
---- An Abridged Collection of Interdisciplinary Laws ----


 Airplane Law
    When the plane you are on is late,
    the plane you want to transfer to is on time.

 Allison's Precept
    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.

 Anthony's Law of Force
    Don't force it, get a larger hammer.

 Anthony's Law of the Workshop
    Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least
    accessible corner of the workshop.
 Corollary to Anthony's Law
    On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first
    always strike your toes.

 Army Axiom
    Any order that can be misunderstood has been
    misunderstood.

 Axiom of the Pipe   (Trischmann's Paradox)
    A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool
    something to stick in his mouth.

 Baker's Law
    Misery no longer loves company.  Nowadays it insists on
    it.

 Barber's Laws of Backpacking
    1) The integral of the gravitational potential taken
       around any loop trail you choose to hike always comes
       out positive.
    2) Any stone in your boot always migrates against the
       pressure gradient to exactly the point of most  
       pressure.
    3) 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.
    4) The number of stones in your boot is directly
       proportional to the number of hours you have been on
       the trail.
    5) The difficulty of finding any given trail marker is
       directly proportional to the importance of the
       consequences of failing
       to find it.
    6) The size of each of the stones in your boot is
       directly proportional to the number of hours you have
       been on the trail.
    7) The remaining distance to your chosen campsite
       remains constant as twilight approaches.
    8) The net weight of your boots is proportional to the
       cube of the number of hours you have been on the
       trail.
    9) When you arrive at your chosen campsite, it is full.
   10) If you take your boots off, you'll never get them
       back on again.
   11) The local density of mosquitos is inversely
       proportional to your remaining repellent.

 Barth's Distinction
    There are two types of people: those who divide people
    into two types, and those who don't.

 Barzun's Laws of Learning
    1) 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.
    2) 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.

 Forthoffer's Cynical Summary of Barzun's Laws
    1) That which has not yet been taught directly can never
       be taught directly.
    2) If at first you don't succeed, you will never
       succeed.

 Baxter's First Law
    Government intervention in the free market always leads
    to a lower national standard of living.

 Baxter's Second Law
    The adoption of fractional gold reserves in a currency
    system always leads to depreciation, devaluation,
    demonetization and, ultimately, to complete destruction
    of that currency.

 Baxter's Third Law
    In a free market good money always drives bad money out
    of circulation.

 Becker's Law
    It is much harder to find a job than to keep one.

 Beifeld's Principle
    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.

 Bicycle Law
    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.

 Blaauw's Law
    Established technology tends to persist in spite of new
    technology.

 Booker's Law
    An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.

 Boren's Laws
    1) When in doubt, mumble.
    2) When in trouble, delegate.
    3) When in charge, ponder.

 Brien's First Law
    At some time in the life cycle of virtually every
    organization, its ability to succeed in spite of itself
    runs out.

 Brook's Law
    Adding manpower to a late software project makes it
    later.

 Brown's Law of Business Success
    Our customer's paperwork is profit. Our own paperwork is
    loss.

 Bucy's Law
    Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

 Bustlin' Billy's Bogus Beliefs
    1) The organization of any program reflects the
       organization of the people who develop it.
    2) There is no such thing as a "dirty capitalist," only
       a capitalist.
    3) Anything is possible, but nothing is easy.
    4) Capitalism can exist in one of only two states --
       welfare or warfare.
    5) I'd rather go whoring than warring.
    6) History proves nothing.
    7) There is nothing so unbecoming on the beach as a wet
       kilt.
    8) A little humility is arrogance.
    9) A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much
       technological rococo.

 Bye's First Law of Model Railroading
    Anytime you wish to demonstrate something, the number of
    faults is proportional to the number of viewers.

 Bye's Second Law of Model Railroading
    The desire for modeling a prototype is inversely
    proportional to the decline of the prototype.

 Cahn's Axiom
    When all else fails, read the instructions.

 Camp's Law
    A coup that is known in advance is a coup that does not
    take place.

 Canada Bill Jones' Motto
    It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.

 Canada Bill Jones' Supplement
    A smith and wesson beats four aces.

 Cheop's Law
    Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

 Chisholm's Law of Human Interaction
    Anytime things appear to be going better you have
    overlooked something.

 Chisholm's Third Law
    Proposals, as understood by the proposer,
    will be judged otherwise by others.
    Corollary 1: If you explain so clearly that nobody can
    misunderstand, somebody will.
    Corollary 2: If you do something which you are sure
    will meet with everyone's approval, somebody won't like
    it.
    Corollary 3: Procedures devised to implement the
    purpose won't quite work.
    Corollary 4: No matter how long or how many times you
    explain, no one is listening.

 Churchill's Commentary on Man
    Man will occasionally stumble over the truth but most of
    the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

 Clarke's First Law
    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.

 Clarke's Second Law
    The only way to discover the limits of the possible is
    to go beyond them into the impossible.

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

 Clarke's Law of Revolutionary Ideas
    Every revolutionary idea - in Science, Politics, Art or
    Whatever - evokes three stages of reaction.  They may be
    summed up by the three phrases:
      1)  "It is completely impossible -- don't waste my
           time."
      2)  "It is possible, but it is not worth doing."
      3)  "I said it was a good idea all along."

 Cohen's Law
    What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing
    on the facts -- not the facts themselves.

 Cole's Law
    Thinly sliced cabbage.

 Commoner's Three Laws of Ecology
    1) No action is without side-effects.
    2) Nothing ever goes away.
    3) There is no free lunch.

 Cook's Law
    Much work -- much food, little work -- little food,
    no work -- burial at sea.

 Cornuelle's Law
    Authority tends to assign jobs to those least able to do
    them.

 Crane's Law   (Friedman's Reiteration)
    There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

 Diogenes' First Dictum
    The more heavily a man is supposed to be taxed, the more
    power he has to escape being taxed.

 Diogenes' Second Dictum
    If a taxpayer thinks he can cheat safely, he probably
    will.

 Dow's Law
    In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level,
    the greater the confusion.

 Dunne's Law
    The territory behind rhetoric is too often mined with
    equivocation.

 Ehrman's Corollary to Ginsberg's Theorem
    1) Things will get worse before they get better.
    2) Who said things would get better?

 Ettorre's Observation
    The other line moves faster.

 Evan's Law of Politics
    When team members are finally in a position to help the
    team, it turns out they have quit the team.

 Everitt's Form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics
    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.

 Extended Epstein-Heisenberg Principle
    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 and can accuratly define
       all 3 parameters, then what one deals with is not
       in the realm of R & D.

 Farber's First Law
    Give him an inch and he'll screw you.

 Farber's Second Law
    A hand in the bush is worth two anywhere else.

 Farber's Third Law
    We're all going down the same road in different
    directions.

 Farber's Fourth Law
    Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.

 The Fifth Rule
    You have taken yourself too seriously.

 Finagle's First Law
    If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.

 Finagle's Second Law
    No matter what result is anticipated, there will always
    be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or
    (c) believe it happened to his own pet theory.

 Finagle's Third Law
    In any collection of data, the figure most obviously
    correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake.
    Corollary 1: No one whom you ask for help will see it.
    Corollary 2: Everyone who stops by with unsought advice
    will see it immediately.

 Finagle's Fourth Law
    Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it
    only makes it worse.

 Finagle's Rules
    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.
    Rule 1: To study a subject best, understand it
    thoroughly before you start.
    Rule 2: Always keep a record of data.  It indicates
    you've been working.
    Rule 3: Always draw your curves, then plot the reading.
    Rule 4: In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
    Rule 5: Experiments should be reproducible.  They
    should all fail in the same way.
    Rule 6: Do not believe in miracles.  Rely on them.

 First Law of Bicycling
    No matter which way you ride it's uphill and against the
    wind.

 First Law of Bridge
    It's always the partner's fault.

 First Law of Canoeing (Alfred Andrews' Canoeing Postulate)
    No matter which direction you start it's always against
    the wind coming back.

 First Law of Debate
    Never argue with a fool.  People might not know the
    difference.

 First Law of Office Holders
    Get re-elected.

 Fitz-Gibbon's Law
    Creativity varies inversely with the number of cooks
    involved with the broth.

 Flap's Law
    Any inanimate object, regardless of its position or
    configuration, may be expected to perform at any time in
    a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either
    entirely obscure or else completely mysterious.

 Fortis' Two Great Lies of Life
    1) Money isn't everything.
    2) I'm only going to put it in a little way.

 Fourteenth Corollary of Atwood's General Law of Dynamic
 Negatives
    No books are lost by loaning except those you
    particularly wanted to keep.

 Franklin's Rule
    Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not be
    disappointed.

 Gell-Mann Dictum
    That which isn't prohibited is required.

 Gilb's Laws of Unreliability
    1) Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more
       unreliable.
       Corollary: 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.
    2) Any system which depends on human reliability is
       unreliable.
    3) The only difference between the fool and the
       criminal who attacks a system is that the fool
       attacks unpredictably and on a broader front.
    7) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in
       contrast to detectable errors, which by definition
       are limited.
    9) Investment in reliability will increase until it
       exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until
       someone insists on getting some useful work done.

 Ginsberg's Theorem
    1)  You can't win.
    2)  You can't break even.
    3)  You can't even quit the game.

 Golden Rules of Indulgence
    Everything in excess!  To enjoy the full flavor of life,
    take big bites.  Moderation is for monks.  Yield to
    temptation; it may never pass your way again.

 Gray's Law of Programming
    n+1 trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the
    same time as n trivial tasks.

 Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law of Programming
    n+1 trivial tasks take twice as long as n trivial tasks.

 Gresham's Law
    Trivial matters are handled promptly; important matters
    are never solved.

 Grosch's Law
    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 as fast.

 Gummidge'e Law
    The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to
    the number of statements understood by the general
    public.

 Gumperson's Law
    The probability of anything happening is in inverse
    ratio to its desirability.

 Hacker's Law of Personnel
    Anyone having supervisory responsibility for the
    completion of a task will invariably protest that more
    resources are needed.

 Hagerty's Law
    If you lose your temper at a newspaper columnist, he'll
    get rich or famous or both.

 Haldane's Law
    The Universe is not only queerer than we imagine;
    it is queerer than we CAN imagine.

 Harper's Magazine's Law
    You never find an article until you replace it.

 Hartley's First Law
    You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to
    float on his back you've got something.

 Hartley's Second Law
    Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.

 Harvard Law
    Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of
    pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other
    variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

 Heller's Law
    The first myth of management is that it exists.

 Hendrickson's Law
    If a problem causes many meetings, the meetings
    eventually become more important than the problem.

 Hoare's Law of Large Programs
    Inside every large program is a small program struggling
    to get out.

 Horner's Five Thumb Postulate
    Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.

 Howard's First Law of Theater
    Use it.

 Howe's Law
    Every man has a scheme that will not work.

 Hull's Theorem
    The combined pull of several patrons is the sum of their
    separate pulls multiplied by the number of patrons.

 IBM Pollyanna Principle
    Machines should work.  People should think.

 Imhoff's Law
    The organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a
    septic tank -- the REALLY big chunks always rise to the
    top.

 Iron Law of Distribution
    Them what has - gets.

 Italian Proverb
    She who is silent consents.

 Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Governments
    No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the
    legislature is in session.

 Jay's Laws of Leadership
    1) Changing things is central to leadership,
       and changing them before anyone else is
       creativeness.
    2) To build something that endures, it is of the
       greatest importance 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.

 Jenkinson's Law
    It won't work.

 John Cameron's Law
    No matter how many times you've had it, if it's offered,
    take it, because it'll never be quite the same again.

 John's Axiom
    When your opponent is down, kick him.

 John's Collateral Corollary
    In order to get a loan you must first prove you don't
    need it.

 Johnson's Corollary to Heller's Law
    Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within
    your organization.

 Johnson's First Law of Auto Repair
    Any tool dropped while repairing an automobile will roll
    under the car to the vehicle's exact geographic center.

 Johnson-Laird's Law
    Toothache tends to start on Saturday night.

 Jones' Law
    The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought
    of someone he can blame it on.

 Jones' Motto
    Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

 Kamin's First Law
    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.

 Kamin's Second Law
    Threat of capital controls accelerates marginal capital
    outflows.

 Kamin's Third Law
    Combined total taxation from all levels of government
    will always increase (until the government is replaced
    by war or revolution).

 Kamin's Fourth Law
    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.

 Kamin's Fifth Law
    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.)

 Kamin's Sixth Law
    When attempting to predict and forcast macro-economic
    moves or economic legislation by a politician, never be
    misled by what he says; instead watch what he does.

 Kamin's Seventh Law
    Politicians will always inflate when given the
    opportunity.

 Katz's Law
    Men and nations will act rationally when all other
    possibilities have been exhausted.

 Kerr-Martin Law
    1) In dealing with their OWN problems, faculty
       members are the most extreme conservatives.
    2) In dealing with OTHER people's problems, they are
       the world's most extreme liberals.

 Kirkland's Law
    The usefulness of any meeting is in inverse proportion
    to the attendance.

 Kitman's Law
    Pure drivel tends to drive off the TV screen ordinary
    drivel.

 Lani's Principles of Economics
    1) Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.
    2) $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.
    3) In God we trust, all others pay cash.

 La Rochefoucauld's Law
    It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be
    deceived by them.

 Law of Communications
    The inevitable result of improved and enlarged
    communications between different levels in a hierarchy
    is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding.

 Law of Computability Applied to Social Science
    If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set.

 Law of Selective Gravity   (The Buttered Side Down Law)
    An object will fall so as to do the most damage.

 Law of the Perversity of Nature   (Mrs. Murphy's Corollary)
    You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side
    of the bread to butter.

 Law of Superiority
    The first example of superior principle is always
    inferior to the developed example of inferior principle.

 Laws of Computerdom According to Golub
    1) Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid the
       embarrassment of estimating the corresponding
       costs.
    2) A carelessly planned project takes three times
       longer to complete than expected; a carefully
       planned project will take only twice as long.
    3) The effort required to correct course increases
       geometrically with time.
    4) Project teams detest weekly progress reporting
       because it so vividly manifests their lack of
       progress.

 Laws of Computer Programming
    1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
    2) Any given program costs more and takes longer.
    3) If a program is useful, it will have to be
       changed.
    4) If a program is useless, it will have to be
       documented.
    5) Any given program will expand to fill all
       available memory.
    6) The value of a program is inversely proportional
       to the weight of its output.
    7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the
       capability of the programmer who must maintain it.
    8) Make it possible for programmers to write programs
       in English, and you will find that programmers
       cannot write in English.

 Laws of Gardening
    1) Other people's tools work only in other people's
       yards.
    2) Fanzy gizmos don't work.
    3) If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
    4) You get the most of what you need the least.

 Le Chatelier's Law
    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.

 Les Miserables Metalaw
    All laws, whether good, bad, or indifferent, must be
    obeyed to the letter.

 Long's Notes
    1) Always store beer in a dark place.
    2) Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until
       proved innocent.
    3) Always listen to experts.  They'll tell you what
       can't be done, and why. Then do it.
    4) It has long been known that one horse can run
       faster than another -- but which one?  Differences
       are crucial.
    5) A poet who reads his verse in public may have
       other nasty habits.
    6) Small change can often be found under seat
       cushions.
    7) It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles
       being too tired.
    8) Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
    9) It's better to copulate than never.
   10) Never appeal to man's "better nature."  He may not
       have one.  (Invoking his self-interest gives you
       more leverage.)
   11) An elephant: a mouse built to government
       specifications.
   12) A Zygote is a Gamete's way of producing more
       Gametes.
   13) 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.
   14) Waking a person unnecessarily should not be
       considered a capital crime.	For a first offense,
       that is.
   15) Beware of altruism.  It is based on self-
       deception, the root of all evil.
   16) Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
   17) Rub her feet.
   18) To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of
       the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.
   19) Does history record any case in which the majority
       was right?
   20) Be wary of strong drink.  It can make you shoot at
       tax collectors and miss.
   21) Never try to outstubborn a cat.
   22) Natural laws have no pity.
   23) You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily
       as by being too trusting.
   24) Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
   25) Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament -- it
       is possible to be both.  How?  By never taking
       unnecessary chances and by minimizing risks you
       can't avoid.  This permits you to play the game
       happily, untroubled by the certainty of the
       outcome.
   26) "I came, I saw, SHE conquered."  (The original
       Latin seems to have been garbled.)
   27) The greatest productive force is human
       selfishness.
   28) A skunk is better company than a person who prides
       himself on being "frank".
   29) 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 morons with a period.  Cutting his throat is
       only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you
       talked about.
   30) Don't try to have the last word.  You might get
       it.

 Lord Falkland's Rule
    When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is
    necessary not to make a decision.

 Lowery's Law
    If it jams -- force it.  If it breaks, it needed
    replacing anyway.

 Malek's Law
    Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated
    way.

 Malinowski's Law
    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.

 Dean Martin's Definition of Drunkenness
    You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without
    holding on.

 Martin-Berthelot Principle
    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.

 Match's Maxim
    A fool in a high station is like a man on the top of a
    high mountain: everything appears small to him and he
    appears small to everybody.

 Matsch's Law
    It is better to have a horrible ending than to have
    horrors without end.

 McClaughry's Codicil on Jone's Motto
    To make an enemy, do someone a favor.

 McClaughry's Law of Zoning
    Where zoning is not needed, it will work perfectly;
    where it is desperately needed, it always breaks down.

 McGoon's Law
    The probability of winning is inversely proportional to
    the amount of the wager.

 McNaughton's Rule
    Any argument worth making within the bureaucracy must be
    capable of being expressed in a simple declarative
    sentence that is obviously true once stated.

 H. L. Mencken's Law
    Those who can -- do.
    Those who cannot -- teach.
    Those who cannot teach -- administrate.  (Martin's
    extension)

 Merrill's First Corollary
    There are no winners in life; only survivors.

 Merrill's Second Corollary
    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.

 Meskimen's Law
    There's never time to do it right, but always time to
    do it over.

 Michehl's Theorem
    Less is more.

 Pastore's Comment on Michehl's Theorem
    Nothing is ultimate.

 Miller's Law
    You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into
    it.

 Mobil's Maxim
    Bad regulation begets worse regulation.

 Murphy's First Law
    Nothing is as easy as it looks.

 Murphy's Second Law
    Everything takes longer than you think.

 Murphy's Third Law
    In any field of scientific endeavor, anything that can
    go wrong will go wrong.

 Murphy's Fourth Law
    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.

 Murphy's Fifth Law
    If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

 Murphy's Sixth Law
    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.

 Murphy's Seventh Law
    Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

 Murphy's Eighth Law
    If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously
    overlooked something.

 Murphy's Ninth Law
    Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

 Murphy's Tenth Law
    Mother nature is a bitch.

 Murphy's Eleventh Law
    It is impossible to make anything foolproof because
    fools are so ingenious.

 Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics
    Things get worse under pressure.

 Newton's Little-known Seventh Law
    A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.

 Nienberg's Law
    Progress is made on alternate Fridays.

 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.

 O'Brien's Principle   (The $357.73 Theory)
    Auditors always reject any expense account with a bottom
    line divisible by 5 or 10.

 Oeser's Law
    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.

 Ordering Principle
    Those supplies necessary for yesterday's experiment must
    be ordered no later than tomorrow noon.

 Osborn's Law
    Variables won't, constants aren't.

 O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws
    Murphy was an optimist.

 Pardo's Postulates
    1) Anything good is either illegal, immoral, or
       fattening.
    2) The three faithful things in life are money, a dog,
       and an old woman.
    3) Don't care if you're rich or not, as long as you can
       live comfortably and have everything you want.

 Pareto's Law   (The 20/80 Law)
    20% of the customers account for 80% of the turnover,
    20% of components account for 80% of the cost, and
    so forth.

 Parker's Rule of Parlimentary Procedure
    A motion to adjourn is always in order.

 Parker's Law of Political Statements
    The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its
    credibility and vice versa.

 Parkinson's First Law
    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.

 Parkinson's Second Law
    Expenditures rise to meet income.

 Parkinson's Third Law
    If there is a way to delay an important decision the
    good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.

 Parkinson's Fourth Law
    The number of people in any working group tends to
    increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.

 Parkinson's Law of Delay
    Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

 Pastore's Truths
    1) Even paranoids have enemies.
    2) This job is marginally better than daytime TV.
    3) On alcohol: four is one more than more than enough.

 Peckham's Law
    Beauty times brains equals a constant.

 Peer's Law
    The solution to a problem changes the problem.

 Peter Principle
    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.

 Peter's Corollaries
    1) Incompetence knows no barriers of time or place.
    2) Work is accomplished by those employees who have not
       yet reached their level of incompetence.
    3) If at first you don't succeed, try something else.

 Peter's Inversion
    Internal consistency is valued more highly than
    efficiency.

 Peter's Paradox
    Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to
    incompetence in their colleagues.

 Peter's Perfect People Palliative
    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
    judgements of people just because they happen to be
    dirty, rotten, no-good sons-of-bitches.

 Peter's Placebo
    An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.

 Peter's Theorem
    Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence.

 Potter's Law
    The amount of flak received on any subject is inversely
    proportional to the subject's true value.

 Productivity Equation
    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.

 Professor Gordon's Rule of Evolving Bryographic Systems
    While bryographic 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 therefore conclude
    that a rolling stone gathers no moss.

 Pudder's Law
    Anything that begins well ends badly.
    Anything that begins badly ends worse.

 Puritan's Law
    Evil is live spelled backwards.

 Puritan's Second Law
    If it feels good, don't do it.

 Q's Law
    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.

 Rangnekar's Modified Rules Concerning Decisions
    1) If you must make a decision, delay it.
    2) If you can authorize someone else to avoid a
       decision, do so.
    3) If you can form a committee, have them avoid the
       decision.
    4) If you can otherwise avoid a decision, avoid it
       immediately.

 Rayburn's Rule
    If you want to get along, go along.

 Riddle's Constant
    There are coexisting elements in frustration phenomena
    which separate expected results from achieved results.

 Ross' Law
    Never characterize the importance of a statement in
    advance.

 Rudin's Law
    In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among
    alternative courses of action, most people will choose
    the worst one possible.

 Rule of Accuracy
    When working toward the solution of a problem it always
    helps if you know the answer.

 Sam's Axiom
    1) Any line, however short, is still too long.
    2) Work is the crabgrass of life, but money is the water
       that keeps it green.

 Sattinger's Law
    It works better if you plug it in.

 Segal's Law
    A man with one watch knows what time it is;
    a man with two watches is never sure.

 Sevareid's Law
    The chief cause of problems is solutions.

 Shalit's Law
    The intensity of movie publicity is in inverse ratio to
    the quality of the movie.

 Shanahan's Law
    The length of a meeting rises with the square of the
    number of people present.

 Shaw's Principle
    Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool
    will want to use it.

 Simmon's Law
    The desire for racial integration increases with the
    square of the distance from the actual event.

 Simon's Law
    Everything put together sooner or later falls apart.

 Skinner's Constant   (Flannegan's Finagling Factor)
    That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by,
    added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives
    you the answer you should have gotten.

 Snafu Equations
    1) Given any problem containing n equations, there will
       be n + 1 unknowns.
    2) An object or bit of information most needed, will be
       least available.
    3) Any device requiring service or adjustment will be
       least accessible.
    4) Interchangable devices won't.
    5) In any human endeavor, once you have exhausted all
       possibilities and fail, there will be one solution,
       simple and obvious, highly visible to everyone else.
    6) Badness comes in waves.

 Sociology's Iron Law of Oligarchy
    In every organized activity, no matter the sphere,
    a small number will become the oligarchial leaders
    and the others will follow.

 Spare Parts Principle
    The accessibility, during recovery of small parts which
    fall from the work bench, varies directly with the size
    of the part and inversely with its importance to the
    completion of work underway.

 Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy
    Everyone should believe in something -- I believe I'll
    have another drink.

 Sturgeon's Law
    90 per cent of everything is crud.

 Swipple Rule of Order
    He who shouts loudest has the floor.

 Terman's Law
    There is no direct relationship between the quality of
    an educational program and its cost.

 Terman's Law of Innovation
    If you want a track team to win the high jump
    you find one person who can jump seven feet,
    not seven people who can jump one foot.

 Theory of the International Society of Philosophic
 Engineering
    In any calculation, any error which can creep in will.

 Thoreau's Law
    If you see a man approaching with the obvious intent
    of doing you good, run for your life.

 Transcription Law
    The number of errors made is equal to the number of
    'squares' employed.

 Truman's Law
    If you cannot convince them, confuse them.

 Truths of Management
    1)  Think before you act; it's not your money.
    2)  All good management is the expression of one great
        idea.
    3)  No executive devotes effort to proving himself
        wrong.
    4)  Cash in must exceed cash out.
    5)  Management capability is always less than the
        organization actually needs.
    6)  Either an executive can do his job or he can't.
    7)  If sophisticated calculations are needed to justify
        an action, don't do it.
    8)  If you are doing something wrong, you will do it
        badly.
    9)  If you are attempting the impossible, you will fail.
    10) The easiest way of making money is to stop losing
        it.

 Truth 5.1 of Management
    Organizations always have too many managers.

 Tuccille's First Law of Reality
    Industry always moves in to fill an economic vacuum.

 Vail's Axiom
    In any human enterprise, work seeks the lowest
    hierarchial level.

 Vique's Law
    A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.

 Vonnegut's Corollary
    Beauty may be only skin deep, but ugliness goes right to
    the core.

 Weaver's Law
    When several reporters share a cab on an assignment, the
    reporter in the front seat pays for all.

 Weaver's Corollary   (Doyle's Corollary)
    No matter how many reporters share a cab, and no matter
    who pays, each puts the full fare on his own expense
    account.

 Weber-Fechner Law
    The least change in stimulus necessary to produce a
    perceptible change in response is proportional to the
    stimulus already existing.

 Weiler's Law
    Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to
    do it himself.

 Weinberg's Law
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote
    programs, then the first woodpecker that came along
    would destroy civilization.

 Weinberg's Corollary
    An expert is a person who avoids the small errors
    while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.

 Westheimer's Rule
    To estimate the time it takes to do a task:  estimate
    the time you think it should take, multiply by 2, and
    change the unit of measure to the next highest unit. 
    Thus we allocate 2 days for a one hour task.

 White's Chappaquidick Theorem
    The sooner and in more detail you announce bad news, the
    better.

 White's Observations of Committee Operation
    1)  People very rarely think in groups;
        they talk together, they exchange information, they
        adjudicate, they make compromises.  But they do not
        think; they do not create.
    2)  A really new idea affronts current agreement.
    3)  A meeting cannot be productive unless certain
        premises are so shared that they do not need to be
        discussed, and the argument can be confined to areas
        of disagreement.  But while this kind of consensus
        makes a group more effective in its legitimate
        functions, it does not make the group a creative
        vehicle -- it would not be a new idea if it didn't 
        -- and the group, impelled as it is to agree, is
        instinctively hostile to that which is divisive.

 White's Statement
    Don't lose heart...
 Owen's Comment on White's Statement
    ...they might want to cut it out...
 Byrd's Addition to Owen's Comment on White's Statement
    ...and they want to avoid a lengthy search.

 Wiker's Law
    Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.

 Wolf's Law    (An Optimistic View of a Pessimistic World)
    It isn't that things will necessarily go wrong (Murphy's
    Law), but rather that they will take so much more time
    and effort than you think if they are not to go wrong.

 Worker's Dilemma Law (or Management's Put-Down Law)
    1)  No matter how much you do, you'll never do enough.
    2)  What you don't do is always more important than what
        you do do.

 Wynne's Law
    Negative slack tends to increase.

 Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving System Dynamics
    Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them
    is to use a larger can.  (Old worms never die, they just
    worm their way into larger cans).

 Zymurgy's Law on the Availability of Volunteer Labor
    People are always available for work in the past tense.

 Zymurgy's Seventh Exception to Murphy's Laws
    When it rains, it pours.
