Murphy's Law 101
Here is some additional Murphy's Laws found in previous issues of Evil Pasta:
Murphy's Constant: Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.
Murphy's Law of Copiers: The legibility of a copy is inversely proportional to its importance.
Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics: Things get worse under pressure.
Corollary of Inverse Distances: The farther away from the entrance that you have to park, the closer the space vacated by the car that pulls away as you walk up to the door.
Approval Seeker's Law: Those whose approval you seek the most give you the least.
Law of Civilization: It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be coming up it.
Army Axiom: Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.
Army Law: If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, pick it up; if you can't pick it up, paint it.
Consumer's Rule: Never decide to buy something while listening to the salesman.
Newspaper Obituary Law: If you want your name spelled wrong, die.
Comment on Power and Influence: Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Astrology Law: It's always the wrong time of the month.
Rule of Accuracy: When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer
provided, of course, that you know there is a problem.
The Pyramid Progression: 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.
Rule of Medicine: Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
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.
If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
When all else fails, follow instructions.
Anybody can winunless there happens to be a second entry.
Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well being.
Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.
When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.
Overdoing things is harmful in all cases, even when it comes to efficiency.
If the assumptions are wrong, the conclusions aren't likely to be very good.
Anything is possible, but nothing is easy.
Information travels more surely to those with a lesser need to know.
Check the answer you have worked out once more before you tell it to anybody.
Estimating a figure may be enough to catch an error.
An exception TESTS a rule; it NEVER PROVES it.
When things are going well, someone will inevitably experiment detrimentally.
When the product is destined to fail, the delivery system will perform perfectly.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
Airplane Law: When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to transfer to is on time.
Categorizer's Distinction: There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't.
Law of Force: Don't force it; get a larger hammer.
Comment on Domestic Tranquility: On a beautiful day like this it's hard to believe anyone can be unhappybut we'll work on it.
Murphy's Law of the Open Road: When there is a very long road upon which there is a one-way bridge placed at random, and there are only two cars on that road, it follows that: (1) the two cars are going in opposite directions, and (2) they will always meet at the bridge.
The Murphy Philosophy: Smiletomorrow will be worse.
Rule of Three: Trouble strikes in series of threes, but when working around the house the next job after a series of three is not the fourth job -- it's the start of a brand new series of three.
Work Postulate: Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.
Murphy's Law of Distribution of Information: If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know.
Corollary: If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question.
Law of Research: The theory is supported as long as the funds are.
Rule of the Bureaucracy: A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.
Complexity Assurance: Any system or program, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.
Quantization Revision of Murphy's Laws: Everything goes wrong all at once.
Generalization on Economics and Politics: What's good politics is bad economics; what's bad politics is good economics; what's good economics is bad politics; what's bad economics is good politics.
Fourteenth Corollary of the General Law of Dynamic Negatives: No books are lost by loaning except those you particularly wanted to keep.
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