1. If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know.
2. If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question.

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.

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.

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.

1. Government intervention in the free market always leads to a lower national standard of living
2. The adoption of fractional gold reserves in a currency system always leads to depreciation, devaluation, demonetization and, ultimately, to complete destruction of that currency.
3. In a free market good money always drives bad money
   out of circulation.

1. When in doubt, mumble.
2. When in trouble, delegate.
3. When in charge, ponder.

1. Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
2. If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set!

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.

1. Anytime you wish to demonstrate something, the number of faults is proportional to the number of viewers.
2. The desire for modeling a prototype is inversely proportional
   to the decline of the prototype.

1. If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will.
2. If you do something which you are sure will meet with everyone's approval, somebody won't like it.
3. Procedures devised to implement the purpose
   won't quite work.
4. No matter how long or how many times you explain, no one is listening.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right.
2. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
4. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

1. "The check is in the mail."
2. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."
3. "Of course I'll respect you in the morning."

1. No action is without side-effects.
2. Nothing ever goes away.
3. There is no free lunch.

1. Things will get worse before they get better.
2. Who said things would get better.

1. Negative expectations yield negative results.
2. Positive expectations yield negative results.

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.

1. Give him an inch and he'll screw you.
2. A hand in the bush is worth two anywhere else.
3. We're all going down the same road in different directions.
4. Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.

1. If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.

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

1. Money isn't everything.
2. It's great to be a Negro.
3. I'm only going to put it in a little way.

1. An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction.
2. An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
3. The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible.

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.
4. Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
5. Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.

1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't even quit the game.

1. Everything in excess!
2. To enjoy the full flavor of life, take big bytes.
3. Moderation is for monks.
4. Yield to temptation; it may never pass your way again.

Trivial matters are handled promptly; important matters are never solved.

1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't even quit the game.

1. Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs.
2. A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned project takes 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.

1. When looking directly at the easier way, especially for long periods, you will not see it.
2. Neither will Iles.

1. Everything is cold except what should be.
2. Everything, including the corn flakes, is greasy.

1. The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse.
2. The Path of Progress: A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.
3. The Dialectics of Progress: Direct action produces direct reaction.
4. The Pace of Progress: Society is a mule, not a carŠ If pressed too hard, it will kick and throw off its rider.

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.

1. 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.
2. Threat of capital controls accelerates marginal capital outflows.
3. Combined total taxation from all levels of government will always increase (until the government is replaced by war or revolution).
4. 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.
5. 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.)
6. 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.
7. Politicians will always inflate when given the opportunity.

1. Where are the calculations that go with the calculated risk?
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Try to find out who's doing the work, not who's writing about it, controlling it, or summarizing it.
5. Watch out for formal briefings; they often produce an avalanche (a high-level snow job of massive and overwhelming proportions).
6. 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.
7. Most organizations can't hold more than one idea at a time. Thus complementary ideas are always regarded as competetive. Further, like a quantized pendulum, an organization can jump from one extreme to the other, without ever going through the middle.
8. 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.

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.

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.

1. Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
2. Any given program costs more and takes longer each time it is run.
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 the 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.

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

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 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.

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.

1. If you have something to do, and you put it off long enough, chances are someone else will do it for you.
2. There's no time like the present for postponing what you don't want to do.
3. One thing that's good about procrastination is that you always have something planned for tomorrow.
4. God put me on this planet to accomplish a certain number of tasks. As of today I am so far behind I will NEVER die.
5. How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on.
6. Time wounds all heels.
7. The last 20% of a project requires 80% of the total time (80/20 rule).
8. Men say that Time passes. Time says that men pass.
9. In the long run..., we'll all be dead.
10. Warning: dates in calendar are closer than they appear.
11. I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. (Douglas Adams)
12. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And I would even say that the more it changes the more it's the same.
13. Who controls the present, controls the past, and who controls the past, controls the future. George Orwell
14. Don't be mad about growing old, some aren't that lucky.
15. Just because it is inevitable, doesn't mean it's imminent.
16. Of course, I need it today! If I wanted it tomorrow, I'd order it tomorrow!

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.

1. Nothing is so serious that it can't be teased until it is ragged at the edges.
2. Nothing is so simple that it cannot be made too complex to work.

1. If anything can go wrong, it will.
2. If it is possible for several things to go wrong, the one that will go wrong first will be the one that will do the most damage. (Also known as the .jelly side. rule: Bread always falls with the jelly side down, especially when over a valuable carpet.)
3. If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
4. Nothing is as easy as it looks.
5. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.
6. Nothing is ever so bad that it can't get worse.
7. When things just can't get any worse, they will.
8. Everything takes longer than you think or expect.
9. When things are going well, something will go wrong.
10. In any field of scientific endeavor, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
11. 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.
12. Things will get worse before they will get better -- and who said things would get better?.
13. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
14. Every solution breeds new problems.
15. Anything is possible, but nothing is easy.
16. Enough research will tend to support your theory.

And many more Murphy laws ...

1. You are not Superman.
2. If the enemy is in range, so are you.
3. If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.
4. Incoming fire has the right of way.
5. Never draw fire; it irritates everyone around you.
6. Odd or conspicuous objects attract fire. Never lurk behind one.
7. Don't look conspicuous, it draws fire.
8. Armored vehicles are bullet magnets.
9. Incoming fire has the right of way.
10. There is always a way, and it usually doesn't work.

And many more Murphy laws of combat ...

1. Law of Inconvenient Malfunction: A device will fail at the least opportune possible moment.
2. Law of Cable Compatibility: If you choose a cable and a connector at random, the probability that they are compatible is equal to zero.
3. Law of Hardware Compatibility: The probability of a given peripheral being compatible with a PC is inversely proportional to the immediate need for that peripheral.
4. Law of Bad Sectors: The probability that an untested diskette will have bad sectors is directly proportional to the importance of the data written onto the diskette.
5. First Law of Selective Gravitation: When an object is dropped, it will fall in such a way as to cause the greatest possible damage to itself and/or other objects on which it lands.
6. Second Law of Selective Gravitation: The tendency for an object to be dropped is directly proportional to its value.
7. Law of Reality Change: Unalterable hardware specifications will change as necessary to maximize frustration for personnel affected by said specifications.
8. Law of Noise: Noise bursts occur so as to cause the most, and/or most serious, errors in data communications, regardless of the actual amount of noise present.
9. Law of Expectation: Consumer expectations always outpace advances in hardware technology.
10. Law of the Titanic: If a device cannot malfunction, it will.
11. Calculator and laptop computer batteries will fail at the most critical or disastrous times.
    

1. Law of Debugging: The difficulty of debugging software is directly proportional to the number of people who will ultimately use it.
2. Law of Neurosis: The chances of software being neurotic (developing bugs spontaneously without apparent reason) is directly proportional to the confusion such neurosis can cause.
3. Law of Available Space: If there are n bytes in a crucial software program, the available space for its convenient storage or loading is equal to n-1 bytes.
4. First Law of Bad Sectors: The probability of software being mutilated by bad sectors is directly proportional to the value and/or importance of the programs.
5. Second Law of Bad Sectors: When a program is mutilated by bad sectors, the damage will occur at the point(s) that result in the most frequent and/or severe errors when the program is run.
6. Law of Noise: When a downloaded program is corrupted by noise, the corruption will occur at the point(s) that result in the most frequent and/or severe errors when the program is run.
7. Law of Software Compatibility: If two programs are chosen at random, the probability that they are compatible is equal to zero.
8. Law of Option Preferences: When two people share a computer, their software option preferences will differ in every possible way.
9. Law of Expectation: Consumer expectations always outpace advances in software technology.
10. Law of the Titanic: Bug-free software isn't.
    

1. Seach's First Law of Volcanology:
   You will miss the eruption.
   Corollaries
   1. If two volcanoes are about to erupt, you will go to the wrong one.
   2.. If one volcano is about to erupt you will either get there one daytoo late or leave one day too early.
   3. The vent will erupt while you are changing films.
   4. The volcano will erupt while it is covered in clouds.
   5. You have to sleep sometime.
2. Seach's Paradoxes:
   1. A decrease in eruptive activity increases the risk.Corollary: Beware of a quiet volcano.
   2. Getting to the volcano is more dangerous than the volcano itself.
   3. The organisation with the largest budget, will be the last to report the eruption.
   
3. Seach's Laws of Achievement:
   1. The number of eruptions viewed, is inversely proportional to the number of meetings attended.
   2. The more money you have, the less you achieve.
4. Jaffe's Precept:
   There are some things about a volcano which are impossible to know - but it is impossible to know these things.

1. Avoid fried foods which angry up the blood.
2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
3. Keep the juices moving by jangling around gently as you walk.
4. Go light on the vices such as carrying on in society.
5. Avoid running at all times.
6. Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.

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.

The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility and vice versa.

1. Work expands to fill 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.
2. Expenditures rise to meet income
3. If there is a way to delay an important decision the
   good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
4. The number of people in any working grouptends to increase
   regardless of the amount of work to be done.

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.

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.

1. The best shots happen immediately after the last frame is exposed.
2. The other best shots are generally attempted through the lens cap.
3. Any surviving best shots are ruined when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark leaks out.

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.

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.

1. Given any problem containing 'n' equations 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.

1. Strive to look tremendously important.
2. Attempt to be seen with important people.
3. Speak with authority; however only expound the obvious and proven facts.
4. Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that can be used against you.

1. Profanity is the one language understood by all programmers.
2. Not until a program has been in production for six months will the most harmful error be discovered.
3. Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper order will be.
4. Interchangeable tapes won't.
5. 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.
6. If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.

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.
   5.1. Organizations always have too many managers.
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.
    

1. By definition, when you are investigating the unknown, you do not know what you will find.
2. All general statements are false.

1. Someday you will die.
2. If you read this, you are not dead yet.

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.

1. The boss is always right.
2. If the boss is wrong, refer to rule 1.

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.

1. When it rains, it pours.
2. A really new idea affronts current agreement..