The Law of Unsorted Hardware:
If you need “N” identical pieces of hardware, and any quantity of unsorted hardware to be searched, you will find “N-1” pieces immediately. The “Nth” piece will never be found no matter how long you search.
Springs are a special case of this law. They don't need to be dropped. They will automatically launch themselves into another dimension when you're not looking.
AT LAST!!
The law that explains Liberals!
I love these! I forwarded it to my bosses :)
Thanks Sodpoodle
“2. Law of Gravity - Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible place in the universe.”
Or into a black hole if it is a specialty part, such as a slotted left hand thread nut, which will necessitate ordering another part which will cost more than a bad divorce, take longer to ship than it took to conquer the Japanese Empire and will be the wrong size when you get it.
Been there, done that.
“3. Law of Probability - The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.”
And rises exponentially as the frequency of acts of stupidity accelerates.
“4. Law of Random Numbers - If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal; someone always answers.”
And its usually someone elderly or angry, or both.
“5. Variation Law - If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now.”
5A. The Express line will ALWAYS move slower than all other lines COMBINED.
“7. Law of Close Encounters - The probability of meeting someone you know INCREASES dramatically when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.”
This law has led to more divorces than all other laws combined.
If you crawl under the front bumper, something will fall off the rear bumper and hit you in the eye.
so so true, specially the one about a bolt or part falling into the least accessible place. Every time. every single time.
Most of these seem like variations of Muphy’s law
Number 13 is also known as the Jennings Corollary to Murphy’s law.
And then there is the O’Toole Commentary on Murphy’s law: “Murphy was an optimist”
Law of returns: the chance of you having to return to the hardware store or auto-parts store a second or even third time in the same day is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent planning the project.
The following are "Akins Laws" and would seem to apply to a lot of technical/scientific undertakings:
1. Engineering is done with numbers. Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.
2. To design a spacecraft right takes an infinite amount of effort. This is why it's a good idea to design them to operate when some things are wrong .
3. Design is an iterative process. The necessary number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time.
4. Your best design efforts will inevitably wind up being useless in the final design. Learn to live with the disappointment.
5. (Miller's Law) Three points determine a curve.
6. (Mar's Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker.
7. At the start of any design effort, the person who most wants to be team leader is least likely to be capable of it.
8. In nature, the optimum is almost always in the middle somewhere. Distrust assertions that the optimum is at an extreme point.
9. Not having all the information you need is never a satisfactory excuse for not starting the analysis.
10. When in doubt, estimate. In an emergency, guess. But be sure to go back and clean up the mess when the real numbers come along.
11. Sometimes, the fastest way to get to the end is to throw everything out and start over.
12. There is never a single right solution. There are always multiple wrong ones, though.
13. Design is based on requirements. There's no justification for designing something one bit "better" than the requirements dictate.
14. (Edison's Law) "Better" is the enemy of "good".
15. (Shea's Law) The ability to improve a design occurs primarily at the interfaces. This is also the prime location for screwing it up.
16. The previous people who did a similar analysis did not have a direct pipeline to the wisdom of the ages. There is therefore no reason to believe their analysis over yours. There is especially no reason to present their analysis as yours.
17. The fact that an analysis appears in print has no relationship to the likelihood of its being correct.
18. Past experience is excellent for providing a reality check. Too much reality can doom an otherwise worthwhile design, though.
19. The odds are greatly against you being immensely smarter than everyone else in the field. If your analysis says your terminal velocity is twice the speed of light, you may have invented warp drive, but the chances are a lot better that you've screwed up.
20. A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.
21. (Larrabee's Law) Half of everything you hear in a classroom is crap. Education is figuring out which half is which.
22. When in doubt, document. (Documentation requirements will reach a maximum shortly after the termination of a program.)
23. The schedule you develop will seem like a complete work of fiction up until the time your customer fires you for not meeting it.
24. It's called a "Work Breakdown Structure" because the Work remaining will grow until you have a Breakdown, unless you enforce some Structure on it.
25. (Bowden's Law) Following a testing failure, it's always possible to refine the analysis to show that you really had negative margins all along.
26. (Montemerlo's Law) Don't do nuthin' dumb.
27. (Varsi's Law) Schedules only move in one direction.
28. (Ranger's Law) There ain't no such thing as a free launch.
29. (von Tiesenhausen's Law of Program Management) To get an accurate estimate of final program requirements, multiply the initial time estimates by pi, and slide the decimal point on the cost estimates one place to the right.
30. (von Tiesenhausen's Law of Engineering Design) If you want to have a maximum effect on the design of a new engineering system, learn to draw. Engineers always wind up designing the vehicle to look like the initial artist's concept.
31. (Mo's Law of Evolutionary Development) You can't get to the moon by climbing successively taller trees.
32. (Atkin's Law of Demonstrations) When the hardware is working perfectly, the really important visitors don't show up.
33. (Patton's Law of Program Planning) A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.
34. (Roosevelt's Law of Task Planning) Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.
35. (de Saint-Exupery's Law of Design) A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
36. Any run-of-the-mill engineer can design something which is elegant. A good engineer designs systems to be efficient. A great engineer designs them to be effective.
37. (Henshaw's Law) One key to success in a mission is establishing clear lines of blame.
38. Capabilities drive requirements, regardless of what the systems engineering textbooks say.
39. Any exploration program which "just happens" to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program.
39. (alternate formulation) The three keys to keeping a new human space program affordable and on schedule: 1) No new launch vehicles. 2) No new launch vehicles. 3) Whatever you do, don't develop any new launch vehicles.
40. (McBryan's Law) You can't make it better until you make it work.
41. There's never enough time to do it right, but somehow, there's always enough time to do it over.
42. Space is a completely unforgiving environment. If you screw up the engineering, somebody dies (and there's no partial credit because most of the analysis was right...)
As if more proof were needed that the universe is against you, there is the law of fasteners. If there are two or any larger number of bolts, nuts, clips, or fasteners to be removed, all but the last one will come off easily. The final one will break off, strip, or be removed only with the most heroic effort. Of course, this rule applies no matter where in the series you start.
These are all corollaries of Murphy’s Law.
The probability of your printer not working is proportional to the importance of the document you are printing.
This happened to me last summer. I was on my way to a very important customer presentation when my tire went flat on the highway. So I had to change to the donut spare in my suit and then encountered the "Law of the Hard to Find Lug Nut Key".
Yes, the special locking lug nut seemed a good idea at the time when I was sitting in the dealership but where was the lug nut key? Eventually I dug it out of the far reaches of my glove compartment but it cost me 10 extra minutes. Which was the exact amount of time I was late to the presentation.
Anytime you take apart a complex mechanical or electrical item for repair or refurbishment and then put it back together, you will be left with left-over parts to which you have no clue as to where they belong. Furthermore, the item you fixed will work perfectly without those missing parts.
Sportutegirl’s law of rural highways: An obstacle in your lane always occurs at the same time as a vehicle in the oncoming lane.
The Law of Tangles: A rope, hose, or electrical cord will always tangle on a rock, stump, curb, corner, or other obstruction.
The car repair shop law (corollary to the doctor’s law):
That odd noise, annoying rattle, or any other mechanical flaw will never manifest itself when there is a mechanic anywhere within 100 yards of your car. On the bright side, it saves you from having to hear the age-old excuse “they all do that”.
Boy, is THAT one right on target! Last year I bought a pair of high top basketball shoes at a moderate price in an outlet store. I need good ankle support (injuries over the years) and these are the best I ever had. They're wearing out and I went on line (after calling the store and being told they are not stocking them any more) to order a couple of more pair. Not finding them at all. So I emailed the "contact us" address for the company with my request and got a general reply apparently written by some for whom English is a second language saying to visit the website.
So I will add "The ability of the company representative to respond in understandable English diminishes with the complexity of your request".