Well, on the subject of laws here is my observation (Myriad's Quantum Cable Theory??):

Any collection of cables, regardless of how neatly packaged, shall become hopelessly entangled if left unattended.

There is a reason for this:

When you place said cables in a box (or other storage container) and close the lid, the cables exist in an infinite number of Probable states.

Since out of infinity, only one such state describes an un-knotted condition, the odds (or Probability) that when you return you will find the cables in that one-out-of-infinity state is almost infinitely improbable. Thus, the cables will always be in some state of entanglement.

The only known incident where the cables were found in an un-knotted state was found to have occurred at a location that had been subjected to an Infinite Improbability Drive field.

New research is indicating that the application of String Theory may help to explain some of the conditions found inside large corporate server closets.

Markhb's Second Law:

TV Guide does not count as an item.

QuarkCharm:
�Any sufficiently useful tool is indistinguishable from a toy.� Bravo! I think that�s the best one yet.

Epopt: Welcome! My wife and I are living examples of #3!

Blueshade: "Hanlons Razor:
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

According to Jerry Pournelle, he once checked that out and found it was originally by Napoleon, in one of his letters.

CyberShoe: �The overall intelligence of a group is equal to that of its most intelligent member. The stupidity of a group is equal to the sum of the stupidity of all its members. Ergo, the larger the group, the dumber it gets. This explains bureaucracies and sporting events.�

This reminds me of Sturgeon�s other law: �the intelligence of a group is equal to the intelligence of its stupidest member, divided by the number of members.�

justified_type "The country stations always come in strongest." Actually, it�s the
Christian music stations. *shudder*

Myriad: Welcome!

ROTFL, I didn't knew that (but I am not surprised either, given the reviews).

Heh. Ask the investors about that. Red Hat, and Corel (tho Corel has plenty of other problems) both bet heavily on Linux taking off commercially near term, and it ain't come soon enough for the "dot-com" investment crowd. So count them as victims of hype, rather than instigators.

Givne that I read (well, partially because it is very long) the SEC filing of Redhat and that in it they were pointing the risks (like, we rely on external developers a lot, it is not sure we can stay in good terms with the community, we do not have IP rights...) I guess that they didn't bet in it taking off near term (at least clearly not on the desktop) but rather in the middle to long term, and it is doing quite well at that.

Of course, if somebody bought Redhat stocks for making a quick buck and didn't document themselves, then yes, it could be argued that they bought the "hype" in general, although I would call it bad stock option management (given that they obviously didn't knew in what they were investing).

Bill Gates Law: When in doubt, FUD.

The first time I saw this one I really loved it.

4. The difference between Genius and Stupidity is that Genius has its limits.

I believe it is Einstein that said:

...because you will never get out of it alive.

Warning, I copied some (a lot?) of them from other After-y2k threads in my citation file so you may already have seen them (or be their author).

The only way to find the limits of the possible is to attempt to go beyond them and run smack into them, breaking your nose."
-- Arthur C. Clarke

Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it" -- Richard Feynman

Gravity can not be held responsible for people falling in love.
Einstein.

Heuristics are bug ridden by definition.
If they didn't have bugs, then they'd be algorithms.

"Science is a way for adults to behave like children, continuously exploring the world around them."

>obfuscating your identity during a criminal act is immoral and
unethical

Um, no. The criminal act is immoral and unethical.
Obfuscating your identity while performing a criminal act is
common sense....
dr_labrat on /.

Love is an obsessive delusion that is cured by marriage.
Dr Karl Bowman

"A + B + C = Success if, A = Hard Work, B = Hard Play, C = Keeping your mouth shut."
-- Albert Einstein

Necessity isn't the mother of invention: it's boredom.

"If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them."
--George Orwell--

"The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are okay, then it's you."
--Rita Mae Brown

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning,
and does not stop until you get to work.

Catproof is an oxymoron, childproof nearly so.

Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children!

The Golden Rule. He who owns the gold makes the rules.
one of Murphy's auxiliary laws.

Lesson for would-be interviewers of geeks: Never ask them a yes-or-no question, because that's all you'll get in response.
Andrew Leonard (Neal Stephenson interview)

Flattery is like cologne -- to be smelled, but not swallowed.
-- Josh Billings

Fuch's Warning: If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well enough to travel.

Re: "Children's rules to toys"
Anything not nailed down is mine.
Anything I can pry loose is not nailed down

"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."
- Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke's First Law

"When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion--the distinguished but elderly scientists
are then, after all, probably right."
- Isaac Asimov's Corollary to Clarke's First Law.

"Success has many fathers... failure however is an orphan." -- Bono

When you dig another out of trouble, you've got a place to bury your own.

"If you can't explain it to an 8-year-old, you don't understand it"
--Albert Einstein

Anyone who can't laugh at himself is not taking life seriously enough.
- Larry Wall

The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough voters to win the next election.

The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity

The reverse side also has a reverse side.
-- Japanese proverb

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

"Bernoulli was wrong. X proves that you can fill a vacuum, yet still it sucks." - Dennis Ritchie

A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
-- Bill Vaughan

senility, n.: The state of mind of elderly persons with whom one happens to disagree.

No house is childproofed unless the little darlings are in straitjackets.

If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by the page number.

"Crime does not pay... as well as politics."
-- A. E. Newman

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead.

Genius is ten percent inspiration and fifty percent capital gains.

Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: Never use your thumb for a rule.
You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it.

Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one.

"The fool thinks he is wise, but the wise man doth know himself to be a fool."
-William Shakespeare

To steal from one is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. (so what I am doing right now is research, ok!)

What doesn't kill us, just doesn't try hard enough!

The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays.
-- Pratchett's Witches Abroad

The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.
-- Blaise Pascal

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
-- Elbert Hubbard

If you think things can't get worse it's probably only because you lack sufficient imagination.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)

"Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought."
- fortune cookie

A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg. -- Samuel Butler

Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

"A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author.
-- S. C. Johnson"

Cheese -- milk's leap toward immortality.
-- Clifton Fadiman, "Any Number Can Play"

Law of Software Envelopment:
"Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so
expand are replaced by ones which can."

Simulations are like miniskirts, they show a lot and hide the essentials.
-- Hubert Kirrman

Law of Continuity: Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail the same way.

Joy's Law says, "Wherever you work, most of the smart people in the world work for somebody else."

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

Pryor's Observation: How long you live has nothing to do with how long you are going to be dead.

Life is short. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly.
Robert Doisneau

Pohl's law:
Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.

"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
--Bertrand Russell

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

Time is the best teacher. Unfortunately it kills all its students

To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion.

The only thing worse than infinite recursion is infinite recursion.

Whenever anyone says, "theoretically", they actually mean, "not really".

Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
Alan Perlis

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

question brings answer brings question again when answers are questions infinity begins

The more I see of men the more I admire dogs. -- Mme De Sevigne, 1626-1696

Loi de Conway
If N developers do a compiler, it will have N passes.

"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law

Computers let you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila.
--Mitch Radcliffe

Loudon's Law:  To any generalization, including this one, may be appended the words "but it's more complicated than that."

"It always works better if you plug it in."

And

quote:

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Originally posted by rbooks:
Where computers are concerned:

Nothing is _ever_ quick or easy.

(Victim of too many "quick and easy"
projects that turned out to be neither)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Silverlotus:
A pretty woman will never be taken seriously in (most) computer stores, even if she displays more knowledge then the salesperson.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Myriad:
Greetings everyone,

Since out of infinity, only one such state describes an un-knotted condition, the odds (or Probability) that when you return you will find the cables in that one-out-of-infinity state is almost infinitely improbable. Thus, the cables will always be in some state of entanglement.

-Myriad

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quote:

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Originally posted by zorgon:
Nelson's Law:

"Network" is an oxymoron.

---

Bus station, is where buses stop.
Train station is where trains stop.

1. If you are lucky, things you are waiting for a very long time are:
a. Worse than you hoped them to be.
b. Better than you expected them to be.

2. If in doubt, order another beer.

3. If you ever suggest to me, to go get a life, I will suggest the same to you.

4. Best way to die is:
Drown in vat of Guinness while having sex.

5. You may not live forever, but noone proxibited trying. (In my case I will do, unless I meet condition under 4)

6. Webcomics are better than coffeine.

7. Alcohol in small portions is healthy in any quantities.

All we have to fear is death.

If life was a dog shed race, if your not the lead dog the view never changes.

my last one is

Never laugh at live dragons.

Just because it's impossible doesn't mean you shouldn't try it.

And, finally, my disgusting mess rule (applied mainly to my job):
If you make a disgusting mess, you clean it. By yourself.
------------------
Take by surprise and the world gives up resistance.
- Tennesee Williams

Q.E.D.
---------------------------------------------

The law that applies most often to me, however, is Markhb's First Law of Television, I'm afraid. Other goodies are:

* Don't get even - get odder!

* "When walking through a melon patch, do not adjust your sandals."
-Old Chinese Proverb. (I kid thee not!)

* "The reason why our parents made us go to bed while they stayed up watching TV was because they couldn't program the VCR."
-Punchcard

* 'When the sign says "Do Not Feed The Bears", man, do you NOT feed the bears!'
-Homer Simpson

* A mob with burning torches is always right.

* The one from POTA, the law of rotational thermodynamics, or something. What was it?

* When you find what you are looking for, it will always be found in the last place you look, because then you will stop looking for it. Duh.

* It you can't beat 'em, cheat em.

* If it rhymes, then it must be true.

* "There are three types of people: Those who can count, and those who can't." - Punchcard

* If you love something, set it free.
If it comes back it is yours.
If it doesn't, hunt the little bugger down and shoot it.

Craftsman's law of tools: Any tool dropped, regardless of it's size and shape, will immediatly roll to the center of the car.

And this is one I came up with from all of my years gaming: A good move is a stupid move that worked. A stupid move is a good one that didn't work.

quote:

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Craftsman's law of tools: Any tool dropped, regardless of it's size and shape, will immediatly roll to the center of the car.

---

"For any given problem, there are more incorrect solutions than correct ones."
This one can be proven using set theory

Always ask forgiveness, never permission.

But I recently learned of Sturgeon's Law:

Ninety percent of everything is crap.

quote:

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Originally posted by Swiss Mercenary:
[QUOTE]Craftsman's law of tools: Any tool dropped, regardless of it's size and shape, will immediatly roll to the center of the car.

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also:

Or in your face.

------------------
Papa
Keeper of The Book

quote:

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Originally posted by markhb:
Markhb's First Law:
If you see only two episodes of a given episodic TV program in a year, the second WILL be a repeat of the first.

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