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From: forys@sunybcs.UUCP (Jeff Forys)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Murphy's laws on technology
Message-ID: <594@sunybcs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 29-Sep-84 21:21:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: sunybcs.594
Posted: Sat Sep 29 21:21:48 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Sep-84 04:27:11 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: State University of New York @ Buffalo,NY
Lines: 155

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			MURPHY'S LAWS ON TECHNOLOGY
			===========================

	- You can never tell which way the train went by looking at
	  the tracks.

	- 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.

	- Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not
	  understand.

	- If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote
	  programs, then the first woodpecker to come along would
	  destroy civilization.

	- The opulence of the front office door varies inversely with
	  the fundamental solvency of the firm.

	- The attention span of a computer is only as long as its
	  electrical cord.

	- An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less
	  until he knows absolutely nothing about everything.

	- 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.

	- All 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 until 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	- Any given program, when running, is obsolete.

	- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
	  from magic.

	- A computer makes as many mistakes in 2 seconds as 20 men
	  working 20 years make.

	- Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss put 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.

	- Any sufficiently advanced bug becomes a feature.

	- 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 wrong answer, try
	  multipying 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.

	- If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious.

	- The more cordial the buyers 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 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 would cause the most damage will be the one to go
	  wrong.

	- Everything that goes up must come down.

	- 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 confidence is inversely proportional
	  to the level of management.

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One for the road...

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