.
• The chance a copy machine will brake down is proportional to the importance of the material that needs to be copied and inversely proportional to the amount of time till the material will be needed.
Sent by Timothy Boilard
• Maintenance department neglect customer’s complains till it starts installations in customer’s new projects.
Sent by Khaled
• Murphy’s Law on HVAC systems:
An HVAC (Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning) engineering firm, will invariably lease office space in a building with a lousy HVAC system.
Sent by Michael W. Murphy who has worked in 6 HVAC firm offices and can back this law up.
All the engineers can do is shiver or sweat and moan about it, and say how they would fix it if the building owner actually gave a damn.
• The probability any machine breaks down increases with the importance of expected visit.
Sent by Asier Zabarte
• if it works in theory, it won’t work in practice. if it works in practice it won’t work in theory. Sent by Kevin
• Research Law:
No matter how clever and complete your research is, there is always someone who knows more.
Sent by J. Lawrence Katz
• Somers’ Law of Repair:
No part ever fails where you can reach it, or where there is enough light to see how to replace it.
Sent by John Somers
• Any tool dropped will fall where it can cause the most damage.
• Any wire cut to length will be too short.
• Equivalent replacement parts aren’t.
The last three laws were sent by Bill Selover
• When you finally update to a new technology, is when everyone stop supporting it.
• Interchangeable parts aren’t Sent by trekker508
• The proposed size of any project is inversely proportional to the size the project will eventually become.
Corollary: Any project that can consume more resources before reaching it’s final state will do so.
This will happen faster than you think. Also, the investors will not be happy. Sent by Jon Proesel
• The less intelligent the idea, and the person stating it, the more likely it will be funded.
Sent by Brad Gochnauer
• A man with one watch is certain about time. A man with two watches isn’t.
• The more knowledge you gained, the less certain you are of it.
• If you think you understand science (or computers or women), you’re clearly not an expert
• Technicians are the only ones that don’t trust technology The last four laws were sent by Jan Wenall
• All impossible failures, will happen at the test site.
Corollary: All impossible failures will happen on the clients desktop Corollary sent by Dino Price
• The more you want to contact someone over an instant messenger is inversely proportional to the chances that they will be online.
• The more important your email is, the worse your email client will screw it up. The last two laws were sent by Padme
• The degree to which a device will function is directly proportional to the number of times it has been bashed and inversely to its cost.
• A device having an indestructible component or is user serviceable is deemed unsafe until it’s replaced by an expensive, unobtainable, inefficient component which needs constant servicing.
The last two laws were sent by Takura Razemba
o A failed 25¢ part cannot be replaced by a new 25¢ part, but by a sub-assembly whose cost is equal to or greater than that of the device in need of the part
o The cost and availability of a replacement part are in inverse proportion to the cost of the whole system: a $1500 device will fail because of the burnout of a 25¢ capacitor. But the 25¢ capacitor is either
no longer manufactured
manufactured only by a company in Outer Mongolia with an
18-month backlog
available only as part of a $1450 sub-assembly
Sent by
Francis AssafAll things mechanical/electrical will catastrophically fail after the guarantee has expired, unless an extended guarantee has been purchased. Sent by Blair Murray
The Harvard Principle:
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of temperature, humidity, pressure, etc., the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
First Law of Linear Equations:
Given any system n linear equations, there will be n+1 unknowns The last two laws were sent by Bill Pramik
The disappearance of a nagging error in a system is explicable only in terms of insignificant contribution of the source to that system
Sent by Manjunatha M, an application engineer
The repairman will have never seen a model quite like yours before Sent by Christa
Law of Repairmen:
The repairman fixes your machine to break down the next day and charges for a new machine.
Sent by Eddy Cosma
Murphy’s computers laws
• Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
• Any given program costs more and takes longer each time it is run.
• If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
• If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
• Any given program will expand to fill all the available memory.
• The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of its output.
• Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.
• Every non- trivial program has at least one bug
Corollary 1 - A sufficient condition for program triviality is that it have no bugs. Corollary 2 - At least one bug will be observed after the author leaves the organization.
• Bugs will appear in one part of a working program when another ‘unrelated’ part is modified.
• The subtlest bugs cause the greatest damage and problems.
Corollary - A subtle bug will modify storage thereby masquerading as some other problem.
• Lulled into Security Law
A ‘debugged’ program that crashes will wipe out source files on storage devices when there is the least available backup.
• A hardware failure will cause system software to crash, and the customer engineer will blame the programmer.
• A system software crash will cause hardware to act strangely and the programmers will blame the customer engineer.
• Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
• Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
• Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers can not write in English.
• The documented interfaces between standard software modules will have undocumented quirks.
• The probability of a hardware failure disappearing is inversely proportional to the distance between the computer and the customer engineer.
• A working program is one that has only unobserved bugs.
• No matter how many resources you have, it is never enough.
• Any cool program always requires more memory than you have.
• When you finally buy enough memory, you will not have enough disk space.
• Disks are always full. It is futile to try to get more disk space. Data expands to fill any void.
• If a program actually fits in memory and has enough disk space, it is guaranteed to crash.
• If such a program has not crashed yet, it is waiting for a critical moment before it crashes.
• No matter how good of a deal you get on computer components, the price will always drop immediately after the purchase.
• All components become obsolete.
• The speed with which components become obsolete is directly proportional to the price of the component.
• Software bugs are impossible to detect by anybody except the end user.
• The maintenance engineer will never have seen a model quite like yours before.
• It is axiomatic that any spares required will have just been discontinued and will be no longer in stock.
• Any VDU, from the cheapest to the most expensive, will protect a twenty cent fuse by blowing first.
• Any manufacturer making his warranties dependent upon the device being earthed will only supply power cabling with two wires.
• If a circuit requires n components, then there will be only n - 1 components in locally-held stocks.
• A failure in a device will never appear until it has passed final inspection.
• Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
• A program generator creates programs that are more buggy than the program generator.
• All Constants are Variables. Sent by Risto Matikainen
• Constants aren’t
• Variables won’t
The last two laws were sent by Hnathoo
• A part dropped from the workbench will roll to a degree of un-reachability proportional to its importance.
Sent by Neal Buddenberg
• In a transistor circuit protected by a fuse, the transistor will always blow to protect the fuse.
Sent by Neal Buddenberg
• The best way to see your boss is to access the internet. Or...
No matter how hard you work, the boss will only appear when you access the internet.
• The hard drive on your computer will only crash when it contains vital information that has not been backed up.
The last two laws were sent by Charles L. Mays
• Computers don’t make errors-What they do they do on purpose. Sent by Terry Jaster
• If Murphy’s laws are so true then how come I can log onto this site and submi...
[connection reset - error message 928 ] Sent by Paul Breen
• Gumption’s Law (?)
Any problem, no matter how complex, can be found by simple inspection. Corollary: A nagging intruder with unsought advice will spot it immediately. Sent by Ray Geist who found it handy when he was debugging computer code.
• Each computer code has five bugs, and tis number does not depend on how many bugs have been already found (it is conservative).
Sent by Andrew
• Profanity is one language all computer users know. Sent by Jeff Webb
• The number of bugs always exceeds the number of lines found in a program. Sent by Yaron Budowski
• The most ominous words for those using computers: “Daddy, what does ‘Now formatting Drive C mean’?”
Sent by Yael Dragwyla
• When putting something into memory, always remember where you put it. Sent by Paul Pigott
• Every non-trivial program can be simplified by at least one line of code.
The conclusion of the last two laws: Every non trivial program can be simplified to one line of code, and it will contain a bug.
Sent by Brandon Aiken
• An expert is someone brought in at the last minute to share the blame. Sent by Bassey Essien.
• Debugging is at least twice as hard as writing the program in the first place. So if your code is as clever as you can possibly make it, then by definition you’re not smart enough to debug it.
Sent by Brian Kernighan
• Bahaman’s Law:
for any given software, the moment you manage to master it, a new version appears.
Sent by Bahaman. Yakko’s addition:
The new version always manages to change the one feature you need most. Sent by Yakko
• Patches - don’t. Sent by Doru Tasca
• Most computer errors can be attributed to a similar problem - a screw loose behind the keyboard.
• Whenever you need a crucial file from the server, the network will be down.
• Whenever you need a crucial file from your hard drive, your computer will crash.
• E-mailed tasking will always come just before you log off.
• A quarantined virus - will be opened.
• A chain letter - will be sent. To global. A dozen times.
• The chance of a virus infecting your network is directly proportional to the amount of damage it does.
• The chances of getting off work on time is inversely proportional to how much e-mail the boss leaves for until end of the day.
• The faster you need a hardcopy, the more people will be using the only office printer.
• General Fault Errors are the “Check Engine” light of computers. If it can be fixed, chances are it’s not by you.
• A patch is a piece of software which replaces old bugs with new bugs.
• The chances of a program doing what it’s supposed to do is inversely proportional to the number of lines of code used to write it.
The last twelve laws were sent by Ryan Sylvester
• The probability of forgetting your password is directly proportional to the frequency of changing it.
• No matter how fantastic your latest and greatest PC is, you will be able to buy it for half the price in 12 months.
The last two laws were sent by Zain
• The longer it takes to download a program the more likely it won’t run. Sent by Skwirl
• Failure is not an option, it’s included with the software. Sent by Paul
• A program is good when it’s bug free - which is impossible. Sent by Hans van Rijsse
• If you forget to save you’re work every 5 minutes, it will break down after you’ve been at it for an hour.
Sent by Eric Guilbault
• It’s not a bug, it’s an undocumented feature.
• The amount of time taken to successfully complete a software project is in direct proportion to the amount of Marketing input.
Corollary: Marketing should not be located in the same city - much less on the same campus - as Engineering and/or Programming.
• The only thing worse than an end-user without a clue is an end-user who has a clue - usually the wrong one.
• According to most Tech Support people, the most common user error message (regardless of Operating System) is ID 10T.
End-users’ Corollary 1: most application failures occur between the hours of 2 and 4 am on a Sunday night - with a 6 am Monday deadline for the project. End-users’ Corollary 2: On the graveyard shift, there’s no Tech Support to hear you scream!
The last four laws and corollaries were sent by Jim Kirk
• Bugs mysteriously appear when you say, “Watch this!”
corollary: If you call another programmer over to see if he knows what’s wrong the bug disappears.
The corollary was sent by S. Bussell.
• The probability of bugs appearing is directly proportional to the number and importance of people watching.
The last two laws were sent by Bill Smith.
• An employee rank is in inverse proportion to his use of a computer, and in proportion to its performance.
Sent by Dan Wasson
• The only program that runs perfectly every time, is a virus Sent by DaRk_jAcKaL
• If a project is completed on schedule, it wasn’t debugged properly.
• Non Crash Operating System aren’t.
• The worst bugs in your program will show up only during the final review. The last three laws were sent by Kiran
• The people who say that computers are simple to use are the same people who tell you how to build a watch when you ask what time it is.
Sent by Jack Betz
• Philington’s First Law
If it works, it’s production. If it doesn’t, it’s a test.
• Philington’s Second Law
Real programmers don’t comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
