Nobody Asked Me…

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• Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.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