Murphy's laws of technology

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

• 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 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.

• 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 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• Any given program, when running, is obsolete.

• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

• 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• Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.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.

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

• 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 totalled 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.

• 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.

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

• Handy Guide to Modern Science: 1) If it's green or it wiggles, it's biology. 2) If it stinks, it's chemistry. 3) If it doesn't work, it's physics.

• de la Lastra's Law: 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.