Murphy…

Was an optimist…

From the mil E-mail chain. 🙂

Murphy’s tech laws

  • 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. 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 sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Attributed to 
    Arthur C. Clark
  • 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  • Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.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 totaled 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.
    Corollary: Not always
  • 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.
  • A difficult task will be halted near completion by one tiny, previously insignificant detail.
  • There is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.
  • The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches.
  • If there is ever the possibility of several things to go wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
  • If something breaks, and it stops you from doing something, it will be fixed when you: no longer need it, are in the middle of something else, don’t want it to be fixed, because you really don’t want to do what you were supposed to do
  • Each profession talks to itself in it’s own language, apparently there is no Rosetta Stone
  • The more urgent the need for a decision to be made, less apparent become the identity of the decision maker
  • It is never wise to let a piece of electronic equipment know that you are in a hurry. Especially a copier…
  • Don’t fix something that ain’t broke, ’cause you’ll break it and you still can’t fix it
  • You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track, unless you look for the splatter of the blood stains
  • Dobie’s Dogma:
    If you are not thoroughly confused, you have not been thoroughly informed.
    A screw will never fit a nut.
  • Standard parts are not.
  • When working on a motor vehicle engine, any tool dropped will land directly under the center of the engine.
  • Interchangeable tapes won’t.
  • Never trust modern technology.  Trust it only when it is old technology.
  • The bolt that is in the most awkward place will always be the one with the tightest thread.
  • The most ominous phrase in science: “_Uh_-oh . . .”
  • The 2nd worst thing you can hear the tech say is “Oops!” The worst thing you can hear the tech say is “oh s**t!”
  • Any example of hardware/software can be made fool-proof. It cannot, however, be made damn-fool-proof.
  • When any technological change is made, we have a graphic insult curve. No mater how high the insult curve climb, the important thing is how long it goes.
  • For any given software, the moment you read software reviews and manage to master it, a new version of that software appears.
  • The new version always manages to change the one feature you need most.

h/t- Flake

 

Comments

Murphy… — 18 Comments

  1. Man, that Murphy sure had a lot of idle time on his hands to sit around and think up all this stuff. Or he was a man of vast bad luck experience. Or a Georgia Tech graduate. GO DAWGS

  2. 1) Murphy hates me, the feeling is mutual.

    2) Re: “The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman.” I did my upmost to violate that corollary, but management intervened to restore balance to the universe.

    • Machines are designed by engineers. The machines *covers* (which must be removed to service the machine)are designed by the marketing department.

  3. Oh man! I may have to print this one out and hang it around the office. Or I would, if the printer was working. Maybe after I re-write that procedure once the break fix I just tested goes into production.
    sigh

  4. The one I used a lot when I was a computer programmer: A computer is dumber that a box of hammers – it just does it really, really fast.

  5. CP- Good point!

    Rev- LOL!

    NRW- You and me BOTH!

    Roy- THAT one, I hadn’t heard…LOL

    Jenn- Ah yes… BTDT

    Murgy- Sadly, yes.

    Bad- Amen!!!

    TOL- Yep, FAST hammer… 😀

  6. “There is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.”

    I heard that one from my grandfather, who survived WW I, Spanish flu, and the Great Depression. He’d given me a chore to do, and I half-stepped through it, and wound up having to do it over, correctly, the second time. When he asked why it had taken so long I explained, as only an 8-year-old can, what had happened. He nodded his head, smiled (just a little) and said “So, you didn’t have time to do it right, but you had time to do it over?”

    For a man that only finished the 8th grade, he was a pretty smart fellow.

  7. Oh, and there are two others:

    Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can.

    If you lose something, buy another one. Then you’ll find the piece you lost, and two others that you didn’t know were missing.

  8. There is no technology, no matter how tried and stable, that cannot be ruined with an upgrade.

  9. I found out once that saying ‘oops’ while handling explosives is a good way to get the undivided attention of everyone near me!