An Abridged Collection of Interdisciplinary Laws

		    Last updated July 14, 1979, by Don Woods


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.

Airplane Law:
	When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to transfer to is
	on time.

Albrecht's Law:
	Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well being.

Alligator Allegory:
	The objective of all dedicated product support employees should be to
	thoroughly analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to
	their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to
	solve these problems when called upon.  However, when you are up to your
	ass in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial
	objective was to drain the swamp.

Allison's Precept:
	The best simple-minded test of experience in a particular area is the
	ability to win money in a series of bets on future occurrences in that
	area.

Law of Annoyance:
	When working on a project, if you put away a tool that you're certain
	you're finished with, you will need it instantly.

Anthony's Law of Force:
	Don't force it, get a larger hammer.

Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
	Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of
	the workshop.
   Corollary:
	On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first always strike your
	toes.

Laws of Applied Confusion:
	1) The one piece that the plant forgot to ship is the one that supports
	   75% of the balance of the shipment.
   Corollary:
	   Not only did the plant forget to ship it, 50% of the time they
	   haven't even made it.
	2) Truck deliveries that normally take one day will take five when you
	   are waiting for the truck.
	3) After adding two weeks to the schedule for unexpected delays, add two
	   more for the unexpected, unexpected delays.
	4) In any structure, pick out the one piece that should not be mismarked
	   and expect the plant to cross you up.
   Corollaries:
	   1) In any group of pieces with the same erection mark on it, one
	      should not have that mark on it.
	   2) It will not be discovered until you try to put it where the mark
	      says it's supposed to go.
	   3) Never argue with the fabricating plant about an error.  The
	      inspection prints are all checked off, even to the holes that
	      aren't there.

The Aquinas Axiom:
	What the gods get away with, the cows don't.

Army Axiom:
	Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.

Fourteenth Corollary of Atwood's General Law of Dynamic Negatives:
	No books are lost by loaning except those you particularly wanted to
	keep.

Baker's Byroad:
	When you are over the hill, you pick up speed.

Baker's Law:
	Misery no longer loves company.  Nowadays it insists on it.

Barber's Laws of Backpacking:
	 1) The integral of the gravitational potential taken around any loop
	    trail you choose to hike always comes out positive.
	 2) Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient
	    to exactly the point of most pressure.
	 3) The weight of your pack increases in direct proportion to the amount
	    of food you consume from it.  If you run out of food, the pack
	    weight goes on increasing anyway.
	 4) The number of stones in your boot is directly proportional to the
	    number of hours you have been on the trail.
	 5) The difficulty of finding any given trail marker is directly
	    proportional to the importance of the consequences of failing to
	    find it.
	 6) The size of each of the stones in your boot is directly proportional
	    to the number of hours you have been on the trail.
	 7) The remaining distance to your chosen campsite remains constant as
	    twilight approaches.
	 8) The net weight of your boots is proportional to the cube of the
	    number of hours you have been on the trail.
	 9) When you arrive at your chosen campsite, it is full.
	10) If you take your boots off, you'll never get them back on again.
	11) The local density of mosquitos is inversely proportional to your
	    remaining repellant.

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

Barzun's Laws of Learning:
	1) The simple but difficult arts of paying attention, copying
	   accurately, following an argument, detecting an ambiguity or a false
	   inference, testing guesses by summoning up contrary instances,
	   organizing one's time and one's thought for study -- all these arts
	   -- cannot be taught in the air but only through the difficulties of a
	   defined subject.  They cannot be taught in one course or one year,
	   but must be acquired gradually in dozens of connections.
	2) The analogy to athletics must be pressed until all recognize that in
	   the exercise of Intellect those who lack the muscles, coordination,
	   and will power can claim no place at the training table, let alone on
	   the playing field.

Forthoffer's Cynical Summary of Barzun's Laws:
	1) That which has not yet been taught directly can never be taught
	   directly.
	2) If at first you don't succeed, you will never succeed.

Baxter's First Law:
	Government intervention in the free market always leads to a lower
	national standard of living.

Baxter's Second Law:
	The adoption of fractional gold reserves in a currency system always
	leads to depreciation, devaluation, demonetization and, ultimately, to
	complete destruction of that currency.

Baxter's Third Law:
	In a free market good money always drives bad money out of circulation.

Becker's Law:
	It is much harder to find a job than to keep one.

Beifeld's Principle:
	The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young
	female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the
	company of (1) a date, (2) his wife, and (3) a better looking and
	richer male friend.

Bicycle Law:
	All bicycles weigh 50 pounds:
	     A 30-pound bicycle needs a 20-pound lock and chain.
	     A 40-pound bicycle needs a 10-pound lock and chain.
	     A 50-pound bicycle needs no lock or chain.

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

Blaauw's Law:
	Established technology tends to persist in spite of new technology.

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

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

Booker's Law:
	An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.

Boren's Laws:
	1) When in doubt, mumble.
	2) When in trouble, delegate.
	3) When in charge, ponder.

Borstelmann's Rule:
	If everything seems to be coming your way, you're probably in the wrong
	lane.

First Law of Bridge:
	It's always the partner's fault.

Brien's First Law:
	At some time in the life cycle of virtually every organization, its
	ability to succeed in spite of itself runs out.

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

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

Brown's Law of Business Success:
	Our customer's paperwork is profit.  Our own paperwork is loss.

Bucy's Law:
	Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

Bunuel's Law:
	Overdoing things is harmful in all cases, even when it comes to
	efficiency.

Bustlin' Billy's Bogus Beliefs:
	1) The organization of any program reflects the organization of the
	   people who develop it.
	2) There is no such thing as a "dirty capitalist", only a capitalist.
	3) Anything is possible, but nothing is easy.
	4) Capitalism can exist in one of only two states -- welfare or warfare.
	5) I'd rather go whoring than warring.
	6) History proves nothing.
	7) There is nothing so unbecoming on the beach as a wet kilt.
	8) A little humility is arrogance.
	9) A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological
	   rococo.

Bye's First Law of Model Railroading:
	Anytime you wish to demonstrate something, the number of faults is
	proportional to the number of viewers.

Bye's Second Law of Model Railroading:
	The desire for modeling a prototype is inversely proportional to the
	decline of the prototype.

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

John Cameron's Law:
	No matter how many times you've had it, if it's offered, take it,
	because it'll never be quite the same again.

Camp's Law:
	A coup that is known in advance is a coup that does not take place.

Campbell's Law:
	Nature abhors a vacuous experimenter.

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

Canada Bill Jones's Supplement:
	A Smith and Wesson beats four aces.

Cannon's Cogent Comment:
	The leak in the roof is never in the same location as the drip.

First Law of Canoeing (Alfred Andrews's Canoeing Postulate):
	No matter which direction you start it's always against the wind coming
	back.

Cavanaugh's Postulate:
	All kookies are not in a jar.

Cheops's Law:
	Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

Chisholm's Second Law:
	When things are going well, something will go wrong.
   Corollaries:
	1) When things just can't get any worse, they will.
	2) Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
	   something.

Chisholm's Third Law:
	Proposals, as understood by the proposer, will be judged otherwise by
	others.
   Corollaries:
	1) If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody
	   will.
	2) If you do something which you are sure will meet with everyone's
	   approval, somebody won't like it.
	3) Procedures devised to implement the purpose won't quite work.
	4) No matter how long or how many times you explain, no one is
	   listening.

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 as though nothing has happened.

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 only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them
	into the impossible.

Clarke's Third Law:
	Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Clarke's Law of Revolutionary Ideas:
	Every revolutionary idea -- in Science, Politics, Art or Whatever --
	evokes three stages of reaction.  They may be summed up by the three
	phrases:
	   1) "It is completely impossible -- don't waste my time."
	   2) "It is possible, but it is not worth doing."
	   3) "I said it was a good idea all along."

Cohen's Law:
	What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts --
	not the facts themselves.

Cole's Law:
	Thinly sliced cabbage.

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

First Law of Committo-Dynamics:
	Comitas comitatum, omnia comitas.

Second Law of Committo-Dynamics:
	The less you enjoy serving on committees, the more likely you are to be
	pressed to do so.

Commoner's Three Laws of Ecology:
	1) No action is without side-effects.
	2) Nothing ever goes away.
	3) There is no free lunch.

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

Law of Computability Applied to Social Science:
	If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set.

Laws of Computerdom According to Golub:
	1) Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid the 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 requires to correct course increases geometrically with
	   time.
	4) Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly
	   manifests their lack of progress.

Cook's Law:
	Much work, much food; little work, little food; no work, burial at sea.

Cooper's Law:
	All machines are amplifiers.

Cooper's Metalaw:
	A proliferation of new laws creates a proliferation of new loopholes.

Mr. Cooper's Law:
	If you do not understand a particular word in a piece of technical
	writing, ignore it.  The piece will make perfect sense without it.

Cornuelle's Law:
	Authority tends to assign jobs to those least able to do them.

Corry's Law:
	Paper is always strongest at the perforations.

Courtois's Rule:
	If people listened to themselves more often, they'd talk less.

Crane's Law (Friedman's Reiteration):
	There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.	("tanstaafl")

Cropp's Law:
	The amount of work done varies inversely with the amount of time spent
	in the office.

Cutler Webster's Law:
	There are two sides to every argument unless a man is personally
	involved, in which case there is only one.

First Law of Debate:
	Never argue with a fool.  People might not know the difference.

Diogenes's First Dictum:
	The more heavily a man is supposed to be taxed, the more power he has to
	escape being taxed.

Diogenes's Second Dictum:
	If a taxpayer thinks he can cheat safely, he probably will.

Dow's Law:
	In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the greater the
	confusion.

Dunne's Law:
	The territory behind rhetoric is too often mined with equivocation.

Edington's Theory:
	The number of different hypotheses erected to explain a given biological
	phenomenon is inversely proportional to the available knowledge.

Ellenberg's Theory:
	One good turn gets most of the blanket.

The "Enough Already" Law:
	The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets.

Extended Epstein-Heisenberg Principle:
	In an R & D orbit, only 2 of the existing 3 parameters can be defined
	simultaneously.  The parameters are: task, time, and resources ($).
	1) If one knows what the task is, and there is a time limit allowed for
	   the completion of the task, then one cannot guess how much it will
	   cost.
	2) If the time and resources ($) are clearly defined, then it is
	   impossible to know what part of the R & D task will be performed.
	3) If you are given a clearly defined R & D goal and a definte amount
	   of money which has been calculated to be necessary for the completion
	   of the task, one cannot predict if and when the goal will be reached.
	4) If one is lucky enough to be able to accurately define all three
	   parameters, then what one is dealing with is not in the realm of
	   R & D.

Ettorre's Observation:
	The other line moves faster.

Evan's Law of Politics:
	When team members are finally in a position to help the team, it turns
	out they have quit the team.

Everitt's Form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics:
	Confusion (entropy) is always increasing in society.  Only if someone or
	something works extremely hard can this confusion be reduced to order in
	a limited region.  Nevertheless, this effort will stil result in an
	increase in the total confusion of society at large.

Nonreciprocal Laws of Expectations:
	1) Negative expectations yield negative results.
	2) Positive expectations yield negative results.

Fairfax's Law:
	Any facts which, when included in the argument, give the desired result,
	are fair facts for the argument.

Farber's First Law:
	Give him an inch and he'll screw you.

Farber's Second Law:
	A hand in the bush is worth two anywhere else.

Farber's Third Law:
	We're all going down the same road in different directions.

Farber's Fourth Law:
	Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.

Rule of Feline Frustration:
	When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content
	and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.

Fett's Law of the Lab:
	Never replicate a successful experiment.

The Fifth Rule:
	You have taken yourself too seriously.

Finagle's Creed:
	Science is Truth.  Don't be misled by fact.

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

Finagle's Second Law:
	No matter what result is anticipated, there will always be someone eager
	to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened
	according to his own pet theory.

Finagle's Third Law:
	In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all
	need of checking, is the mistake.
   Corollaries:
	1) No one whom you ask for help will see it.
	2) Everyone who stops by with unsought advice will see it immediately.

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

Finagle's Rules:
	Ever since the first scientific experiment, man has been plagued by the
	increasing antagonism of nature.  It seems only right that nature should
	be logical and neat, but experience has shown that this is not the case.
	A further series of rules has been formulated, designed to help man
	accept the pigheadedness of nature.
	Rule 1: To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you
		start.
	Rule 2: Always keep a record of data.  It indicates you've been working.
	Rule 3: Always draw your curves, then plot the reading.
	Rule 4: In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
	Rule 5: Experiments should be reproducible.  They should all fail in the
		same way.
	Rule 6: When you don't know what you are doing, do it NEATLY.
	Rule 7: Teamwork is essential; it allows you to blame someone else.
	Rule 8: Do not believe in miracles.  Rely on them.

Fitz-Gibbon's Law:
	Creativity varies inversely with the number of cooks involved with the
	broth.

Flap's Law:
	Any inanimate object, regardless of its position or configuration, may
	be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for
	reasons that are either entirely obscure or else completely mysterious.

Fortis's Three Great Lies of Life:
	1) Money isn't everything.
	2) It's great to be a Negro.
	3) I'm only going to put it in a little way.

Fowler's Note:
	The only imperfect thing in nature is the human race.

Franklin's Rule:
	Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.

Freeman's Law:
	Nothing is so simple it cannot be misunderstood.

Freeman's Rule:
	Circumstances can force a generalized incompetent to become competent,
	at least in a specialized field.

First Law of Frisbee Motion:
	The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land
	under a car.  (The technical term for this force is "car suck".)

Frisch's Law:
	You cannot have a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.

Frothingham's Fallacy:
	Time is money.

Fudd's First Law of Opposition:
	If you push something hard enough, it will fall over.

Futility Factor:
	No experiment is ever a complete failure -- it can always serve as a bad
	example.

Laws of Gardening:
	1) Other people's tools work only in other people's yards.
	2) Fancy gizmos don't work.
	3) If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
	4) You get the most of what you need the least.

Law of Generalizations:
	All generalizations are false.

Gilb's Laws of Unreliability:
	1) Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
   Corollary:
	   At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will
	   find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on
	   the computer.
	2) The only difference between the fool and the criminal who attacks a
	   system is that the fool attacks unpredictably and on a broader front.
	3) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to
	   detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
	(See also Troutman's 8th, 9th, and 10th Laws of Computer Programming.)

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

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

Freeman's Commentary on Ginberg's Theorem:
	Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is
	based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's Theorem.  To wit:
	1) Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
	2) Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even.
	3) Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game.

Glatum's Law of Materialistic Acquisitiveness:
	The perceived usefulness of an article is inversely proportional to its
	actual usefulness once bought and paid for.

Godin's Law:
	Generalizedness of incompetence is directly proportional to highestness
	in hierarchy.

The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences:
	Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

The 19 Rules for good Riting:
	 1) Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
	 2) Just between you and I, case is important.
	 3) Verbs has to agree with their subject.
	 4) Watch out for irregular verbs which has cropped up into our
	    language.
	 5) Don't use no double negatives.
	 6) A writer mustn't shift your point of view.
	 7) When dangling, don't use participles.
	 8) Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
	 9) And don't use conjunctions to start sentences.
	10) Don't use a run-on sentence you got to punctuate it.
	11) About sentence fragments.
	12) In letters themes reports articles and stuff like that we use
	    commas to keep strings apart.
	13) Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.
	14) Its important to use apostrophe's right.
	15) Don't abbrev.
	16) Check to see if you any words out.
	17) In my opinion I think that the author when he is writing should not
	    get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words which
	    he does not really need.
	18) Then, of course, there's that old one: Never use a preposition to
	    end a sentence with.
	19) Last but not least, lay off cliches.

Gordon's First Law:
	If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well.

Professor Gordon's Rule of Evolving Bryophytic Systems:
	While bryophytic plants are typically encountered in substrata of earthy
	or mineral matter in concreted state, discrete substrata elements
	occasionally display a roughly spherical configuration which, in
	presence of suitable gravitational and other effects, lends itself to
	combined translatory and rotational motion.  One notices in such cases
	an absence of the otherwise typical accretion of bryophyta.  We conclude
	therefore that a rolling stone gathers no moss.

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

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

Rule of the Great:
	When someone you greatly admire and respect appears to be thinking deep
	thoughts, they are probably thinking about lunch.

Greenhaus's Summation:
	I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

Gresham's Law:
	Trivial matters are handled promptly; important matters are never
	resolved.

Grosch's Law:
	Computing power increases as the square of the cost.  If you want to do
	it twice as cheaply, you have to do it four times slower.

Gummidge's Law:
	The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of
	statements understood by the general public.

Gumperson's Law:
	The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its
	desirability.
   Corollaries:
	1) After a salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the
	   month than you had before.
	2) The more a recruit knows about a given subject, the better chance he
	   has of being assigned to something else.

Hacker's Law of Personnel:
	Anyone having supervisory responsibility for the completion of a task
	will invariably protest that more resources are needed.

Hagerty's Law:
	If you lose your temper at a newspaper columnist, he'll get rich or
	famous or both.

Haldane's Law:
	The Universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we
	CAN imagine.

Harper's Magazine's Law:
	You never find an article until you replace it.

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

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

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

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

Heller's Law:
	The first myth of management is that it exists.
   Corollary (Johnson):
	Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within your organization.

Hendrickson's Law:
	If a problem causes many meetings, the meetings eventually become more
	important than the problem.

Hersh's Law:
	Biochemistry expands to fill the space and time available for its
	completion and publication.

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

Horner's Five Thumb Postulate:
	Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.

Horowitz's Rule:
	A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20
	years.

Howard's First Law of Theater:
	Use it.

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

Hull's Theorem:
	The combined pull of several patrons is the sum of their separate pulls
	multiplied by the number of patrons.

IBM Pollyanna Principle:
	Machines should work.  People should think.

Generalized Iceberg Theorem:
	Seven-eighths of everything can't be seen.

Iles's Law:
	There is an easier way to do it.
   Corollaries:
	1) When looking directly at the easier way, especially for long periods,
	   you will not see it.
	2) Neither will Iles.

Imhoff's Law:
	The organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a septic tank --
	the REALLY big chunks always rise to the top.

Law of the Individual:
	Nobody really cares or understands what anyone else is doing.

Law of Institutions:
	The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the
	fundamental solvency of the firm.

Iron Law of Distribution:
	Them what has -- gets.

Issawi's Law of the Conservation of Evil:
	The total amount of evil in any system remains constant.  Hence, any
	diminution in one direction -- for instance, a reduction in poverty or
	unemployment -- is accompanied by an increase in another, e.g., crime or
	air pollution.

Issawi's Laws of Progress:
	The Course of Progress:
		Most things get steadily worse.
	The Path of Progress:
		A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.
	The Dialectics of Progress:
		Direct action produces direct reaction.
	The Pace of Progress:
		Society is a mule, not a car . . .  If pressed too hard, it will
		kick and throw off its rider.

Issawi's Observation on the Consumption of Paper:
	Each system has its own way of consuming vast amounts of paper: in
	socialist societies by filling large forms in quadruplicate, in
	capitalist societies by putting up huge posters and wrapping every
	article in four layers of cardboard.

Italian Proverb:
	She who is silent consents.

Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Governments:
	No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in
	session.

Jay's Laws of Leadership:
	1) Changing things is central to leadership, and changing them before
	   anyone else is creativity.
	2) To build something that endures, it is of the greatest important to
	   have a long tenure in office -- to rule for many years.  You can
	   achieve a quick success in a year or two, but nearly all of the great
	   tycoons have continued their building much longer.

Jenkinson's Law:
	It won't work.

John's Axiom:
	When your opponent is down, kick him.

John's Collateral Corollary:
	In order to get a loan you must first prove you don't need it.

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

Johnson's Second Law:
	If, in the course of several months, only three worthwhile social events
	take place, they will all fall on the same evening.

Johnson's Third Law:
	If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue containing
	tained the aricle, story, or installment you were most anxious to read.
   Corollary:
	All of your friends either missed it, lost it, or threw it out.

Johnson's First Law of Auto Repair:
	Any tool dropped while repairing an automobile will roll under the car
	to the vehicle's exact geographic center.

Johnson-Laird's Law:
	Toothache tends to start on Saturday night.

Jones's Law:
	The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he
	can blame it on.

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

McClaughry's Codicil on Jones's Motto:
	To make an enemy, do someone a favor.

Juhani's Law:
	The compromise will always be more expensive than either of the
	suggestions it's compromising.

Kamin's First Law:
	All currencies will decrease in value and purchasing power over the long
	term, unless they are freely and fully convertable into gold and that
	gold is traded freely without restrictions of any kind.

Kamin's Second Law:
	Threat of capital controls accelerates marginal capital outflows.

Kamin's Third Law:
	Combined total taxation from all levels of government will always
	increase (until the government is replaced by war or revolution).

Kamin's Fourth Law:
	Government inflation is always worse than statistics indicate: central
	bankers are biased toward inflation when the money unit is
	non-convertible, and without gold or silver backing.

Kamin's Fifth Law:
	Purchasing power of currency is always lost far more rapidly than ever
	regained.  (Those who expect even fluctuations in both directions play
	a losing game.)

Kamin's Sixth Law:
	When attempting to predict and forecast macro-economic moves or economic
	legislation by a politician, never be misled by what he says; instead
	watch what he does.

Kamin's Seventh Law:
	Politicians will always inflate when given the opportunity.

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

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

Kerr-Martin Law:
	1) In dealing with their OWN problems, faculty members are the most
	   extreme conservatives.
	2) In dealing with OTHER people's problems, they are the world's most
	   extreme liberals.

Kirkland's Law:
	The usefulness of any meeting is in inverse proportion to the
	attendance.

Kitman's Law:
	On the TV screen, pure drivel tends to drive off ordinary drivel.

Klipstein's Law of Specifications:
	In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's.

Klipstein's Laws:
   Applied to General Engineering:
	 1) A patent application will be preceded by one week by a similar
	    application made by an independent worker.
	 2) Firmness of delivery dates is inversely proportional to the
	    tightness of the schedule.
	 3) Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term.
	    Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
	 4) Any wire cut to length will be too short.
   Applied to Prototyping and Production:
	 1) Tolerances will accumulate unidirectionally toward maximum
	    difficulty to assemble.
	 2) If a project requires n components, there will be n-1 units in
	    stock.
	 3) A motor will rotate in the wrong direction.
	 4) A failsafe circuit will destroy others.
	 5) A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse
	    by blowing first.
	 6) A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection.
	 7) A purchased component or instrument will meet its specs long enough,
	    and only long enough, to pass incoming inspection.
	 8) 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.
	 9) After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it
	    will be discovered that the gasket has been omitted.
	10) After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be
	    found on the bench.

LaCombe's Rule of Percentages:
	The incidence of anything worthwhile is either 15-25 percent or 80-90
	percent.
   Corollary (Dudenhoefer):
	An answer of 50 percent will suffice for the 40-60 range.

Lani's Principles of Economics:
	1) Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.
	2) $100 placed at 7% interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will
	   increase to more than $100,000,000 by which time it will be worth
	   nothing.
	3) In God we trust; all others pay cash.

La Rochefoucauld's Law:
	It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by
	them.

Larrimer's Constant:
	What this world needs is a damned good plague.

Laura's Law:
	No child throws up in the bathroom.

Le Chatelier's Law:
	If some stress is brought to bear on a system in equilibrium, the
	equilibrium is displaced in the direction which tends to undo the effect
	of the stress.

Les Miserables Metalaw:
	All laws, whether good, bad, or indifferent, must be obeyed to the
	letter.

Levy's Third Law:
	That segment of the community with which one has the greatest sympathy
	as a liberal inevitably turns out to be one of the most narrow-minded
	and bigoted segments of the community.
   Kelly's Reformulation:
	Nice guys don't finish nice.

Levy's Eighth Law:
	No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail.

Levy's Ninth Law:
	Only God can make a random selection.

Lewis's Law:
	No matter how long or how hard you shop for an item, after you've bought
	it it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.

Lilly's Metalaw:
	All laws are simulations of reality.

Long's Notes:
	 1) Always store beer in a dark place.
	 2) Certainly the game is rigged.  Don't let that stop you; if you don't
	    bet, you can't win.
	 3) Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.
	 4) Always listen to experts.  They'll tell you what can't be done, and
	    why.  Then do it.
	 5) If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is
	    opinion.
	 6) It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another --
	    but which one?  Differences are crucial.
	 7) A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated.  But an authentic soothsayer
	    should be shot on sight.  Cassandra did not get half the kicking
	    around she deserved.
	 8) Delusions are often functional.  A mother's opinions about her
	    children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam,
	    keep her from drowning them at birth.
	 9) A generation which ignores history has no past -- and no future.
	10) A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.
	11) Small change can often be found under seat cushions.
	12) History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any
	    rational basis.  Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough
	    to stand up to the unknown without help.  But, like dandruff, most
	    people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to
	    derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
	13) It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired.
	14) Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated out of
	    nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing -- with "obscenity" and
	    "indecent exposure" fighting it out for second and third place.
	15) It's better to copulate than never.
	16) Everything in excess!  To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites.
	    Moderation is for monks.
	17) It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is
	    better still to be a live lion.  And usually easier.
	18) Never appeal to a man's "better nature".  He may not have one.
	    Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.
	19) Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.
	20) Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry.
	21) An elephant:  A mouse built to government specifications.
	22) A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes.
	23) Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by
	    legislation.  Stupidity is not a sin; the victim can't help being
	    stupid.  But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the
	    sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out
	    automatically and without pity.
	24) God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.  It says so right
	    here on the label.  If you have a mind capable of believing all
	    three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful
	    bargain for you.  No checks, please.  Cash and in small bills.
	25) Beware of altruism.  It is based on self-deception, the root of all
	    evil.
	26) The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is
	    that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universe,
	    wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by
	    their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this
	    flattery.  Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to
	    bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least
	    productive industry in all history.
	27) The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently
	    sinful.
	28) Everybody lies about sex.
	29) Rub her feet.
	30) Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
	31) Always tell her she is beautiful, especially if she is not.
	32) In a family argument, if it turns out you are right, apologize at
	    once.
	33) To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to
	    unlearn old falsehoods.
	34) Does history record any case in which the majority was right?
	35) Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
	36) The greatest productive force is human selfishness.
	37) Be wary of strong drink.  It can make you shoot at tax collectors --
	    and miss.
	38) Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields.  But
	    experts often think so.  The narrower their field of knowledge the
	    more likely they are to think so.
	39) Never try to outstubborn a cat.
	40) Tilting at windmills hurts you more than the windmills.
	41) Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.
	42) Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital
	    crime.  For a first offense, that is.
	43) The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it's
	    none of my business, but . . . " is to place a period after the word
	    "but".  Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a
	    period.  Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is
	    bound to get you talked about.
	44) A skunk is better company than a person who prides himself on being
	    "frank".
	45) Natural laws have no pity.
	46) You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too
	    trusting.
	47) Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
	48) Climate is what we expect; weather is what we get.
	49) Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament -- it is possible to be
	    both.  How?  By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing
	    risks you can't avoid.  This permits you to play out the game
	    happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome.
	50) "I came, I saw, SHE conquered."  (The original Latin seems to have
	    been garbled.)
	51) A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
	52) Don't try to have the last word.  You might get it.

Lord Falkland's Rule:
	When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make
	a decision.

Law of the Lost Inch:
	In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be
	totalled correctly after 4:40 p.m. on Friday.
   Corollaries:
	1) Under the same conditions, if any minor dimensions are given to
	   sixteenths of an inch, they cannot be totalled at all.
	2) The correct total will become self-evident at 9:01 a.m. on Monday.

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

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

Lucy's Law:
	The alternative to getting old is depressing.

Lyon's Law of Hesitation:
	He who hesitates is last.

Madison's Question:
	If you have to travel on a Titanic, why not go first-class?

Rev. Mahaffy's Observation:
	There's no such thing as a large whiskey.

Maier's Law:
	If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
   Corollaries:
	1) The bigger the theory, the better.
	2) The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the
	   observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence
	   with the theory.  (Compensation Corollary)

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

Malinowski's Law:
	Looking from far above, from our high places of safety in the developed
	civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of
	magic.

Truths of Management:
	 1) Think before you act; it's not your money.
	 2) All good management is the expression of one great idea.
	 3) No executive devotes effort to proving himself wrong.
	 4) Cash in must exceed cash out.
	 5) Management capability is always less than the organization actually
	    needs.
	 6) Either an executive can do his job or he can't.
	 7) If sophisticated calculations are needed to justify an action, don't
	    do it.
	 8) If you are doing something wrong, you will do it badly.
	 9) If you are attempting the impossible, you will fail.
	10) The easiest way of making money is to stop losing it.

Truth 5.1 of Management:
	Organizations always have too many managers.

Martha's Maxim:
	If God had meant for us to travel tourist class, He would have made us
	narrower.

Dean Martin's Definition of Drunkenness:
	You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.

Martin-Berthelot Principle:
	Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the
	reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest
	amount of hot air.

Match's Maxim:
	A fool in a high station is like a man on the top of a small mountain:
	everything appears small to him and he appears small to everybody.

Matsch's Law:
	It is better to have a horrible ending than to have horrors without end.

May's Law:
	The quality of the correlation is inversely proportional to the density
	of the control (the fewer the facts, the smoother the curves).

McClaughry's Law of Zoning:
	Where zoning is not needed, it will work perfectly; where it is
	desperately needed, it always breaks down.

McGoon's Law:
	The probability of winning is inversely proportional to the amount of
	the wager.

McNaughton's Rule:
	Any argument worth making within the bureaucracy must be capable of
	being expressed in a simple declarative sentence that is obviously true
	once stated.

H. L. Mencken's Law:
	Those who can -- do.
	Those who cannot -- teach.
	Those who cannot teach -- administrate.  (Martin's Extension)

Merrill's First Corollary:
	There are no winners in life; only survivors.

Merrill's Second Corollary:
	In the highway of life, the average happening is of about as much true
	significance as a dead skunk in the middle of the road.

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

Michehl's Theorem:
	Less is more.

Pastore's Comment on Michehl's Theorem:
	Nothing is ultimate.

Mickelson's Law of Falling Objects:
	Any object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object.

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

Miller's Law:
	You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it.

MIST Law (Man In The Street):
	The number of people watching you is directly proportional to the
	stupidity of your action.

Mobil's Maxim:
	Bad regulation begets worse regulation.

Moer's Truism:
	The trouble with most jobs is the resemblance to being in a sled dog
	team.  No one gets a change of scenery, except the lead dog.

Money Maxim:
	Money isn't everything.  (It isn't plentiful, for instance.)

Morton's Law:
	If rats are experimented upon, they will develop cancer.  ("What this
	country needs are some stronger white rats.")

Murphy's Constant:
	Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.

Murphy's First Law:
	Nothing is as easy as it looks.

Murphy's Second Law:
	Everything takes longer than you think.

Murphy's Third Law:
	In any field of scientific endeavor, anything that can go wrong will go
	wrong.

Murphy's Fourth Law:
	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.
   Corollary:
	If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.

Murphy's Fifth Law:
	If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

Murphy's Sixth Law:
	If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure
	can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for,
	will promptly develop.

Murphy's Seventh Law:
	Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

Murphy's Eighth Law:
	If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked
	something.

Murphy's Ninth Law:
	Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

Murphy's Tenth Law:
	Mother nature is a bitch.

Murphy's Eleventh Law:
	It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so
	ingenious.

Murphy's Twelfth Law:
	Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.

Murphy's Thirteenth Law:
	Every solution breeds new problems.

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

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.

Hill's Commentaries on Murphy's Laws:
	1) If we lose much by having things go wrong, take all possible care.
	2) If we have nothing to lose by change, relax.
	3) If we have everything to gain by change, relax.
	4) If it doesn't matter, it does not matter.

O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws:
	Murphy was an optimist.

Newman's Law:
	Hypocrisy is the Vaseline of social intercourse.

Newton's Little-known Seventh Law:
	A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.

Nick the Greek's Law:
	All things considered, life is 9-to-5 against. 

Nienberg's Law:
	Progress is made on alternate Fridays.

Ninety-ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
	The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time,
	and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.

O'Brien's Principle (The $357.73 Theorem):
	Auditors always reject any expense account with a bottom line divisible
	by five.

The Obvious Law:
	Actually, it only SEEMS as though you mustn't be deceived by
	appearances.

Oesner's Law (Oeser's Law?):
	There is a tendency for the person in the most powerful position in an
	organization to spend all his time serving on committees and signing
	letters.

First Law of Office Holders:
	Get re-elected.

Old and Kahn's Law:
	The efficiency of a committee meeting is inversely proportional to the
	number of participants and the time spent on deliberations.

Ordering Principle:
	Those supplies necessary for yesterday's experiment must be ordered no
	later than tomorrow noon.

Orion's Law:
	Everything breaks down.

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

Pardo's Postulates:
	1) Anything good is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
	2) The three faithful things in life are money, a dog, and an old woman.
	3) Don't care if you're rich or not, as long as you live comfortably and
	   can have everything you want.

Pareto's Law (The 20/80 Law):
	20% of the customers account for 80% of the turnover, 20% of the
	components account for 80% of the cost, and so forth.

Parker's Rule of Parliamentary Procedure:
	A motion to adjourn is always in order.

Parker's Law of Political Statements:
	The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility, and
	vice versa.

Parkin's Law of Irritation:
	Anything that happens enough times to irritate you will happen at least
	once more.

Parkinson's Axioms:
	1) An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals.
	2) Officials make work for each other.

Parkinson's First Law:
	Work expands to fill the time available for its completion; the thing to
	be done swells in perceived importance and complexity in a direct ratio
	with the time to be spent in its completion.

Parkinson's First Law, Revised:
	The junk you have will expand to fill the available space.

Parkinson's Second Law:
	Expenditures rise to meet income.

Parkinson's Third Law:
	Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay.

Parkinson's Fourth Law:
	The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless
	of the amount of work to be done.

Parkinson's Fifth Law:
	If there is a way to delay an important decision the good bureaucracy,
	public or private, will find it.

Parkinson's Sixth Law:
	The progress of science varies inversely with the number of journals
	published.

Parkinson's Law of Delay:
	Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

Parkinson's Law of Medical Research:
	Successful research attracts the bigger grant which makes further
	research impossible.

Pastore's Truths:
	1) Even paranoids have enemies.
	2) This job is marginally better than daytime TV.
	3) On alcohol: four is one more than more than enough.

Patricks's Theorem:
	If the experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment.

Patton's Law:
	A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

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

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

Peck's Programming Postulates (Philosophic Engineering applied to programming):
	 1) In any program, any error which can creep in will eventually do so.
	 2) Not until the program has been in production for at least six months
	    will the most harmful error be discovered.
	 3) Any constants, limits, or timing formulas that appear in the
	    computer manufacturer's literature should be treated as variables.
	 4) The most vital parameter in any subroutine stands the greatest
	    chance of being left out of the calling sequence.
	 5) If only one compiler can be secured for a piece of hardware, the
	    compilation times will be exorbitant.
	 6) If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems
	    will malfunction.
	 7) Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper
	    order, will be.
	 8) Interchangeable tapes won't.
	 9) If more than one person has programmed a malfunctioning routine, no
	    one is at fault.
	10) 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.
	11) Duplicated object decks which test in identical fashion will not
	    give identical results at remote sites.
	12) Manufacturer's hardware and software support ceases with payment for
	    the computer.

Peckham's Law (Beckhap's Law?):
	Beauty times brains equals a constant.

Peer's Law:
	The solution to a problem changes the problem.

Captain Penny's Law:
	You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people
	all of the time, but you can't fool MOM.

Perlsweig's Law:
	People who can least afford to pay rent, pay rent.  People who can most
	afford to pay rent, build up equity.

Persig's Postulate:
	The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon
	is infinite.

Peter Principle:
	In every hierarchy, whether it be government or business, each employee
	tends to rise to his level of incompetence; every post tends to be
	filled by an employee incompetent to execute its duties.

Peter's Corollaries:
	1) Incompetence knows no barriers of time or place.
	2) Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached
	   their level of incompetence.
	3) If at first you don't succeed, try something else.

Peter's Hidden Postulate According to Godin:
	Every employee begins at his level of competence.

Peter's Inversion:
	Internal consistency is valued more highly than efficiency.

Peter's Law of Evolution:
	Competence always contains the seed of incompetence.

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

Peter's Observation:
	Super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence.

Peter's Paradox:
	Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence in their
	colleagues.

Peter's Perfect People Palliative:
	Each of us is a mixture of good qualities and some (perhaps) not-so-good
	qualities.  In considering our fellow people we should remember their
	good qualities and realize that their faults only prove that they are,
	after all, human.  We should refrain from making harsh judgments of
	people just because they happen to be dirty, rotten, no-good
	sons-of-bitches.

Peter's Placebo:
	An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.

Peter's Prognosis:
	Spend sufficient time in confirming the need and the need will
	disappear.

Peter's Rule for Creative Incompetence:
	Create the impression that you have already reached your level of
	incompetence.

Peter's Theorem:
	Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence.

Phone Booth Rule:
	A lone dime always gets the number nearly right.

Potter's Law:
	The amount of flak received on any subject is inversely proportional to
	the subject's true value.

Poulsen's Law:
	When anything is used to its full potential, it will break.

Law of Predictive Action:
	The second most powerful phrase in the world is "Watch this!"  The most
	powerful phrase is "Oh yeah? Watch this!"

Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning:
	It's on the other side.

The Principle Concerning Multifunctional Devices:
	The fewer functions any device is required to perform, the more
	perfectly it can perform those functions.

Law of Probable Dispersal:
	Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.  (also known as
	the How Come It All Landed On Me Law)

Laws of Procrastination:
	1) Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility for
	   its termination on someone else (the authority who imposed the
	   deadline).
	2) It reduces anxiety by reducing the expected quality of the project
	   from the best of all possible efforts to the best that can be
	   expected given the limited time.
	3) Status is gained in the eyes of others, and in one's own eyes,
	   because it is assumed that the importance of the work justifies the
	   stress.
	4) Avoidance of interruptions including the assignment of other duties
	   can be achieved, so that the obviously stressed worker can
	   concentrate on the single effort.
	5) Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there
	   is nothing important to do.
	6) It may eliminate the job if the need passes before the job can be
	   done.

Productivity Equation:
	The productivity, P, of a group of people is:
		P = N x T x (.55 - .00005 x N x (N - 1) )
	where N is the number of people in the group and T is the number of
	hours in a work period.

Pudder's Law:
	Anything that begins well ends badly.  Anything that begins badly ends
	worse.

Puritan's Law:
	Evil is live spelled backwards.

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.

Q's Law:
	No matter what stage of completion one reaches in a North Sea (oil)
	field, the cost of the remainder of the project remains the same.

Rangnekar's Modified Rules Concerning Decisions:
	1) If you must make a decision, delay it.
	2) If you can authorize someone else to avoid a decision, do so.
	3) If you can form a committee, have them avoid the decision.
	4) If you can otherwise avoid a decision, avoid it immediately.

Rayburn's Rule:
	If you want to get along, go along.

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:
	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.

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.

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 easier to start all over.
   Corollary:
	It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences -- if
	you have none, someone will make one for you.

Fourth Law of Revision:
	After painstaking and careful analysis of a sample, you are always told
	that it is the wrong sample and doesn't apply to the problem.

Richard's Complementary Rules of Ownership:
	1) If you keep anything long enough you can throw it away.
	2) If you throw anything away, you will need it as soon as it is no
	   longer accessible.

Riddle's Constant:
	There are coexisting elements in frustration phenomena which separate
	expected results from achieved results.

Ross's Law:
	Never characterize the importance of a statement in advance.

Rudin's Law:
	In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of
	action, most people will choose the worse one possible.

Runamok's Law:
	There are four kinds of people: those who sit quietly and do nothing,
	those who talk about sitting quietly and doing nothing, those who do
	things, and those who talk about doing things.

Sam's Axioms:
	1) Any line, however short, is still too long.
	2) Work is the crabgrass of life, but money is the water that keeps it
	   green.

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

Schmidt's Law:
	Never eat prunes when you're hungry.

Schmidt's Law (probably a different Schmidt):
	If you mess with something long enough, it'll break.

Scott's First Law:
	No matter wnat goes wrong, it will probably look right.

Scott's Second Law:
	When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have
	been correct in the first place.
   Corollary:
	After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to
	fit the original quantity back into the equation.

Segal's Law:
	A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is
	never sure.

Law of Selective Gravity (the Buttered Side Down Law):
	An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
   Corollary (Klipstein):
	The most delicate component will be the one to drop.

Law of the Perversity of Nature (Mrs. Murphy's Corollary):
	You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to
	butter.
   Corollary (Jenning):
	The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly
	proportional to the cost of the carpet.

Sevareid's Law:
	The chief cause of problems is solutions.

Shalit's Law:
	The intensity of movie publicity is in inverse ratio to the quality of
	the movie.

Shanahan's Law:
	The length of a meeting rises with the square of the number of people
	present.

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

Simmon's Law:
	The desire for racial integration increases with the square of the
	distance from the actual event.

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

Skinner's Constant (Flannegan's Finagling Factor):
	That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided into, added to, or
	subtracted from the answer you got, gives you the answer you should have
	gotten.

Snafu Equations:
	1) Given any problem containing n equations, there will be n+1 unknowns.
	2) An object or bit of information most needed, will be least available.
	3) In any human endeavor, once you have exhausted all possibilities and
	   fail, there will be one solution, simple and obvious, highly visible
	   to everyone else.
	4) Badness comes in waves.

First Law of Socio-Economics:
	In a hierarchical system, the rate of pay for a given task increases in
	inverse ratio to the unpleasantness and difficulty of the task.

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

Woods's Refutation of the First Law of Socio-Genetics:
	On the contrary, if you never procreate, neither will your kids.

Sociology's Iron Law of Oligarchy:
	In every organized activity, no matter the sphere, a small number will
	become the oligarchical leaders and the others will follow.

Sodd's First Law:
	When a person attempts a task, he or she will be thwarted in that task
	by the unconscious intervention of some other presence (animate or
	inanimate).  Nevertheless, some tasks are completed, since the
	intervening presence is itself attempting a task and is, of course,
	subject to interference.

Sodd's Second Law:
	Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to
	occur.
   Corollary:
	Any system must be designed to withstand the worst possible set of
	circumstances.

Spare Parts Principle:
	The accessibility, during recovery of small parts which fall from the
	work bench, varies directly with the size of the part and inversely with
	its importance to the completion of the work underway.

Spark's Ten Rules for the Project Manager:
	 1) Strive to look tremendously important.
	 2) Attempt to be seen with important people.
	 3) Speak with authority; however, only expound on the obvious and
	    proven facts.
	 4) Don't engage in arguments, but if cornered, ask an irrelevant
	    question and lean back with a satisfied grin while your opponent
	    tries to figure out what's going on -- then quickly change the
	    subject.
	 5) Listen intently while others are arguing the problem.  Pounce on a
	    trite statement and bury them with it.
	 6) If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he
	    had lost his senses.  When he looks down, paraphrase the question
	    back at him.
	 7) Obtain a brilliant assignment, but keep out of sight and out of the
	    limelight.
	 8) Walk at a fast pace when out of the office -- this keeps questions
	    from subordinates and superiors at a minimum.
	 9) Always keep the office door closed.  This puts visitors on the
	    defensive and also makes it look as if you are always in an
	    important conference.
	10) Give all orders verbally.  Never write anything down that might go
	    into a "Pearl Harbor File."

Sprinkle's Law:
	Things always fall at right angles.

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

Stock's Observation:
	You no sooner get your head above water than someone pulls your flippers
	off.

Stockmayer's Theorem:
	If it looks easy, it's tough.  If it looks tough, it's damn well
	impossible.

Sturgeon's Law:
	Ninety percent of EVERYTHING is crud.

Law of Superiority:
	The first example of superior principle is always inferior to the
	developed example of inferior principle.

Law of Superstition:
	It's bad luck to be superstititious.

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

Terman's Law:
	There is no direct relationship between the quality of an educational
	program and its cost.

Terman's Law of Innovation:
	If you want a track team to win the high jump you find one person who
	can jump seven feet, not seven people who can jump one foot.

Theory of the International Society of Philosophic Engineering:
	 1) In any calculation, any error which can creep in will do so.
	 2) Any error in any calculation will be in the direction of most harm.
	 3) In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from
	    engineering handbooks) are to be treated as variables.
	 4) The best approximation of service conditions in the laboratory will
	    not begin to meet those conditions encountered in actual service.
	 5) The most vital dimension on any plan or drawing stands the greatest
	    chance of being omitted.
	 6) If only one bid can be secured on any project, the price will be
	    unreasonable.
	 7) If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent
	    production units will malfunction.
	 8) All delivery promises must be multiplied by a factor of 2.0.
	 9) Major changes in construction will always be requested after
	    fabrication is nearly completed.
	10) Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.
	11) Interchangeable parts won't.
	12) Manufacturer's specifications of performance should be multiplied by
	    a factor of 0.5.
	13) Salespeople's claims for performance should be multiplied by a
	    factor of 0.25.
	14) Installation and Operating Instructions shipped with the device will
	    be promptly discarded by the Receiving Department.
	15) Any device requiring service or adjustment will be least accessible.
	16) Service Conditions as given on specifications will be exceeded.
	17) If more than one person is responsible for a miscalculation, no one
	    will be at fault.
	18) Identical units which test in an identical fashion will not behave
	    in an identical fashion in the field.
	19) If, in engineering practice, a safety factor is set through service
	    experience at an ultimate value, an ingenious idiot will promptly
	    calculate a method to exceed said safety factor.
	20) Warranty and guarantee clauses are voided by payment of the invoice.

Thinking Man's Tautology:
	If you think you're wrong, you're wrong.
   Corollary:
	If you think you're wrong, you're right.

Thoreau's Law:
	If you see a man approaching with the obvious intent of doing you good,
	run for your life.

Transcription Square Law:
	The number of errors made is equal to the sum of the squares employed.

Trischmann's Paradox (Axiom of the Pipe):
	A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in
	his mouth.

Law of Triviality:
	The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion
	to the sum involved.

Troutman's Laws of Computer Programming (and see Peck's Programming Postulates):
	 1) Any running program is obsolete.
	 2) Any planned program costs more and takes longer.
	 3) Any useful program will have to be changed.
	 4) Any useless program will have to be documented.
	 5) The size of a program expands to fill all available memory.
	 6) The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of
	    its output.
	 7) The complexity of a program grows until it exceeds the capability of
	    its maintainers.
	 8) Any system that relies on computer reliability is unreliable.
	 9) Any system that relies on human reliability is unreliable.
	10) Investment in reliability increases until it exceeds the probable
	    cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work
	    done.
	11) Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and
	    you will find that programmers cannot write in English.
	12) Profanity is the one language all programmers know best.

Truman's Law:
	If you cannot convince them, confuse them.

Tuccille's First Law of Reality:
	Industry always moves in to fill an economic vacuum.

Turnauckas's Observation:
	To err is human; to really foul things up takes a computer.

The Ultimate Principle:
	By definition, when you are investigating the unknown, you do not know
	what you will find.

Unnamed Law:
	If it happens, it must be possible.

The Unspeakable Law:
	As soon as you mention something, if it's good, it goes away; if it's
	bad, it happens.

Vail's Axiom:
	In any human enterprise, work seeks the lowest hierarchical level.

Lucy Van Pelt's Observation:
	There must be one day above all others in each life that is the
	happiest.
   Corollary:
	What if you've already had it?

Vique's Law:
	A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.

Vonnegut's Corollary:
	Beauty may be only skin deep, but ugliness goes right to the core.

Wain's Conclusion:
	The only people making money these days are the ones who sell computer
	paper.

Wallace's Observation:
	Everything is in a state of utter dishevelment.

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

Rule of the Way Out:
	Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out.

Weaver's Law:
	When several reporters share a cab on an assignment, the reporter in the
	front seat pays for all.
   Corollary (Weaver-Doyle):
	No matter how many reporters share a cab, and no matter who pays, each
	puts the full fare on his own expense account.

Weber-Fechner Law:
	The least change in stimulus necessary to produce a perceptible change
	in response is proportional to the stimulus already existing.

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

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

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

Westheimer's Rule:
	To estimate the time it takes to do a task: estimate the time you think
	it should take, multiply by 2, and change the unit of measure to the
	next highest unit.  Thus we allocate 2 days for a one hour task.

White's Chappaquiddick Theorem:
	The sooner and in more detail you announce bad news, the better.

White's Observations of Committee Operation:
	1) People very rarely think in groups; they talk together, they exchange
	   information, they adjudicate, they make compromises.  But they do not
	   think; they do not create.
	2) A really new idea affronts current agreement.
	3) A meeting cannot be productive unless certain premises are so shared
	   that they do not need to be discussed, and the argument can be
	   confined to areas of disagreement.  But while this kind of consensus
	   makes a group more effective in its legitimate functions, it does not
	   make the group a creative vehicle -- it would not be a new idea if it
	   didn't -- and the group, impelled as it is to agree, is instinctively
	   hostile to that which is divisive.

White's Statement:
	Don't lose heart . . .
   Owen's Comment on White's Statement:
	. . . they might want to cut it out . . .
   Byrd's Addition to Owen's Comment on White's Statement:
	. . . and they want to avoid a lengthy search.

Whole Picture Principle:
	Research scientists are so wrapped up in their own narrow endeavors that
	they cannot possibly see the whole picture of anything, including their
	own research.
   Corollary:
	The Director of Research should know as little as possible about the
	specific subject of research he is administering.

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

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

Wingo's Axiom:
	All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing
	without thinking.

Wolf's Law (An Optimistic View of a Pessimistic World):
	It isn't that things will necessarily go wrong (Murphy's Law), but
	rather that they will take so much more time and effort than you think
	if they are not to go wrong.

Woods's Incomplete Maxims:
	1) All's well that ends.
	2) A penny saved is a penny.
	3) Don't leave things unfinishe

Woods's Laws of Procrastination:
	1) Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
	2) Procrastinate today!  (Tomorrow may be too late.)
	3) NOW is the time to do things later!
	4) If at first you don't succeed, why try again?

Woodward's Law:
	A theory is better than an explanation.

Worker's Dilemma Law (Management's Put-Down Law):
	1) No matter how much you do, you'll never do enough.
	2) What you don't do is always more important than what you do do.

Wynne's Law:
	Negative slack tends to increase.

Wyszkowski's Theorem:
	Regardless of the units used by either the supplier or the customer, the
	manufacturer shall use his own arbitrary units convertible to those of
	either the supplier or the customer only by means of weird and unnatural
	conversion factors.

Wyszowski's First Law:
	No experiment is reproducible.

Wyszkowski's Second Law:
	Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it long enough.

Young's Handy Guide to the Modern Sciences:
	If it is green or it wiggles -- it is Biology.
	If it stinks -- it is Chemistry.
	If it doesn't work -- it is Physics.

Young's Law:
	All great discoveries are made by mistake.
   Corollary:
	The greater the funding, the longer it takes to make the mistake.

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.)

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

Zymurgy's Seventh Exception to Murphy's Laws:
	When it rains, it pours.

================================================================================

Acknowledgments:

	Much of this list comes from a list of laws accumulated by Conrad
Schneiker of the University of Arizona, version of March 29, 1975; I got hold of
his list via Prof. Ehrman at Stanford.  Local contacts for that list were,
according to ITS acknowledgments, G. Edward Logg & Gregg Townsend, CDC, 215
Moffett Park Dr, Sunnyvale CA 94086.

	Many corrections to that list, and many additions, were derived from
various lists obtained through the grapevine and through years of packratting.
Further corrections and additions are always welcome.  Send them to DON@SAIL
(non-ARPAnet address: Don Woods, Computer Science Dept, Stanford University).