Surrealist Compendium of Human Laws, Rules, Theorems, Corollaries,
Axioms, Precepts, Postulates, Criterions, Observations, Commentaries,
Maxims, Principles, Dictums, Theories, Parameters, Insights, Findings,
Conclusions, Lies, Notes, Fallacies, Factors, Revelations, Pronouncements,
Reminders, Proofs, Paradoxes, Theorems, Myths, Warnings, Tautologies, Indexes,
Proverbs, Mottos, Flaws, Conjectures, Questions, Truths, Thoughts, Metalaws,
Truisms, Effects, Options, Hypothesis, Discoveries, Syndromes, Quotations,
Refutations, Formulas, Statements, Equations, Guides, Constants, Beliefs,
Distinctions, Allegories, Advices, Admonitions, ....
Version created by L.
Klemas
February 1999
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Consult "The Power of Stupidity"
Nothing is as easy as it looks. Everything takes longer than you think. Anything
that can go wrong will go wrong. 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 there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen
then. If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway. 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.
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. Mother nature is a bitch. It is impossible to
make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. Whenever you set
out to do something, something else must be done first. Every solution breeds
new problems.
Enough research will tend to support your theory. The legibility of a copy
is inversely proportional to its importance. When there is a very long road
upon which there is a one-way bridge placed at random, and there are only
two cars on that road, it follows that: (1) the two cars are going in opposite
directions, and (2) they will always meet at the bridge. Things get worse
under pressure. Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse. Everything goes wrong
all at once. Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. It is impossible
to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious You cannot successfully
determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter. The chance of the
bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the
cost of the carpet.
If we lose much by having things go wrong, take all possible care. If we
have nothing to lose by change, relax. If we have everything to gain by change,
relax. If it doesn't matter, it does not matter. Murphy was an optimist.
You never run out of things that can go wrong.
Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you are. No battle plan ever
survives contact with the enemy. Friendly fire ain't. The most dangerous
thing in the combat zone is an officer with a map. The problem with taking
the easy way out is that the enemy has already mined it. The buddy system
is essential to your survival; it gives the enemy somebody else to shoot
at. The further you are in advance of your own positions, the more likely
your artillery will shoot short. Incoming fire has the right of way. If your
advance is going well, you are walking into an ambush. The quartermaster
has only two sizes, too large and too small. If you really need an officer
in a hurry, take a nap. The only time suppressive fire works is when it is
used on abandoned positions. The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy
fire is incoming friendly fire. There is nothing more satisfying that having
someone take a shot at you, and miss. Don't be conspicuous. In the combat
zone, it draws fire. Out of the combat zone, it draws sergeants. If your
sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
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.
All the good ones are taken. If the person isn't taken, there's a reason.
(corr. to 1) The nicer someone is, the farther away (s)he is from you. Brains
x Beauty x Availability = Constant. 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. 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. When the lights are out, all women are beautiful. 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 younger the better. 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. 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. Never go to bed mad, stay up and fight. Love is the delusion that
one woman differs from another. "This won't hurt, I promise."
If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know. If you don't like the answer,
you shouldn't have asked the question. When eating an elephant, take one
bite at a time. 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. A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but
to protect the writer. Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Anybody can win -- unless there happens to be a second entry.
When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to transfer to is on
time. The theory is supported as long as the funds are. Social innovations
tend to the level of minimum tolerable well being. Never eat at a place called
Mom's. Never play cards with a man named Doc. And never lie down with a woman
who's got more troubles than you. It is better for civilization to be going
down the drain than to be coming up it. Almost anything is easier to get
into than out of. When all else fails, follow instructions. The lion and
the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep. I'd
rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy. Justice
always prevails . . . three times out of seven. 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. The best simple-minded
test of expertise in a particular area is the ability to win money in a series
of bets on future occurrences in that area. Any system or program, however
complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more
complicated. No matter which direction you start it's always against the
wind coming back. When working on a project, if you put away a tool that
you're certain you're finished with, you will need it instantly. Don't force
it, get a larger hammer. 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. 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. Truck deliveries that normally take one day will take
five when you are waiting for the truck. After adding two weeks to the schedule
for unexpected delays, add two more for the unexpected, unexpected delays.
In any structure, pick out the one piece that should not be mismarked and
expect the plant to cross you up. In any group of pieces with the same erection
mark on it, one should not have that mark on it. It will not be discovered
until you try to put it where the mark says it's supposed to go. Never argue
with the fabricating plant about an error. The inspection prints are all
checked off, even to the holes that aren't there. Those whose approval you
seek the most give you the least. What the gods get away with, the cows don't.
Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood. If it moves,
salute it; if it doesn't move, pick it up; if you can't pick it up, paint
it. Numbers are tools, not rules. Numbers are symbols for things; the number
and the thing are not the same. Skill in manipulating numbers is a talent,
not evidence of divine guidance. Like other occult techniques of divination,
the statistical method has a private jargon deliberately contrived to obscure
its methods from nonpractitioners. The product of an arithmetical computation
is the answer to an equation; it is not the solution to a problem. Arithmetical
proofs of theorems that do not have arithmetical bases prove nothing. It's
always the wrong time of the month. No books are lost by loaning except those
you particularly wanted to keep. Trouble strikes in series of threes, but
when working around the house the next job after a series of three is not
the fourth job -- it's the start of a brand new series of three.
If it can be borrowed and it can be broken, you will borrow it and you will
break it. What's good politics is bad economics; what's bad politics is good
economics; what's good economics is bad politics; what's bad economics is
good politics. The splendor of an editor's speech and the splendor of his
newspaper are inversely related to the distance between the city in which
he makes his speech and the city in which he publishes his paper. When you
are over the hill, you pick up speed. Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays
it insists on it. Some of it plus the rest of it is all of it. The integral
of the gravitational potential taken around any loop trail you chose to hike
always comes out positive. Any stone in your boot always migrates against
the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure. 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.
The number of stones in your boot is directly proportional to the number
of hours you have been on the trail. The difficulty of finding any given
trail marker is directly proportional to the importance of the consequences
of failing to find it. The size of each of the stones in your boot is directly
proportional to the number of hours you have been on the trail. The remaining
distance to your chosen campsite remains constant as twilight approaches.
The net weight of your boots is proportional to the cube of the number of
hours you have been on the trail. When you arrive at your chosen campsite,
it is full. If you take your boots off, you'll never get them back on again.
The local density of mosquitos is inversely proportional to your remaining
repellent. You can get ANYWHERE in ten minutes if you go fast enough. Speed
bumps are of negligible effect when the vehicle exceeds triple the desired
restraining speed. The vehicle in front of you is traveling slower than you
are. This lane ends in 500 feet. On a beautiful day like this it's hard to
believe anyone can be unhappy -- but we'll work on it. There are two types
of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't. The
more ridiculous a belief system, the higher the probability of its success.
Old age is always fifteen years older than I am. 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. 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. That which has not yet
been taught directly can never be taught directly. If at first you don't
succeed, you will never succeed. Government intervention in the free market
always leads to a lower national standard of living. The adoption of fractional
gold reserves in a currency system always leads to depreciation, devaluation,
demonetization and, ultimately, to complete destruction of that currency.
In a free market good money always drives bad money out of circulation. Beware
of and eschew pompous prolixity. When you're up to your nose, keep your mouth
shut. It is much harder to find a job than to keep one. 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. The ratio of time involved
in work to time available for work is usually about 0.6. There are two types
of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't. Anyone
can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be
doing at that moment. The world is more complicated than most of our theories
make it out to be. Ignorance is no excuse. Never decide to buy something
while listening to the salesman. Information which is true meets a great
many different tests very well. Most problems have either many answers or
no answer. Only a few problems have a single answer. An answer may be wrong,
right, both, or neither. Most answers are partly right and partly wrong.
A chain of reasoning is no stronger than its weakest link. A statement may
be true independently of illogical reasoning. Most general statements are
false, including this one. An exception TESTS a rule; it NEVER PROVES it.
The moment you have worked out an answer, start checking it -- it probably
isn't right. If there is an opportunity to make a mistake, sooner or later
the mistake will be made. Being sure mistakes will occur is a good frame
of mind for catching them. Check the answer you have worked out once more
-- before you tell it to anybody. Estimating a figure may be enough to catch
an error. Figures calculated in a rush are very hot; they should be allowed
to cool off a little before being used; thus we will have a reasonable time
to think about the figures and catch mistakes. A great many problems do not
have accurate answers, but do have approximate answers, from which sensible
decisions can be made. You can observe a lot just by watching. The farther
away from the entrance that you have to park, the closer the space vacated
by the car that pulls away as you walk up to the door. 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. No matter which way you ride it's uphill and against the wind.
The conclusions of most good operations research studies are obvious. Live
within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so. Established technology
tends to persist in spite of new technology. If you want your name spelled
wrong, die. If you think education is expensive -- try ignorance. If you're
feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. Under current practices, both
expenditures and revenues rise to meet each other, no matter which one may
be in excess. Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. The
conventional wisdom is that power is an aphrodisiac. In truth, it's exhausting.
You always find something the last place you look. An ounce of application
is worth a ton of abstraction. A bird in the hand is dead. When in doubt,
mumble. When in trouble, delegate. When in charge, ponder. You can't guard
against the arbitrary. If everything seems to be coming your way, you're
probably in the wrong lane. In any household, junk accumulates to fill the
space available for its storage. If the converse of a statement is absurd,
the original statement is an insult to the intelligence and should never
have been said. The success of any venture will be helped by prayer, even
in the wrong denomination. When things are going well, someone will inevitably
experiment detrimentally. The deficiency will never show itself during the
dry runs. Information travels more surely to those with a lesser need to
know. An original idea can never emerge from committee in the original. When
the product is destined to fail, the delivery system will perform perfectly.
The crucial memorandum will be snared in the out-basket by the paper clip
of the overlying correspondence and go to file. Success can be insured only
by devising a defense against failure of the contingency plan. Performance
is directly affected by the perversity of inanimate objects. If not controlled,
work will flow to the competent man until he submerges. The lagging activity
in a project will invariably be found in the area where the highest overtime
rates lie waiting. Talent in staff work or sales will recurringly be interpreted
as managerial ability. The "think positive" leader tends to listen to his
subordinates' premonitions only during the postmortems. Clearly stated
instructions will consistently produce multiple interpretations. On successive
charts of the same organization the number of boxes will never decrease.
The spirit of public service will rise, and the bureaucracy will multiply
itself much faster, in time of grave national concern. It's always the partner's
fault. At some time in the life cycle of virtually every organization, its
ability to succeed in spite of itself runs out. Anybody that wants the presidency
so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not
to be trusted with the office. Organizations can grow faster than their brains
can manage them in relation to their environment and to their own physiology;
when this occurs, they are an endangered species. Adding manpower to a late
software project makes it later. Whenever a system becomes completely defined,
some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands
it beyond recognition. It is impossible to distinguish, from a distance,
whether the bureaucrats associated with your project are simply sitting on
their hands, or frantically trying to cover their asses. Heisenberg's Addendum
to Brownian Bureaucracy: If you observe a bureaucrat closely enough to make
the distinction above, he will react to your observation by covering his
ass. Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the available
briefcases. Never offend people with style when you can offend them with
substance. Our customer's paperwork is profit. Our own paperwork is loss.
At any level of traffic, any delay is intolerable. As the economy gets better,
everything else gets worse. Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable
man. Overdoing things is harmful in all cases, even when it comes to efficiency.
You should have seen it when *I* got it. If the assumptions are wrong, the
conclusions aren't likely to be very good. The organization of any program
reflects the organization of the people who develop it. There is no such
thing as a "dirty capitalist", only a capitalist. Anything is possible, but
nothing is easy. Capitalism can exist in one of only two states -- welfare
or warfare. I'd rather go whoring than warring. History proves nothing. There
is nothing so unbecoming on the beach as a wet kilt. A little humility is
arrogance. A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological
rococo. All progress is based on a universal innate desire on the part of
every organism to live beyond its income. Anytime you wish to demonstrate
something, the number of faults is proportional to the number of viewers.
The desire for modeling a prototype is inversely proportional to the decline
of the prototype.
When all else fails, read the instructions. The number of adjectives and
verbs that are added to the description of a menu item is in inverse proportion
to the quality of the resulting dish. No matter how many times you've had
it, if it's offered, take it, because it'll never be quite the same again.
A coup that is known in advance is a coup that does not take place. Nature
abhors a vacuous experimenter. It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep
their money. A Smith and Wesson beats four aces. The leak in the roof is
never in the same location as the drip. If you tell the boss you were late
for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat
tire. It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick. Any body suspended
in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck
steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair,
soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the
familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over. Any body
in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly.
Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters
are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize
boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called
this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease. Any body passing
through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter.
Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality
of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are
so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving
a cookie-cutout- perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes
this reaction. The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is
greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the
ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. Such
an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably
unsuccessful. All principles of gravity are negated by fear. Psychic forces
are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from
the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will
induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or
the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels
of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight.
As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. This is
particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may
be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places
simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning
or being throttled. A 'wacky' character has the option of self- replication
only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity
required. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble
tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled
generation, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a
wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this
theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts
to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of
science. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon
cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably
afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled,
or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking
self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify. Corollary: A
cat will assume the shape of its container. For every vengeance there is
an equal and opposite revengeance. This is the one law of animated cartoon
motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason,
we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead. Everything falls
faster than an anvil. Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner
cartoons. All kookies are not in a jar. People don't change; they only become
more so. In matters of dispute, the bank's balance is always smaller than
yours. Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget. If your next
pot of chili tastes better, it probably is because of something left out,
rather than added. When things are going well, something will go wrong. When
things just can't get any worse, they will. Anytime things appear to be going
better, you have overlooked something. Proposals, as understood by the proposer,
will be judged otherwise by others. If you explain so clearly that nobody
can misunderstand, somebody will. If you do something which you are sure
will meet with everyone's approval, somebody won't like it. Procedures devised
to implement the purpose won't quite work. No matter how long or how many
times you explain, no one is listening. The First Discovery of Christmas
Morning: Batteries not included. 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. Whenever in time, and wherever in the universe, any man speaks
or writes in any detail about the technical management of a poem, the resulting
irascibility of the reader's response is a constant. 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.
When the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished
but elderly scientists, and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion
-- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, right. The
only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into
the impossible. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic. Every revolutionary idea -- in Science, Politics, Art or Whatever
-- evokes three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the three phrases:
"It is completely impossible -- don't waste my time." "It is possible, but
it is not worth doing." "I said it was a good idea all along." No matter
how often you trade dinner or other invitations with in-laws, you will lose
a small fortune in the exchange. Corollary: Don't try it: you cannot drink
enough of your in-laws' booze to get even before your liver fails. It's always
darkest just before the lights go out. Highways in the worst need of repair
naturally have low traffic counts, which results in low priority for repair
work. For every credibility gap there is a gullibility fill. If you have
something to do, and you put it off long enough, chances are someone else
will do it for you. What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing
on the facts -- not the facts themselves. Law of Alienation: Nothing can
so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.
Law of Ambition: At any one time, thousands of borough councilmen, school
board members, attorneys, and businessmen -- as well as congressmen, senators,
and governors -- are dreaming of the White House, but few, if any of them,
will make it. Law of Attraction: Power attracts people but it cannot hold
them. Law of Competition: The more qualified candidates who are available,
the more likely the compromise will be on the candidate whose main qualification
is a nonthreatening incompetence. Law of Inside Dope: There are many inside
dopes in politics and government. Law of Lawmaking: Those who express random
thoughts to legislative committees are often surprised and appalled to find
themselves the instigators of law. Law of Permanence: Political power is
as permanent as today's newspaper. Ten years from now, few will know or care
who the most powerful man in any state was today. Law of Secrecy: The best
way to publicize a governmental or political action is to attempt to hide
it. Law of Wealth: Victory goes to the candidate with the most accumulated
or contributed wealth who has the financial resources to convince the middle
class and poor that he will be on their side. Law of Wisdom: Wisdom is considered
a sign of weakness by the powerful because a wise man can lead without power
but only a powerful man can lead without wisdom. The more time you spend
in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything.
Stability is achieved when you spend all your time Thinly sliced cabbage.
The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is
growing. If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
People will accept your idea much more readily if you tell them Benjamin
Franklin said it first. Committee Rules: Never arrive on time, or you will
be stamped a beginner. Don't say anything until the meeting is half over;
this stamps you as being wise. Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating
the others. When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed. Be the
first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular -- it's what everyone
is waiting for. No action is without side-effects. Nothing ever goes away.
There is no free lunch. Any system or program, however complicated, if looked
at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated. If at first
you don't succeed, transform your data set. Any given program, when running,
is obsolete. Any given program costs more and takes longer. If a program
is useful, it will have to be changed. If a program is useless, it will have
to be documented. Any program will expand to fill available memory. The value
of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. Program complexity
grows until it exceeds the capabilities of the programmer who must maintain
it. Any non-trivial program contains at least one bug. 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. :
There's always one more bug. To err is human, but to really screw things
up requires a computer. The price of any product produced for a government
agency will be not less than the square of the initial Firm Fixed-Price Contract.
Short-term success with voters on any side of a given issue can be guaranteed
by creating a long-term special study commission made up of at least three
divergent interest groups. Technologies don't transfer. Whenever one word
or letter can change the entire meaning of a sentence, the probability of
an error being made will be in direct proportion to the embarrassment it
will cause. If you assign N persons to write a compiler you'll get a N-1
pass compiler. In every organization there will always be one person who
knows what is going on. -> This person must be fired. In any decisive
situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional
to the importance of the decision. Much work, much food; little work, little
food; no work, burial at sea. When more and more people are thrown out of
work, unemployment results. All machines are amplifiers. A proliferation
of new laws creates a proliferation of new loopholes. If you do not understand
a particular word in a piece of technical writing, ignore it. The piece will
make perfect sense without it. The bus that left the stop just before you
got there is your bus. The amount of time you have to wait for a bus is directly
proportional to the inclemency of the weather. All buses heading in the opposite
direction drive off the face of the earth and never return. The last rush-hour
express bus to your neighborhood leaves five minutes before you get off work.
Bus schedules are arranged so your bus will arrive at the transfer point
precisely one minute after the connecting bus has left. Any bus that can
be the wrong bus will be the wrong bus. All others are out of service or
full. Authority tends to assign jobs to those least able to do them. Paper
is always strongest at the perforations. If people listened to themselves
more often, they'd talk less. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
("tanstaafl") There are no "free lunches", but sometimes it costs more to
collect money than to give away food. There are three ways to get something
done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it. When traveling
with children on one's holidays, at least one child of any number of children
will request a rest room stop exactly halfway between any two given rest
areas. The amount of work done varies inversely with the amount of time spent
in the office. Anything, no matter how bad, will sound good if played back
at a very high level for a short time. There are two sides to every argument
unless a man is personally involved, in which case there is only one. There
is only one thing worse than dreaming you are at a conference and waking
to find that you are at a conference, and that is the conference where you
can't fall asleep.
History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history. Nature
will tell you a direct lie if she can. Those with the best advice offer no
advice. Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman. Democracy is that form
of government where everybody gets what the majority deserves. Pills to be
taken in twos always come out of the bottle in threes. 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. After an access cover has been
secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has
been omitted. If the law-makers make a compromise, the place where it will
be felt most is the taxpayer's pocket. Corollary: The compromise will always
be more expensive than either of the suggestions it is compromising. Washington
is a much better place if you are asking questions rather than answering
them. Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference. Everything
takes more time and money. The fury engendered by the misspelling of a name
in a column is in direct ratio to the obscurity of the mentionee. To get
action out of management, it is necessary to create the illusion of a crisis
in the hope it will be acted upon. Management will select actions or events
and convert them to crises. It will then over-react. Management is incapable
of recognizing a true crisis. The squeaky hinge gets the oil. The cigarette
smoke always drifts in the direction of the non-smoker regardless of the
direction of the breeze. The amount of pleasure derived from a cigarette
is directly proportional to the number of non-smokers in the vicinity. A
smoker is always attracted to the non-smoking section. The life of a cigarette
is directly proportional to the intensity of the protests from non-smokers.
Food that tastes the best has the highest number of calories. If you don't
know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not start writing
it. The more heavily a man is supposed to be taxed, the more power he has
to escape being taxed. If a taxpayer thinks he can cheat safely, he probably
will. Get elected. Get re-elected. Don't get mad -- get even. To beat the
bureaucracy, make your problem their problem. Anything worth doing is worth
doing for money. The specialist learns more and more about less and less
until, finally, he knows everything about nothing; whereas the generalist
learns less and less about more and more until, finally, he knows nothing
about everything. The amount of trash accumulated within the space occupied
is exponentially proportional to the number of living bodies that enter and
leave within any given amount of time. Since no matter can be created or
destroyed (excluding nuclear and cafeteria substances), as one attempts to
remove unwanted material (i.e., trash) from one's living space, the remaining
material mutates so as to occupy 30 to 50 percent more than its original
volume. Dust breeds. The odds are 6:5 that if one has late classes, one's
roommate will have the EARLIEST possible classes. One's roommate (who has
early classes) has an alarm clock that is louder than God's own. When one
has an early class, one's roommate will invariably enter the space late at
night and suddenly become hyperactive, ill, violent, or all three. When the
weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly.
In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the greater the confusion.
While the difficulties and dangers of problems tend to increase at a geometric
rate, the knowledge and manpower qualified to deal with these problems tend
to increase linearly. While human capacities to shape the environment, society,
and human beings are rapidly increasing, policymaking capabilities to use
those capacities remain the same. Opportunity always knocks at the least
opportune moment. Of two possible events, only the undesired one will occur.
The territory behind rhetoric is too often mined with equivocation. The shortest
measurable interval of time is the time between the moment one puts a little
extra aside for a sudden emergency and the arrival of that emergency. One
of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and
always a clever thing to say. The faster the plane, the narrower the seats.
A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper.
What men learn from history is that men do not learn from history. If on
an actuarial basis there is a 50-50 chance that something will go wrong,
it will actually go wrong nine times out of ten. The number of different
hypotheses erected to explain a given biological phenomenon is inversely
proportional to the available knowledge. Anyone nit-picking enough to write
a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked
it. The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. Things
will get worse before they will get better. Who said things would get better?
Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. One good turn gets most of the
blanket. That which we call sin in others is experiment for us. The larger
the project or job, the less time there is to do it. The more you run over
a dead cat, the flatter it gets. 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 definite 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. If you think
the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it. The other line moves
faster. Don't try to change lines. The other line -- the one you were in
originally -- will then move faster. Nothing worth a damn is ever done as
a matter of principle. (If it is worth doing, it is done because it is worth
doing. If it is not, it's done as a matter of principle.) When team members
are finally in a position to help the team, it turns out they have quit the
team. A bureaucrat's castle is his desk . . . and parking place. Proceed
cautiously when changing either. On the theory that one should never take
anything for granted, follow up on everything, but especially those items
varying from the norm. The greater the divergence from normal routine and/or
the greater the number of offices potentially involved, the better the chance
a never-to-be-discovered person will file the problem away in a drawer
specifically designed for items requiring a decision. Never say without
qualification that your activity has sufficient space, money, staff, etc.
Always distrust offices not under your jurisdiction which say that they are
there to serve you. "Support" offices in a bureaucracy tend to grow in size
and make demands on you out of proportion to their service, and in the end
require more effort on your part than their service is worth. Support
organizations can always prove success by showing service to someone . .
. not necessarily you. Incompetents often hire able assistants. 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 still result in an increase in the total confusion
of society at large. At a bargain sale, the only suit or dress that you like
best and that fits is the one not on sale. Negative expectations yield negative
results. Positive expectations yield negative results. Don't ask the barber
whether you need a haircut.
If there isn't a law, there will be. The number of errors in any piece of
writing rises in proportion to the writer's reliance on secondary sources.
Any facts which, when included in the argument, give the desired result,
are fair facts for the argument. When it is not necessary to make a decision,
it is necessary not to make a decision. Give him an inch and he'll screw
you. A hand in the bush is worth two anywhere else. We're all going down
the same road in different directions. Necessity is the mother of strange
bedfellows. After things have gone from bad to worse, the cycle will repeat
itself. If God had intended for us to go to concerts, He would have given
us tickets. Any given dress is: indecent 10 years before its time, daring
1 year before its time, chic in its time, dowdy 3 years after its time, hideous
20 years after its time, amusing 30 years after its time, romantic 100 years
after its time, and beautiful 150 years after its time. When your cat has
fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will
suddenly have to go to the bathroom. Important things that are supposed to
happen do not happen, especially when people are looking. Never replicate
a successful experiment. You have taken yourself too seriously. Science is
Truth. Don't be misled by fact. If an experiment works, something has gone
wrong. 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. In any collection of data, the figure most obviously
correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake. No one whom you ask
for help will see it. Everyone who stops by with unsought advice will see
it immediately. Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only
makes it worse. The perversity of the universe tends to a maximum. The
information you have is not what you want. The information you want is not
what you need. The information you need is not what you can obtain. The
information you can obtain costs more than you want to pay. 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.
To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start. Always
keep a record of data. It indicates you've been working. Always draw your
curves, then plot the reading. In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way.
When you don't know what you are doing, do it NEATLY. Teamwork is essential;
it allows you to blame someone else. Always verify your witchcraft. Be sure
to obtain meteorological data before leaving on vacation. Do not believe
in miracles. Rely on them. The tire is only flat on the bottom. Creativity
varies inversely with the number of cooks involved with the broth. Any inanimate
object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to
perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either
entirely obscure or completely mysterious. Never buy a car that has a wick.
Money isn't everything. It's great to be a Negro. I'm only going to put it
in a little way. The check's in the mail. Anticipation is half the fun. I
promise I won't come in your mouth. This will hurt me more than it hurts
you. I've never done this before. If you cover a congressional committee
on a regular basis, they will report the bill on your day off. In a bureaucracy,
accomplishment is inversely proportional to the volume of paper used. The
only imperfect thing in nature is the human race. Whatever happens in government
could have happened differently, and it usually would have been better if
it had. Once things have happened, no matter how accidentally, they will
be regarded as manifestations of an unchangeable Higher Reason. He that lives
upon Hope dies farting. Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not
be disappointed. Nothing is so simple it cannot be misunderstood. Circumstances
can force a generalized incompetent to become competent, at least in a
specialized field. Ideas endure and prosper in inverse proportion to their
soundness and validity. The most powerful force in the world is that of a
disc straining to land under a car, just beyond reach. (The technical term
for this force is "car suck".) The higher the quality of a catch or the comment
it receives, the greater the probability of a crummy return throw. ("Good
catch. . . Bad throw.") One must never precede any maneuver by a comment
more predictive than, "Watch this!" (Keep 'em guessing.) The higher the costs
of hitting any object, the greater the certainty it will be struck. (Remember:
The disk is positive; cops and old ladies are clearly negative.) The best
catches are never seen. ("Did you see that?" "See what?") The greatest single
aid to distance is for the disc to be going in a direction you did not want.
(Wrong way = long way.) The most powerful hex words in the sport are: "I
really have this down -- watch." (Know it? Blow it!) In any crowd of spectators
at least one will suggest that razor blades could be attached to the disc.
("You could maim and kill with that thing.") The greater your need to make
a good catch, the greater the probability your partner will deliver his worst
throw. (If you can't touch it, you can't trick it.) The single most difficult
move with a disc is to put it down. ("Just one more!") You cannot have a
baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. Time is money. If you push
something hard enough, it will fall over. It goes in -- it must come out.
The quality of legislation passed to deal with a problem is inversely
proportional to the volume of media clamor that brought it on. No experiment
is ever a complete failure -- it can always serve as a bad example, or the
exception that proves the rule (but only if it is the first experiment in
the series). The problem-solving process will always break down at the point
at which it is possible to determine who caused the problem.
Merely because the group is in formation does not mean that the group is
on the right course. Anyone who says he isn't going to resign, four times,
definitely will. Getting on the cover of "Time" guarantees the existence
of opposition in the future. If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing
comes out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very
expensive machine, is somehow ennobled, and no one dares to criticize it.
An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the
Grand Fallacy. Other people's tools work only in other people's yards. Fancy
gizmos don't work. If nobody uses it, there's a reason. You get the most
of what you need the least. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing
because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy
because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good
philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. Whatever
isn't forbidden is required. If there's no reason why something shouldn't
exist, then it must exist. All generalizations are false. It's a good thing
money can't buy happiness. We couldn't stand the commercials. A little ignorance
can go a long way. ...in the direction of maximum harm. The difference between
a politician and a snail is that a snail leaves its slime behind. An object
in motion will be heading in the wrong direction. An object at rest will
be in the wrong place. An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong
direction. An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. The energy
required to change either one of the states will always be more than you
wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible.
The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights. Infinity is
one lawyer waiting for another. Computers are unreliable, but humans are
even more unreliable. 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. Any system which depends on human reliability
is unreliable. The only difference between the fool and the criminal who
attacks a system is that the fool attacks unpredictably and on a broader
front. A system tends to grow in terms of complexity rather than of
simplification, until the resulting unreliability becomes intolerable.
Self-checking systems tend to have a complexity in proportion to the inherent
unreliability of the system in which they are used. The error-detection and
correction capabilities of any system will serve as the key to understanding
the type of errors which they cannot handle. Undetectable errors are infinite
in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
All real programs contain errors until proved otherwise -- which is impossible.
Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost
of errors, or somebody insists on getting some useful work done. Look over
your shoulder now and then to be sure someone's following you. You can't
win. You can't break even. You can't even quit the game. Things will get
worse before they get better. Who said things would get better? Every major
philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation
of one part of Ginsberg's Theorem. To wit: Capitalism is based on the assumption
that you can win. Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break
even. Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game. The
perceived usefulness of an article is inversely proportional to its actual
usefulness once bought and paid for. Generalizedness of incompetence is directly
proportional to highestness in hierarchy. Nothing will be attempted if all
possible objections must first be overcome. Whoever has the gold makes the
rules. If the shoe fits, it's ugly. A column about errors will contain errors.
The candidate who is expected to do well because of experience and reputation
(Douglas, Nixon) must do BETTER than well, while the candidate expected to
fare poorly (Lincoln, Kennedy) can put points on the media board simply by
surviving. A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. Fuzzy
project objectives are used to avoid the embarrassment of estimating the
corresponding costs. A carelessly planned project takes three times longer
to complete than expected; a carefully planned project takes only twice as
long. The effort requires to correct course increases geometrically with
time. Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly
manifests their lack of progress. The 19 Rules for good Riting: Each pronoun
agrees with their antecedent. Just between you and I, case is important.
Verbs has to agree with their subject. Watch out for irregular verbs which
has cropped up into our language. Don't use no double negatives. A writer
mustn't shift your point of view. When dangling, don't use participles. Join
clauses good like a conjunction should. And don't use conjunctions to start
sentences. Don't use a run-on sentence you got to punctuate it. About sentence
fragments. In letters themes reports articles and stuff like that we use
commas to keep strings apart. Don't use commas, which aren't necessary. Its
important to use apostrophe's right. Don't abbrev. Check to see if you any
words out. 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. Then, of course, there's that old one: Never use
a preposition to end a sentence with. Last but not least, avoid cliches like
the plague. Under any system, a few sharpies will beat the rest of us. The
new hardware will break down as soon as the old is disconnected and out.
If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well. 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. Generally
the subjective value assignable to avian lifeforms, when encountered and
considered within the confines of certain orders of woody plants lacking
true meristematic dominance, as compared to a possible valuation of these
same lifeforms when in the grasp of -- and subject to control by -- the
manipulative bone/muscle/nerve complex typically terminating the forelimb
of a member of the species homo sapiens (and possibly direct precursors thereof)
is approximately five times ten to the minus first power. If you drop a full
can of beer, and remember to rap the top sharply with your knuckle prior
to opening, the ensuing gush of foam will be between 89 and 94 percent of
the volume that would splatter you if you didn't do a damned thing and went
ahead and pulled the top immediately. If a jury in a criminal trial stays
out for more than 24 hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those
instances when it votes guilty. If it can break, it will, but only after
the warranty expires. A necessary item goes on sale only after you have purchased
it at the regular price. Information flows efficiently through organizations,
except that bad news encounters high impedance in flowing upward. n+1 trivial
tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as n trivial tasks.
n+1 trivial tasks take twice as long as n trivial tasks. When someone you
greatly admire and respect appears to be thinking deep thoughts, they are
probably thinking about lunch. Usefulness is inversely proportional to reputation
for being useful. Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel. I'd
give my right arm to be ambidextrous. Trivial matters are handled promptly;
important matters are never resolved. 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. When two people meet to decide how to spend a third person's
money, fraud will result. Complex problems have simple, easy to understand
wrong answers. The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the
number of statements understood by the general public. The probability of
anything happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability. After a salary
raise, you will have less money at the end of the month than you had before.
The more a recruit knows about a given subject, the better chance he has
of being assigned to something else. You can throw a burnt match out the
window of your car and start a forest fire, but you can use two boxes of
matches and a whole edition of the Sunday paper without being able to start
a fire under the dry logs in your fireplace. Children have more energy after
a hard day of play than they do after a good night's sleep. The person who
buys the most raffle tickets has the least chance of winning. Good parking
places are always on the other side of the street. The most undesirable things
are the most certain (death and taxes). Thirty seconds on the evening news
is worth a front page headline in every newspaper in the world.
The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation or
an organization to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions. Anyone having
supervisory responsibility for the completion of a task will invariably protest
that more resources are needed. If you lose your temper at a newspaper columnist,
he'll get rich or famous or both. The Universe is not only queerer than we
imagine, it is queerer than we CAN imagine. The sumptuousnss of a company's
annual report is in inverse proportion to its profitability that year. There
is a statistical correlation between the number of initials in an Englishman's
name and his social class (the upper class having significantly more than
three names, while members of the lower class average 2.6). That tendency
to err that programmers have been noticed to share with other human beings
has often been treated as if it were an awkwardness attendant upon programming's
adolescence, which like acne would disappear with the craft's coming of age.
It has proved otherwise. Every time you come up with a terrific idea, you
find that someone else thought of it first. You can never do merely one thing.
You never find an article until you replace it. All the good ones are taken.
Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there. One of the
greatest unsolved riddles of restaurant eating is that the customer usually
gets faster service when the retaurant is crowded than when it is half empty;
it seems that the less the staff has to do, the slower they do it. For every
action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. If there is a wrong thing
to say, one will. When one is trying to be elegant and sophisticated, one
won't. You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on
his back you've got something. Never go to bed with anybody crazier than
you are. Nothing minor ever happens to a car on the weekend. Nothing minor
ever happens to a car on a trip. Nothing minor ever happens to a car. In
a country as big as the United States, you can find fifty examples of anything.
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature,
volume, humidity, and other variables, any experimental organism will do
as it damn well pleases. A drunken man's words are a sober man's thoughts.
Progress does not consist of replacing a theory that is wrong with one that
is right. It consists of replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is
more subtly wrong. Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting
back. The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of
management is that success equals skill. Nobody really knows what is going
on anywhere within your organization. If you wait, it will go away. ... having
done its damage ... if it was bad, it will be back. If a problem causes many
meetings, the meetings eventually become more important than the problem.
If it's good, they'll stop making it. The total attention paid to an instructor
is a constant regardless of the size of the class. Biochemistry expands to
fill the space and time available for its completion and publication. The
quality of a department is inversely proportional to the number of courses
it lists in its catalogue. Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to
appear inevitable by a competent historian. Inside every large program is
a small program struggling to get out. The amount of junk is in direct proportion
to the amount of space available. If you go on a trip taking two bags with
you, one containing everything you need for the trip and the other containing
absolutely nothing, the second bag will be completely filled with junk acquired
on the trip when you return. Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
The real world is a special case. A computer makes as many mistakes in two
seconds as 20 men working 20 years. Use it. Every man has a scheme that will
not work. The combined pull of several patrons is the sum of their separate
pulls multiplied by the number of patrons. Never insult an alligator until
after you have crossed the river.
Machines should work. People should think. One man's brain plus one other
will produce about one half as many ideas as one man would have produced
alone. These two plus two more will produce half again as many ideas. These
four plus four more begin to represent a creative meeting, and the ratio
changes to one quarter as many. Things are more like they are now than they
have ever been before. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. There is an easier
way to do it. When looking directly at the easier way, especially for long
periods, you will not see it. Neither will Iles. The organization of any
bureaucracy is very much like a septic tank -- the REALLY big chunks always
rise to the top. Index of Development: The degree of a country's development
is measured by the ratio of the price of an automobile to the cost of a haircut.
The lower the ratio, the higher the degree of development. Nobody really
cares or understands what anyone else is doing. Everything is cold except
what should be. Everything, including the corn flakes, is greasy. The opulence
of the front office decor varies inversely with the fundamental solvency
of the firm. Them what has -- gets. Wakefield's Refutation of the Iron Law
of Distribution: Them what gets -- has. At any given moment, a society contains
a certain amount of accumulated and accruing aggressiveness. If more than
21 years elapse without this aggressiveness being directed outward, in a
popular war against other countries, it turns inward, in social unrest, civil
disturbances, and political disruption. Comitas comitatum, omnia comitas.
The less you enjoy serving on committees, the more likely you are to be pressed
to do so. 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. Other people's patterns of expenditure and consumption are
highly irrational and slightly immoral. Cynics are right nine times out of
ten; what undoes them is their belief that they are right ten times out of
ten. When we call others dogmatic, what we really object to is their holding
dogmas that are different from our own. Experts in advanced countries
underestimate by a factor of 2 to 4 the ability of people in underdeveloped
countries to do anything technical. One cannot make an omelette without breaking
eggs -- but it is amazing how many eggs one can break without making a decent
omelette. The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse. 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.
By the time a social science theory is formulated in such a way that it can
be tested, changing circumstances have already made it obsolete. 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. Things
equal to nothing else are equal to each other. She who is silent consents.
No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
Anything hit with a big enough hammer will fall apart. The distance you have
to park from your apartment increases in proportion to the weight of packages
you are carrying. Changing things is central to leadership, and changing
them before anyone else is creativity. 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. It won't
work. There is no such thing as a short beer. (As in, "I'm going to stop
off at Joe's for a short beer before on the way home.") When your opponent
is down, kick him. In order to get a loan you must first prove you don't
need it. When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most
inconvenient possible time. If, in the course of several months, only three
worthwhile social events take place, they will all fall on the same evening.
If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue containing the
article, story, or installment you were most anxious to read. All of your
friends either missed it, lost it, or threw it out. Any tool dropped while
repairing an automobile will roll under the car to the vehicle's exact geographic
center. Toothache tends to start on Saturday night. The man who can smile
when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on. Friends may
come and go, but enemies accumulate. Needs are a function of what other people
have. The compromise will always be more expensive than either of the suggestions
it's compromising.
In the fight between you and the world, back the world. 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. Threat of capital controls accelerates marginal
capital outflows. Combined total taxation from all levels of government will
always increase (until the government is replaced by war or revolution).
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. 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.) 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. Politicians will always inflate
when given the opportunity. Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that
everything he encounters needs pounding. Men and nations will act rationally
when all other possibilities have been exhausted. Where are the calculations
that go with the calculated risk? Inventing is easy for staff outfits. Stating
a problem is much harder. Instead of stating problems, people like to pass
out half- accurate statements together with half-available solutions which
they can't finish and which they want you to finish. Every organization is
self-perpetuating. Don't ever ask an outfit to justify itself, or you'll
be covered with facts, figures, and fancy. The criterion should rather be,
"What will happen if the outfit stops doing what it's doing?" The value of
an organization is more easily determined this way. Try to find out who's
doing the work, not who's writing about it, controlling it, or summarizing
it. Watch out for formal briefings; they often produce an avalanche (a high-level
snow job of massive and overwhelming proportions). The difficulty of the
coordination task often blinds one to the fact that a fully coordinated piece
of paper is not supposed to be either the major or the final product of the
organization, but it often turns out that way. Most organizations can't hold
more than one idea at a time. Thus complementary ideas are always regarded
as competitive. Further, like a quantized pendulum, an organization can jump
from one extreme to the other, without ever going through the middle. Try
to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done, is it
being done, or is it something to be done? Reports are now written in four
tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and pretense. Watch for
novel uses of "contractor grammar", defined by the imperfect past, the
insufficient present, and the absolutely perfect future. Last guys don't
finish nice. An executive will always return to work from lunch early if
no one takes him. Excessive official restraints on information are inevitably
self-defeating and productive of headaches for the officials concerned. The
only way a reporter should look at a politician is down. In dealing with
their OWN problems, faculty members are the most extreme conservatives. In
dealing with OTHER people's problems, they are the world's most extreme liberals.
If you want to kill any idea in the world today, get a committee working
on it. If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong. Key to
Status: S = D/K. S is the status of a person in an organization, D is the
number of doors he must open to perform his job, and K is the number of keys
he carries. A higher number denotes higher status. Thus the janitor needs
to open 20 doors and has 20 keys (S = 1), a secretary has to open two doors
with one key (S = 2), but the president never has to carry any keys since
there is always someone around to open doors for him (with K = 0 and a high
D, his S reaches infinity). Every action or decision of an institution must
be intended to keep the institution machinery working. The expert judgment
of an institution, when the matter involved concerns continuation of the
institution's operations, is totally predictable, and hence the finding is
totally worthless. The usefulness of any meeting is in inverse proportion
to the attendance. On the TV screen, pure drivel tends to drive off ordinary
drivel. All warranty and guarantee clauses are voided by payment of the invoice.
Any product cut to length will be too short. In specifications, Murphy's
Law supersedes Ohm's. Applied to General Engineering: A patent application
will be preceded by one week by a similar application made by an independent
worker. Firmness of delivery dates is inversely proportional to the tightness
of the schedule. Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable
term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
Any wire cut to length will be too short. Applied to Prototyping and Production:
Tolerances will accumulate unidirectionally toward maximum difficulty to
assemble. If a project requires n components, there will be n-1 units in
stock. A motor will rotate in the wrong direction. A failsafe circuit will
destroy others. A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect
the fuse by blowing first. A failure will not appear until a unit has passed
final inspection. A purchased component or instrument will meet its specs
long enough, and only long enough, to pass incoming inspection. 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. After an access
cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that
the gasket has been omitted. After an instrument has been assembled, extra
components will be found on the bench. Life is what happens to you while
you are making other plans. Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely
true except for that rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge.
The length of debate varies inversely with the complexity of the issue. When
the issue is trivial, and everyone understands it, debate is almost interminable.
Any experiment is reproducible until another laboratory tries to repeat it.
Whatever creates the greatest inconvenience for the largest number must happen.
The trouble with resisting temptation is it may never come your way again.
Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disasters in life begin when
you get what you want. A taxpayer is someone who does not have to take a
civil service exam in order to work for the government.
A disagreeable law is its own reward. Hot glass looks exactly the same as
cold glass. The incidence of anything worthwhile is either 15-25 percent
or 80-90 percent. An answer of 50 percent will suffice for the 40-60 range.
If things were left to chance, they'd be better. Everything depends. Taxes
are not levied for the benefit of the taxed. $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. In God we trust; all others pay cash.
It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them.
What this world needs is a damned good plague. Those who have the shortest
distance to travel invariably arrive latest. No child throws up in the bathroom.
When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against
you, argue the law. When both are against you, call the other lawyer names.
If a thing is done wrong often enough, it becomes right. Volume is a defense
to error. 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. Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors,
it is lost. The bigger the man, the less likely he is to object to caricature.
All laws, whether good, bad, or indifferent, must be obeyed to the letter.
Large numbers of things are determined, and therefore not subject to change.
Anticipated events never live up to expectations. 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.
Always pray that your opposition be wicked. In wickedness there is a strong
strain toward rationality. Therefore there is always the possibility, in
theory, of handling the wicked by outthinking them. Good intentions are far
more difficult to cope with than malicious intent. If good intentions are
combined with stupidity, it is impossible to outthink them. Any discovery
is more likely to be exploited by the wicked than applied by the virtuous.
In unanimity there is cowardice and uncritical thinking. To have a sense
of humor is to be a tragic figure. To know thyself is the ultimate form of
aggression. No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail.
Only God can make a random selection. Eternal boredom is the price of constant
vigilance. People will buy anything that's one to a customer. No matter how
long or how hard you shop for an item, after you've bought it it will be
on sale somewhere cheaper. If you just try long enough and hard enough, you
can always manage to boot yourself in the posterior. All laws are simulations
of reality. The amount of litter on the street is proportional to the local
rate of unemployment. Never say "oops" in the operating room. The longer
ahead you plan a special event, and the more special it is, the more likely
it is to go wrong. Always store beer in a dark place. Certainly the game
is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win. Any
priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent. Always listen
to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it. If
it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. It has
long been known that one horse can run faster than another -- but which one?
Differences are crucial. 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. 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. A generation which ignores history
has no past -- and no future. A poet who reads his verse in public may have
other nasty habits. Small change can often be found under seat cushions.
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. It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too
tired. 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. It's better to copulate
than never. Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites.
Moderation is for monks. 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. Never
appeal to a man's "better nature". He may not have one. Invoking his
self-interest gives you more leverage. Little girls, like butterflies, need
no excuse. Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry. An elephant:
A mouse built to government specifications. A zygote is a gamete's way of
producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe. 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. 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. Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all
evil. 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. The
second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.
Everybody lies about sex. Rub her feet. Never underestimate the power of
human stupidity. Always tell her she is beautiful, especially if she is not.
In a family argument, if it turns out you are right, apologize at once. To
stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old
falsehoods. Does history record any case in which the majority was right?
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. The greatest productive force is human
selfishness. Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors
-- and miss. 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. Never try to outstubborn a cat. Tilting at windmills
hurts you more than the windmills. Yield to temptation; it may not pass your
way again. Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital
crime. For a first offense, that is. 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. A skunk is better company than a person
who prides himself on being "frank". Natural laws have no pity. You can go
wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. Anything
free is worth what you pay for it. Climate is what we expect; weather is
what we get. 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. "I came, I saw, SHE conquered." (The original
Latin seems to have been garbled.) A committee is a life form with six or
more legs and no brain. Don't try to have the last word. You might get it.
In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be totalled
correctly after 4:40 p.m. on Friday. Under the same conditions, if any minor
dimensions are given to sixteenths of an inch, they cannot be totalled at
all. The correct total will become self-evident at 9:01 a.m. on Monday. If
it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. Just when you
get really good at something, you don't need to do it any more. There's always
one more bug. If another scientist thought your research was more important
than his, he would drop what he is doing and do what you are doing. No good
deed goes unpunished. The alternative to getting old is depressing. When
properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity: for every
week you're away and get nothing done, there's another week when your boss
is away and you get twice as much done. It's not so hard to lift yourself
by your bootstraps once you're off the ground. If a computer cable has one
end, then it has another. The most important leg of a three legged stool
is the one that's missing. When the going gets tough, everybody leaves. He
who hesitates is last.
If you have to travel on a Titanic, why not go first-class? There's no such
thing as a large whiskey. If the facts do not conform to the theory, they
must be disposed of. The bigger the theory, the better. 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) Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way. 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. The fact that
monkeys have hands should give us pause. It exists. Think before you act;
it's not your money. All good management is the expression of one great idea.
No executive devotes effort to proving himself wrong. Cash in must exceed
cash out. Management capability is always less than the organization actually
needs. Either an executive can do his job or he can't. If sophisticated
calculations are needed to justify an action, don't do it. If you are doing
something wrong, you will do it badly. If you are attempting the impossible,
you will fail. The easiest way of making money is to stop losing it.
Organizations always have too many managers. Logic is a systematic method
of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence. Love is a matter of chemistry;
sex is a matter of physics. Seven-eighths of everything can't be seen. Nobody
perceives anything with total accuracy. No two people perceive the same thing
identically. Few perceive what difference it makes -- or care. If God had
meant for us to travel tourist class, He would have made us narrower. You're
not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. 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. The faculty
expands its activity to fit whatever space is available, so that more space
is always required. Faculty purchases of equipment and supplies always increase
to match the funds available, so these funds are never adequate. The professional
quality of the faculty tends to be inversely proportional to the importance
it attaches to space and equipment. All committee reports conclude that "it
is not prudent to change the policy (or procedure, or organization, or whatever)
at this time." Committee reports dealing with wages, salaries, fringe benefits,
facilities, computers, employee parking, libraries, coffee breaks, secretarial
support, etc., always call for dramatic expenditure increases. The inevitable
result of improved and enlarged communication between different levels in
a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding. Everyone knows
that the name of the game is to let the other guy have all of the little
tats and to keep all of the big tits for yourself. It is better to have a
horrible ending than to have horrors without end. 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. Beware of the physician who is great
at getting out of trouble. Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
The quality of the correlation is inversely proportional to the density of
the control (the fewer the facts, the smoother the curves). A university
is a place where men of principle outnumber men of honor. Being in politics
is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand
the game and dumb enough to think it's important. Politicians who vote huge
expenditures to alleviate problems get re-elected; those who propose structural
changes to prevent problems get early retirement. Where zoning is not needed,
it will work perfectly; where it is desperately needed, it always breaks
down. Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and
give it back to them. The probability of winning is inversely proportional
to the amount of the wager. The longer the title, the less important the
job. Any improbable event which would create maximum confusion if it did
occur, will occur. When you are right, be logical. When you are wrong, be-fuddle.
The length of any meeting is inversely proportional to the length of the
agenda for that meeting. There are only two problems with people. One is
that they don't think. The other is that they do. Any argument worth making
within the bureaucracy must be capable of being expressed in a simple declarative
sentence that is obviously true once stated. At least fifty percent of the
human race doesn't want their mother-in-law within walking distance. In a
bureaucracy, every routing slip will expand until it contains the maximum
number of names that can be typed in a single vertical column. Those who
can -- do. Those who cannot -- teach. Those who cannot teach -- administrate.
For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always
wrong. When in doubt, predict that the present trend will continue. There
are no winners in life; only survivors. 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. When they want it bad (in a rush), they get it bad. There's
never time to do it right, but always time to do it over. Less is more. Nothing
is ultimate. Any object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger
object. If a string has one end, then it has another end. You can't tell
how deep a puddle is until you step into it. The distance to the gate from
which your flight departs is inversely proportional to the time remaining
before the scheduled departure of the flight. This remains true even as you
rush to catch the flight. From this it follows that you are invariably rushing
the wrong way. The number of people watching you is directly proportional
to the stupidity of your action. Bad regulation begets worse regulation.
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 isn't everything.
(It isn't plentiful, for instance.) The idea is to die young as late as possible.
No man is lonely while eating spaghetti. If rats are experimented upon, they
will develop cancer. ("What this country needs are some stronger white rats.")
It's better to retire too soon than too late. If you don't say it, they can't
repeat it. Money is like manure. If you spread it around, it does a lot of
good. But if you pile it up in one place, it stinks like hell.
The speed of exit of a civil servant is directly proportional to the quality
of his service. Don't do it if you can't keep it up. Research is reading
two books that have never been read in order to write a third that will never
be read. A consultant is an ordinary person a long way from home. Statistics
are a highly logical and precise method for saying a half-truth inaccurately.
In an underdeveloped country, don't drink the water; in a developed country,
don't breathe the air. If you can keep your head when all about you others
are losing theirs, maybe you just don't understand the situation. There is
a solution to every problem; the only difficulty is finding it. Secret sources
are more credible. Hypocrisy is the Vaseline of social intercourse. A bird
in the hand is safer than one overhead. All things considered, life is 9-to-5
against. Progress is made on alternate Fridays. The effort expended by the
bureaucracy in defending any error is in direct proportion to the size of
the error. 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. If two wrongs don't make a right, try three. There
is no proposition, no matter how foolish, for which a dozen Nobel signatures
cannot be collected. Furthermore, any such petition is guaranteed page-one
treatment in the New York Times. All other things being equal, a bald man
cannot be elected President of the United States. Given a choice between
two bald political candidates, the American people will vote for the less
bald of the two. Vyarzerzomanimororsezassezanzerareorses? Make it sufficiently
difficult for people to do something, and most people will stop doing it.
If no one uses something, it isn't needed. Do not nurse a kid who wears braces.
Equality is not when a female Einstein gets promoted to assistant professor;
equality is when a female schlemiel moves ahead as fast as a male schlemiel.
Law expands in proportion to the resources available for its enforcement.
Bad law is more likely to be supplemented than repealed. Social legislation
cannot repeal physical laws. The more campaigning, the better. Auditors always
reject any expense account with a bottom line divisible by five or ten. Nothing
is ever done for the right reason. Actually, it only SEEMS as though you
mustn't be deceived by appearances. The most difficult light bulb to replace
burns out first and most frequently. Entities ought not to be multiplied
except from necessity. The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is
the most likely to be correct. Whenever two hypotheses cover the facts, use
the simpler of the two. Cut the crap. 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. The efficiency of a committee meeting
is inversely proportional to the number of participants and the time spent
on deliberations. If it tastes good, you can't have it. If it tastes awful,
you'd better clean your plate. If God had intended us to go around naked,
He would have made us that way. The optimist thinks this is the best of all
possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it. There comes a time when one
must stop suggesting and evaluating new solutions, and get on with the job
of analyzing and finally implementing one pretty good solution. Those supplies
necessary for yesterday's experiment must be ordered no later than tomorrow
noon. Everything breaks down. All bridge hands are equally likely, but some
are more equally likely than others. Variables won't; constants aren't. When
a person says that, in the interest of saving time, he will summarize his
prepared statement, he will talk only three times as long as if he had read
the statement in the first place. Typesetters always correct intentional
errors, but fail to correct unintentional ones. I can't give you brains,
but I can give you a diploma.
When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried. No matter how
clear the skies are, a thunderstorm will move in 5 minutes after the papers
are delivered. All things being equal, all things are never equal. Anything
good is either illegal, immoral, or fattening. The three faithful things
in life are money, a dog, and an old woman. Don't care if you're rich or
not, as long as you live comfortably and can have everything you want. 20%
of the customers account for 80% of the turnover, 20% of the components account
for 80% of the cost, and so forth. A motion to adjourn is always in order.
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility, and vice
versa. If you can't navigate a one-level, five-item phone tree, you didn't
need a computer anyway. Anything that happens enough times to irritate you
will happen at least once more. An official wants to multiply subordinates,
not rivals. Officials make work for each other. 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. Expenditures rise to meet income. Expansion means complexity;
and complexity decay. The number of people in any working group tends to
increase regardless of the amount of work to be done. If there is a way to
delay an important decision the good bureaucracy, public or private, will
find it. The progress of science varies inversely with the number of journals
published. Delay is the deadliest form of denial. Successful research attracts
the bigger grant which makes further research impossible. The effectiveness
of a telephone conversation is in inverse proportion to the time spent on
it. An enterprise employing more than 1000 people becomes a self-perpetuating
empire, creating so much internal work that it no longer needs any contact
with the outside world. It is the essence of grantsmanship to persuade the
Foundation executives that it was THEY who suggested the research project
and that you were a belated convert, agreeing reluctantly to all they had
proposed. Heat produced by pressure expands to fill the mind available, from
which it can pass only to a cooler mind. If you break a cup or plate, it
will not be the one that was already chipped or cracked. A place you want
to get to is always just off the edge of the map you happen to have handy.
A meeting lasts at least 1 1/2 hours however short the agenda. The bigger
they are, the harder it is to see your shoes. Even paranoids have enemies.
This job is marginally better than daytime TV. On alcohol: four is one more
than more than enough. If the experiment works, you must be using the wrong
equipment. A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. Success
is the result of behavior that completely contradicts the usual expectations
about the behavior of a successful person. The amount of success is in inverse
proportion to the effort involved in attaining it. People become progressively
less competent for jobs they once were well equipped to handle. You can't
fall off the floor. In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how
much you save. In any program, any error which can creep in will eventually
do so. Not until the program has been in production for at least six months
will the most harmful error be discovered. Any constants, limits, or timing
formulas that appear in the computer manufacturer's literature should be
treated as variables. The most vital parameter in any subroutine stands the
greatest chance of being left out of the calling sequence. If only one compiler
can be secured for a piece of hardware, the compilation times will be exorbitant.
If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will
malfunction. Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper
order, will be. Interchangeable tapes won't. If more than one person has
programmed a malfunctioning routine, no one is at fault. 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. Duplicated object decks which test in identical
fashion will not give identical results at remote sites. Manufacturer's hardware
and software support ceases with payment for the computer. Beauty times brains
equals a constant. The solution to a problem changes the problem. 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. There is nothing like a good painstaking survey
full of decimal points and guarded generalizations to put a glaze like a
Sung vase on your eyeball. The bigger they are, the harder they hit. People
who can least afford to pay rent, pay rent. People who can most afford to
pay rent, build up equity. The number of rational hypotheses that can explain
any given phenomenon is infinite. You cannot successfully determine beforehand
which side of the bread to butter. 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.
Incompetence knows no barriers of time or place. Work is accomplished by
those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. If
at first you don't succeed, try something else. Every employee begins at
his level of competence. Internal consistency is valued more highly than
efficiency. Competence always contains the seed of incompetence. Look after
the molehills and the mountains will look after themselves. Super-competence
is more objectionable than incompetence. Employees in a hierarchy do not
really object to incompetence in their colleagues. 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. An ounce of image is worth a pound of
performance. Spend sufficient time in confirming the need and the need will
disappear. Create the impression that you have already reached your level
of incompetence. Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence. History
shows that money will multiply in volume and divide in value over the long
run. Or, expressed differently, the purchasing power of currency will vary
inversely with the magnitude of the public debt. Exultation. Disenchantment.
Confusion. Search for the Guilty. Punishment of the Innocent. Distinction
for the Uninvolved. Any renovation project on an old house will cost twice
as much and take three times as long as originally estimated. Any plumbing
pipes you choose to replace during renovation will prove to be in excellent
condition; those you decide to leave in place will be rotten. An unexpectedly
easy-to-handle sequence of events will be immediately followed by an equally
long sequence of trouble. In any calculation, any error which can creep in
will do so. Any error in any calculation will be in the direction of most
harm. In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from engineering
handbooks) are to be treated as variables. The best approximation of service
conditions in the laboratory will not begin to meet those conditions encountered
in actual service. The most vital dimension on any plan or drawing stands
the greatest chance of being omitted. If only one bid can be secured on any
project, the price will be unreasonable. If a test installation functions
perfectly, all subsequent production units will malfunction. All delivery
promises must be multiplied by a factor of 2.0. Major changes in construction
will always be requested after fabrication is nearly completed. Parts that
positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be. Interchangeable
parts won't. Manufacturer's specifications of performance should be multiplied
by a factor of 0.5. Salespeople's claims for performance should be multiplied
by a factor of 0.25. Installation and Operating Instructions shipped with
the device will be promptly discarded by the Receiving Department. Any device
requiring service or adjustment will be least accessible. Service Conditions
as given on specifications will be exceeded. If more than one person is
responsible for a miscalculation, no one will be at fault. Identical units
which test in an identical fashion will not behave in an identical fashion
in the field. 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. Warranty and guarantee clauses
are voided by payment of the invoice. A lone dime always gets the number
nearly right. If you're coasting, you're going downhill. The successful pundit
is provided more opportunities to say things than he has things worth saying.
A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his
mouth. The time of departure will be delayed by the square of the number
of people involved. Once the erosion of power begins, it has a momentum all
its own. When the polls are in your favor, flaunt them. When the polls are
overwhelmingly unfavorable, either (a) ridicule and dismiss them or (b) stress
the volatility of public opinion. When the polls are slightly unfavorable,
play for sympathy as a struggling underdog. When too close to call, be surprised
at your own strength. Every day, in every way, things get better and better;
then worse again in the evening. The amount of flak received on any subject
is inversely proportional to the subject's true value. When anything is used
to its full potential, it will break. Everything costs more and takes longer.
Never tell them what you wouldn't do. The second most powerful phrase in
the world is "Watch this!" The most powerful phrase is "Oh yeah? Watch this!"
It's on the other side. It's easier to be a liberal a long way from home.
Scientists who dislike the restraints of highly organized research like to
remark that a truly great research worker needs only three pieces of equipment
-- a pencil, a piece of paper, and a brain. But they quote this maxim more
often at academic banquets than at budget hearings. The Principle Concerning
Multifunctional Devices: The fewer functions any device is required to perform,
the more perfectly it can perform those functions. Whatever hits the fan
will not be evenly distributed. (also known as the How Come It All Landed
On Me Law) Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility
for its termination on someone else (the authority who imposed the deadline).
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. 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. Avoidance
of interruptions including the assignment of other duties can be achieved,
so that the obviously stressed worker can concentrate on the single effort.
Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing
important to do. It may eliminate the job if the need passes before the job
can be done. 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. Doctors, dentists, and lawyers
are only on time for appointments when you're not. The first 90 percent of
the task takes 90 percent of the time. The last 10 percent takes the other
90 percent. For every proverb that so confidently asserts its little bit
of wisdom, there is usually an equal and opposite proverb that contradicts
it. Nice guys finish fast. Anything that begins well ends badly. Anything
that begins badly ends worse. Evil is live spelled backwards. If it feels
good, don't do it. If the people of a democracy are allowed to do so, they
will vote away the freedoms which are essential to that democracy. 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.
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. The amount of
effort put into a campaign by a worker expands in proportion to the personal
benefits that he will derive from his party's victory. The citizen is influenced
by principle in direct proportion to his distance from the political situation.
It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to realize that you are in
a hurry. Never needlessly disturb a thing at rest. If you must make a decision,
delay it. If you can authorize someone else to avoid a decision, do so. If
you can form a committee, have them avoid the decision. If you can otherwise
avoid a decision, avoid it immediately. Certain items which are crucial to
a given activity will show up with uncommon regularity until the day when
that activity is planned, at which point the item in question will disappear
from the face of the earth. The more zeros found in the price tag for a
government program, the less Congressional scrutiny it will receive. The
wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets. In dealing with the press
do yourself a favor. Stick with one of three responses: (a) I know and I
can tell you, (b) I know and I can't tell you, or (c) I don't know. If you
want to get along, go along. Reforms come from below. No man with four aces
howls for a new deal. If you have watched a TV series only once, and you
watch it again, it will be a rerun of the same episode. Enough research will
tend to support your theory. In a restaurant with seats which are close to
each other, one will always find the decibel level of the nearest conversation
to be inversely proportional to the quality of the thought going into it.
The hidden flaw never remains hidden. 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.) 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.
The more innocuous the modification appears to be, the further its influence
will extend and the more plans will have to be redrawn. 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. 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. If you
keep anything long enough you can throw it away. If you throw anything away,
you will need it as soon as it is no longer accessible. Enough is never enough.
The sun always rises in the baby's bedroom window. Birthday parties always
end in tears. Whenever you decide to take the kids home, it is always five
minutes earlier that they break into fights, tears, or hysteria. There are
coexisting elements in frustration phenomena which separate expected results
from achieved results. An inexorable upward movement leads administrators
to higher salaries and narrower spans of control. Incompetence tends to increase
with the level of work performed. And, naturally, the individual's staff
needs will increase as his level of incompetence increases. After large
expenditures of federal, state, and county funds; after much confusion generated
by detours and road blocks; after greatly annoying the surrounding population
with noise, dust, and fumes -- the previously existing traffic jam is relocated
by one-half mile. Everything happens at the same time with nothing in between.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human
being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings
except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must
protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with
the First or Second Laws. In any organization, the potential is much greater
for the subordinate to manage his superior than for the superior to manage
his subordinate. A consultant is someone who, when hired to find out what
time it is, borrows your watch to find out. If you hire a consultant to read
your own watch to you, you got your money's worth. The rate of hospital
admissions responds to bed availability. If we insist on installing more
beds, they will tend to get filled. One-third of the people in the United
States promote, while the other two-thirds provide. The easiest way to find
something lost around the house is to buy a replacement. The most delicate
component will be dropped. All technology expands the space, contracts the
time, and destroys the working group. Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects
so they always point upward from the floor -- especially in the dark. Never
characterize the importance of a statement in advance. In a crisis that forces
a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, most people will
choose the worse one possible. 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. The
race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's
the way to bet. If it works, don't fix it. Make three correct guesses
consecutively and you will establish yourself as an expert.
Those who invented the law of supply and demand have no right to complain
when this law works against their interest. Any line, however short, is still
too long. Work is the crabgrass of life, but money is the water that keeps
it green. It works better if you plug it in. There are 32 points to the compass,
meaning that there are 32 directions in which a spoon can squirt grapefruit;
yet, the juice almost invariably flies straight into the human eye. Laziness
is the mother of nine inventions out of ten. Academic politics is the most
vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low. Good
salesmen and good repairmen will never go hungry. Any dramatic series the
producers want us to take seriously as a representation of contemporary reality
cannot be taken seriously as a representation of anything -- except a show
to be ignored by anyone capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing
gum simultaneously. The only programs a grown-up can possibly stand are those
intended for children. Or, more properly, those that cater to those
pre-adolescent fantasies that most have never abandoned. Never eat prunes
when you're hungry. If you mess with something long enough, it'll break.
All interference in human conduct has the potential for causing harm, no
matter how innocuous the procedure may be. If you can't measure output, then
you measure input. Any theory can be made to fit any facts by means of
appropriate additional assumptions. O Lord, grant that we may always be right,
for Thou knowest we will never change our minds. No matter what goes wrong,
it will probably look right. When an error has been detected and corrected,
it will be found to have been correct in the first place. After the correction
has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original quantity
back into the equation. Sometimes, where a complex problem can be illuminated
by many tools, one can be forgiven for applying the one he knows best. A
man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never
sure. An object will fall so as to do the most damage. The most delicate
component will be the one to drop. The first sample is always the best. In
order to discover anything you must be looking for something. If you wish
to make an improved product, you must already be engaged in making an inferior
one. The chief cause of problems is solutions. The effectiveness of a politician
varies in inverse proportion to his commitment to principle. The intensity
of movie publicity is in inverse ratio to the quality of the movie. The length
of a meeting rises with the square of the number of people present. Passengers
on elevators constantly rearrange their positions as people get on and off
so there is at all times an equal distance between all bodies. Build a system
that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. Rechargeable
batteries die at the most critical time of the most complex problem. When
a rechargeable battery starts to die in the middle of a complex calculation,
and the user attempts to connect house current, the calculator will clear
itself. The final answer will exceed the magnitude or precision or both of
the calculator. There are not enough storage registers to solve the problem.
The user will forget mathematics in proportion to the complexity of the
calculator. Thermal paper will run out before the calculation is complete.
Most people deserve each other. Any great truth can -- and eventually will
-- be expressed as a cliche. A cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute
an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always
the last one off the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time
it was undoubtedly true. Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb
at. Malpractice makes malperfect. Neurosis is a communicable disease. The
only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky. Nature abhors a hero. For
one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how
can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself
in situations where he is most likely to be creamed? A little ignorance can