Murphy's Laws of Technology

via my good programmer~friend Marcia Murphy

1. To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most

2. All great discoveries are made by mistake

3. A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works

4. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

5. A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make

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

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

8. The attention span of a computer is only as long as it electrical cord

9. You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track

10. Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence

11. Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some dern fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition

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

13. If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization

14. The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of the firm

15. 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.

16. Always draw your curves, then plot your reading

17. Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget

18. All's well that ends

19. A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost

20. The first myth of management is that it exists

21. A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection

22. New systems generate new problems

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

24. We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything

25. Any given program, when running, is obsolete

26. Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss putting in an honest day's work

27. Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book

28. The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman

29. After all is said and done, a heck of a lot more is said than done

30. 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

31. If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number

32. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable

33. Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into a "Pearl Harbor File"

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

35. The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the odds that the competition already has the order

36. In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be totalled correctly after 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The correct total will become self-evident at 8:15 a.m. on Monday

37. Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches.

38. All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door

39. The only perfect science is hind-sight

40. Work smarder and not harder and be careful of yor speling

41. If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist

42. If an experiment works, something has gone wrong

43. When all else fails, read the instructions

44. 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

45. Everything that goes up must come down

46. Any instrument when dropped will roll into the least accessible corner

47. Any simple theory will be worded in the most complicated way

48. Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it