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 toÂ
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- Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.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
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
The only thing I want to know is this: how the heck did you get hold of my job description??
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.
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
Murphy was an optimist! 🙂
Murphy, the only member of every project team.
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.
On the 8th day God said, “Murphy, you are in charge”.
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… 😀
WSF- Yep! 😀
“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.
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.
Never fly the A model.
RS- Yep, SOME of us do learn that lesson… Re the others, yep!!! Sigh…
There is no technology, no matter how tried and stable, that cannot be ruined with an upgrade.
I found out once that saying ‘oops’ while handling explosives is a good way to get the undivided attention of everyone near me!
“Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss putting in an honest day’s work.” Worth framing.