APPENDIX 07: LAWS, OBSERVATIONS, RULES, THEORIES, ET AL

99 RULE OF PROJECT SCHEDULES: [THE]

The first 90% of the task takes 90% of the time and the last 10% takes the other 90%.

ABRAM'S LAW:

The shortest distance between two points is off the wall.

AIR FORCE INERTIA AXIOM:

Consistency is always easier to defend than correctness.

ALBERT EINSTEIN'S THREE RULES OF WORK:

1. Out of clutter, find simplicity.
2. From discord, find harmony
3. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity

ARGUMENT FROM PERSONAL INCREDULITY: [THE]

If it seems impossible to me, then it must be impossible.
---Richard Dawkins

ASHLEY-MONTAGU'S DICTUM:

Die young -- as late as possible.

ASIMOV'S THREE LAWS OF FUTURICS:

1: What is happening will continue to happen.

paraphrase 1: What has happened in the past will happen in the future;
paraphrase 2: History repeats itself.

2: Consider the obvious seriously, for few people will see it.

3: Consider the consequences.
--Isaac Asimov, O Keen-eyed Peerer Into The Future,
Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Oct 1974,
and reprinted in the anthology, Of Matters Great And Small, pg 116-127

ASIMOV'S THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS:

1: A robot will not harm a human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.

2: A robot will not disobey an order from a human being save where that order might violate the first law.

3: A robot will not place himself in danger except where not doing so might violate the first or second law.
--Isaac Asimov

Zeroth Law of Robotics:

No robot will harm humanity or through inaction allow humanity to come to harm.
--Isaac Asimov, Robots Of Dawn

AYER'S LAW:

What has happened, can happen.

BAKER'S LAW:

You never want the one you can afford.

BARNEY FRANK RULE:

As articulated by the openly gay Massachusetts congressman during another anti-gay GOP witch-hunt over a decade ago, when Frank threatened to out a number of gay-baiting Republican fellow congressmen, the rule insists that outing is only acceptable when a person uses their power or notoriety to hurt gay people.
--Doug Ireland, The Outing David Dreier and his straight hypocrisy, 24 Sep 2005

BEAUTY TIPS: [AUDREY HEPBURN'S ~]

The following was supposedly written by Audrey Hepburn regarding "Beauty Tips".

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anybody.

Remember, If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, And the beauty of a woman with passing years -- only grows!

If you send this to other women, something good will happen -- you will boost another woman's self esteem.
--attrib. Audrey Hepburn

BIOGENETIC LAW:

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.
--Ernst Haeckel
[Actually a 19th century hypothesis of genetics that did not hold up before the facts. --MN]

BOHR'S CODICIL TO LOGIC:

The opposite of an ordinary truth is a falsehood, But there also exist great truths -- and the opposite of a great truth is another great truth.
--Neils Bohr, Nobel physicist

BRASINGTON'S NINTH LAW:

A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned one will take only twice as long.

BROADCAST DECENCY ENFORCEMENT ACT:

Free [e]xpression and First Amendment rights are the real target of this legislation. Ironically, we already have television stations refusing to air a film about the sacrifice of America's Greatest Generation to preserve freedom because of the danger of arbitrary fines that the FCC imposes under its overly vague so-called 'indecency standard.' Vastly increasing the fines to $500,000 will only escalate this dangerous cycle of self-censorship, particularly (by) small broadcasters who could be bankrupted by a $500,000 fine. This is not what America is about.
--Representative (Independent) Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT)

BROWN ARM RING RULE:

[A pregnancy test for cows] is done by slipping on a giant plastic glove that goes nearly up to your shoulder, carefully lifting the tail of an animal that can kick you across the room and through the wall, and insinuating your entire arm up its backside. "A cow won't normally move around too much when you're in there," [veterinary] Doc Rogers says hopefully, shoving his defensive tackle's arm in up to the bicep . . . or about where the permanent brown stain is brand ed on his white dress shirt.

[...]

A vertinarian surgically groping around for verifiable proof of a cow's preganacy is a good metaphor for a reporter's search for the news. Both rely a lot on their training and experience, looking in dark places first for what is remarkable, then using observation and verification to determine its significance. But, above all, both get the opportunity to do their jobs effectively only if they have first established a basis of trust -- the trust of the cow for a gentle arm up its backside, the trust of the farmer for the judgment of the vet, and, in the case of the journalist, a trust that lies at the basis of all news reporting. It begins with the trust between a jounalist and his sources of information and from there builds to the trust he is able to establish with his audience. Such trust is built the hard way, by editorial practices that establish a newspaper's reputation for courage, honesty and decency of purpose. "We will tell you the truth," a good newspaper should say to its readers. "We will tell you all of the truth you need to know to be good citizens, and we will do so for the benefit -- not the vilification -- of the community." When that trust with the public is present, the newspaper has a treasury of good will to draw on when it reports on controversial matters.

Readers know that truth sometimes can be painful. It can leave marks on both a newspaper and its community. But like the mark on Grant Rogers' shirt, the line that defines how far a newspaper feels it should go to report the news needs to be carefully drawn. It should mark the precise point where courage should end and decency should begin, where benefit to the community begins to run into avoidable harm, where other people's privacy is invaded too much. I call it the Brown Arm Ring Rule, and it goes lik e this: If the number of folks who stand to be hurt by your story outnumber those it might help, don't print. Trust and courage are impossible unless the line is visible and consistently observed; and in much of jounalism today, it is not.
--John Miller, Yesterday's News, pg 199/200

BUSINESS SOFTWARE LAW:

1. Management will upgrade existing computer programs with slower, more inefficient ones.
2. If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
3. If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.

CHEIT'S LAMENT:

If you help a friend in need, he is sure to remember you -- the next time he's in need.

CIRCUMVENTION DILEMMA:

The court of appeals in Corley put its finger on the circumvention dilemma when it identified "two unattractive alternatives": either tolerate some infringement of intellectual freedom in an effort to stop piracy, or else "tolerate some decryption" in order to avoid trampling on free expression. This "fundamental choice," said the court, "cannot be entirely avoided."
--"THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE AND USEFUL ARTS":
WHY COPYRIGHT TODAY THREATENS INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM, Free Expression Policy Project interim report, 2002

CLARKE'S LAWS:

First Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinquishable from magic.

Second Law: When a distinquished scientist says that something is possible he is almost always right, but when the same distinquished scientist says that something is impossible he is invariably wrong.
--Arthur C. Clarke

COLE'S AXIOM:

The sum total of the intelligence on the planet is a constant. The population is growing.

• [KEYS] RHODES'S ADDENDUM:

  And the dolphins are getting smarter every day.

COLLIGAN'S LAWS:

1. The government works in strange and mysterious ways, but mostly slow.

2. If you want something badly; that's how you'll get it.
--Jim Colligan, 26 Jul 1997

CONWAY'S LAW:

In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired.

COORDINATION PROBLEM: [THE]

If you believe the current theory, then all the wonderful complexity of life is nothing but the accumulation of chance events--a bunch of genetic accidents strung together. Yet when we look closely at animals, it appears as if many elements must have evolved simultaneously. Take bats, which have echolocation--they navigate by sound. To do that, many things must evolve. Bats need a specialized apparatus to make the sounds, they need specialized ears to hear echoes, they need specialized brains to interpret the sounds, and they need specialized bodies to dive and swoop and catch insects. If all these things don't evolve simultaneously, there's no advantage. And to imagine all these things happen purely by chance is like imagining that a tornado can hit a junkyard and assemble the parts into a working 747 airplane. It's very hard to believe.
--Ian Malcolm, The Lost World, Michael Cricthon, pg 227

CRITICAL REVIEW GUIDELINES: [ROBERT FISK'S ~]

[...H]ere's a thumbnail list of how to watch out for mendacity and propaganda on your screen once Gulf War Two [...] begins. You should suspect the following:

• Reporters who wear items of American or British military costume - helmets, camouflage jackets, weapons, etc;

• Reporters who say "we" when they are referring to the US or British military unit in which they are "embedded";

• Those who use the words "collateral damage" instead of "dead civilians";

• Those who commence answering questions with the words: "Well, of course, because of military security I can't divulge...";

• Those who, reporting from the Iraqi side, insist on referring to the Iraqi population as "his" (i.e. Saddam's) people;

• Journalists in Baghdad who refer to "what the Americans describe as Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses" - rather than the plain and simple torture we all know Saddam practices;

• Journalists reporting from either side who use the awful and creepy phrase "officials say" without naming, quite specifically, who these often lying "officials" are.

--Robert Fisk (The Independent), and reprinted at ArabNews.com, 22 Jan 2003

CRYSTAL'S LAW:

Everyone speaks Smith and Wesson. . . .

DARWIN'S THREE PREMISES:

(paraphrased)

1: Premise of Variation: Each individual member of a given species is different.

2: Premise of Growth: All living creatures tend to produce more offspring than the environment can support. It is in the combination of boundless fecundity of living things with limited resources in which there is a natural, global mechanism that constantly works to extinguish most variations, preserving only those carried by individuals that survive to reproduce.

3: Premise of Natural Selection: The differences among individuals, combined with environmental pressures, affect the probability that a given individual will survive long enough to pass along its genetic characteristics.

DEADEYE'S LAW ON FILE TRANSFERENCE:

The likelihood of the availablility of material to upload to an interested fellow [poster] [is] inversely proportional to the requestor's level of interest.

DEMONIC PARADOX OF WRITING: [THE]

When you put something down that happened, people often don't believe it; whereas, you can make up anything, and people assume it must have happened to you.
--Andrew Holleran

DEVIL THEORY:

" -- I would say that you have fallen into the commonest fallacy of all in dealing with social and economic subjects -- the 'devil theory.'"

"Huh?"

"You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity. Colonial slavery is nothing new; it is the inevitable result of imperial expansion, the automatic result of an antiquated social structure -- "

"I pointed out the part the banks played in my book."

"No, no, no! You think bankers are scoundrels. They are not. Nor are company officials, nor patrons, nor the governing classes back on Earth. Men are constrained by necessity and build up rationalizations to account for their acts. It is not even cupidity. Slavery is economically unsound, non-productive, but men drift into it whenever the circumstances compel it. A different financial system -- But that's another story."

"I still think it's rooted in human cussedness."

"Not cussedness -- simple stupidity. I can't prove it to you, but you will learn."
--"Doc" in a conversation with Wingate, Logic Of Empire
(reprinted in the anthology The Green Hills Of Earth, pg 261)

DICHOTOMY OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND: [THE]

Why do you have to "put your two cents in" ... but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"?
--George Carlin

It's the law of supply and demand. Most people will supply their opinions without having them demanded, and then they charge you for shipping and handling. A consumer asking for your opinion will offer what he or she sees as a fair price.
--Michael Nellis

DOCTRINE OF PREEMPTION:

The doctrine of preemption - the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but may be threatening in the future -- is a radical new twist on the traditional idea of self defense. It appears to be in contravention of international law and the UN Charter. And it is being tested at a time of world-wide terrorism, making many countries around the globe wonder if they will soon be on our -- or some other nation's -- hit list.
--Senator Robert Byrd, 12 Feb 2003

DREW'S LAW OF HIGHWAY BIOLOGY:

The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front of your eyes.

EINSTEIN'S THEORY OF RELATIVITY:

Sometimes misquoted as, "You can pick your friends but you can't pick your relatives."
--Fang-Face DreamWeaver, 08 Mar 1999

EMMET'S LAW:

The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself.
--Rita Emmet, The Procrastinator's Handbook[?]

ENG'S PRINCIPLE:

The easier it is to do, the harder it is to change.

ENTRY-FICTION DOCTRINE:

A bizarre legal reality where a foreigner on parole status is still considered legally to be on the other side of the border.

ENVIRONMENTAL DOCILITY HYPOTHESIS:

If we feel comfortable in our surroundings, we become gregarious; if it is too dangerous or difficult to get from here to there, we become sluggish. But enviornmental cues have an even more profound effect on the weak than the strong--and a greater proportion of the very old tend to be weak. Behavioral scientist M. Powell Lawton of the Philadelpia Geriatric Center calls this the "Environmental Docility Hypothesis": "As individual competence decreases, the environment assumes increasing importance in determining well being."
--Robin Marantz Henig, The Myth of Senility, pg 240

ETTORE'S LAW:

The other line always moves faster.

FAMILY MOVIE ACT: [The]

[It] raises interesting First Amendment questions, for its purpose and effect is to grant special legal protection to private censorship. Censorship under the guise of child protection, has traditionally been, and continues to be, a convenient excuse for not educating children--about media, critical thinking, and moral values.
--Marjorie Heins, in remarks to the National Press Club, 2005

FINAGLE'S LAW:

The full name for this law is: Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives. It is usually quoted as: Anything that can go wrong, will.
(see MURPHY'S LAW)

One form, used primarily by hackers, is: The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum.

This law was made popular by Larry Niven, author of Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers, et al, in a series of stories set among asteroid miners in a frontier type society. This culture of "Belters" followed a religion which might have been a running joke in which they worshipped Finagle, the dreaded god, and Murphy, his insane prophet. Finagle's Law is also known as Sod's Law to some technical and scientific cultures.

FINKELSTEIN PHENOMENON: [THE]

. . . The slow but inexorable societal acknowledgment that gay people are real people living real lives, not an abstraction or a subculture. And many of them are Republicans.

Arthur Finkelstein, for example, is an enormously effective right-wing GOP political operative who revealed recently that in December he took advantage of the groundbreaking and much-maligned Massachusetts law to marry his longtime partner. When asked why, he cited "visitation rights, healthcare benefits and other human relationship contracts."

Finkelstein, in the past, must have conveniently forgotten his own interests when he helped engineer the election of known conservative gay-bashers such as Jesse Helms. He represents--along with Dick Cheney's highly regarded lesbian daughter and the Log Cabin Republicans--yet another example for conservatives of how being gay is much more fundamental than a "lifestyle choice." In fact, it is just another manifestation of the human experience.
--Robert Scheer, 20 Apr 2005

FIRST COROLLARY OF MURPHY'S LAW:

Never monkey with a system that is working well enough
--Zebediah John Carter, The Number Of The Beast, pg 176

FIRST LAW OF ADVERTISING:

The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.
--Bill Cosby

FIRST LAW OF LAB WORK:

Hot glass looks just like cool glass.

FIRST LAW OF POLITICS: [THE]

. . . the first duty of a politician is to get re-elected. The other ninety-nine laws of politics don't matter.
--William C Heine, Kooks and Dukes, Counts and No-accounts, pg 102

FIRST LAW OF WING WALKING:

Never let go of what you hold until you've got hold of something else.
--Unknown

FIRST RULE OF DIGGING HOLES: [THE]

The first rule of digging holes is: when you're in one -- stop digging.

FIRST RULE OF JOURNALISM: [THE]

The first rule of journalism is that governments lie. All governments lie.
--I.F. Stone

FIRST RULE OF UFO DEBUNKING:

Misquote . . . misinterpret . . . yank from context.
(see ZEN . . . AND THE ART OF DEBUNKERY)

FIVE SECOND RULE: [THE]

The rule which states that if food falls to the floor it's safe to pick it up and eat it within five seconds.

FLIGHT SCHOOL RULE 1:

When landing a plane, make sure the wheels are on the bottom.

FLUGG'S LAW:

When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum.

FULGHUM'S RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Buy lemonade from any kid who is selling.
2. Anytime you can vote on anything, vote.
3. Attend the twenty-fifth reunion of your high school class.
4. Choose having time over having money.
5. Always take the scenic route.
6. Give at least something to any beggar who asks.
7. And give money to all street musicians.
8. Always be someone's Valentine.
9. When the circus comes to town, be there.
--Robert Fulghum, It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It, pg 90

GENNERAT'S LAW:

The falsely dramatic drives out the truly dull.
--Liebel Gennerat
[From Foundation's Edge, by Isaac Asimov; Gennerat predated the First Foundation by a thousand years. --MN]

GLAZER'S LAW:

If it says "one size fits all," it doesn't fit anyone.

GOLDEN RULE: [THE]

[1] Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

[2] Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

GODWIN'S LAW:

When you mention Hitler or Nazis in an on-line forum, you've automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in.

GRABEL'S LAW:

Two is not equal to three -- not even for large values of two.

GRESHAM'S LAW:

The theory that bad money drives good money out of circulation. It was coined by economist Henry Dunning Macleod in 1858 after Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-1579), financier and founder of the Royal Exchange in London. Gresham, a financial adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, wrote to her "good and bad coin cannot circulate together." Gresham's law says that when both are required to be accepted as legal tender, inferior money remains in circulation while the good money tends to be hoarded or exported.

GUY RULES:

(see Appendix 29)

GUY RULES: [MORE ~]

(see Appendix 29)

HANLON'S RAZOR:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

HARRY GOLDEN RULE: [THE]

The Harry Golden Rule, properly stated, is that in present-day America it's very difficult, when commenting on events of the day, to invent something so bizarre that it might not actually come to pass while your piece is still on the presses.

During the fifties Harry Golden observed that white people in his part of North Carolina didn't mind standing up with black people, they only minded sitting down with them, so he suggested that the way to integrate the schools was to simply take the chairs out and have the kids stand up at their desks. I think he called it, "Harry Golden's Plan for the Vertical Integration of the Schools." About a year later some library was ordered integrated by a federal court and it proceeded to take the chairs out. This is what is called, "being blindsided by the truth," which is a real problem [for satirists] in America.
--Calvin Trillin

HARSHAW'S LAW:

Daughters can spend ten percent more than a man can make in any usual occupation.
--Stranger In A Strange Land, pg 218

HEINLEIN'S COROLLARY TO STURGEON'S LAW:

Sturgeon's Law applies to professors as well as to other categories.
--Robert Anson Heinlein, The Happy Days Ahead, Expanded Universe, pg 526
(see ROBERT ANSON HEINLEIN, Appendix 19; CRISIS OF THE LIBRARIAN, main volume; PRINCIPLE OF SERENDIPITY, SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE SIMON-PURE SCIENCE FICTION STORY, THREE AXIOMS OF PROPHESY)

HEINLEIN'S RULES FOR WRITING:

The five rules for becoming a published writer are:

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must not revise except to editorial direction.
4. You must send out what you have written.
5. You must keep sending out things you have written until they sell.

(see HEINLEIN'S RULES FOR WRITING, Appendix 12 for an expanded explanation; also see ROBERT ANSON HEINLEIN, Appendix 19; CRISIS OF THE LIBRARIAN, main volume; COROLLARY TO STURGEON'S LAW , PRINCIPLE OF SERENDIPITY, SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE SIMON-PURE SCIENCE FICTION STORY, THREE AXIOMS OF PROPHESY)

HEINLEIN'S SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE "SIMON-PURE SCIENCE FICTION STORY":

1: The conditions must be, in some respect, different from here-and-now, although the difference may lie only in an invention made in the course of the story.

2: The new conditions must be an essential part of the story.

3: The problem itself -- the "plot" -- must be a human problem.

4: The human problem must be one which is created by, or indispensably affected by, the new condit ions.

5: And lastly, no established fact shall be violated, and, furthermore, when the story requires that a theory contrary to present accepted theory be used, the new theory should be rendered reasonably plausible and it must include and explain established facts as satisfactorily as the one the author saw fit to junk. It may be far-fetched, it may seem fantastic, but it must not be at variance with observed facts, i.e., if you are going to assume that the human race descended from Martians, then you've got to explain our apparent close relationship to terrestrial anthropoid apes as well.
--Robert Anson Heinlein, attrib to the essay On the Writing of Speculative Fiction, 1947.
[Possibly as originally stated, but more likely to this editor to have been restated by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach. -MN]
[Caveat: According the the source from which this material is extracted, Heinlein added the qualifier to that list that he himself has violated all his own rules. This under the maxim by Kipling that, "There are nine and sixty ways / Of constructing tribal lays / And every single one of them is right." -MN]
(see ROBERT ANSON HEINLEIN, Appendix 19; CRISIS OF THE LIBRARIAN, in main volume; COROLLARY TO STURGEONS LAW, PRINCIPLE OF SERENDIPITY, THREE AXIOMS OF PROPHESY; or return to SCIENCE FICTIONin main volume)

HEINLEIN'S THREE AXIOMS OF PROPHESY:

Axiom: A "nine days' wonder" is taken as a matter of course on the tenth day.

Axiom: A "common sense" prediction is sure to err on the side of timidity.

Axiom: The more extravagant a prediction sounds the more likely it is to come true.
--Robert Anson Heinlein, Introduction to The Worlds of ~, pg 20
(see ROBERT ANSON HEINLEIN, Appendix 19; CRISIS OF THE LIBRARIAN, main volume; COROLLARY TO STURGEONS LAW, PRINCIPLE OF SERENDIPITY, SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE SIMON-PURE SCIENCE FICTION STORY)

HELLRUNG'S LAW:

If you wait, it will go away.

• SHEVELSON'S EXTENSION:

  ... having done its damage.

  • GRELB'S ADDITION:

    ... if it was bad, it will be back.

HOWE'S LAW:

Everyone has a scheme that will not work.

I.J. GOOD'S META-GOLDEN RULE:

Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors.

ILLITERATI PROGRAMUS CANTO 1: [THE]

A program is a lot like a nose: Sometimes it runs, and sometimes it blows.

IMBESI'S LAW OF THE CONSERVATION OF FILTH:

In order for something to become clean, something else must become dirty.

INDISPUTABLE LAW OF SPORTS CONTRACTS:

The more money the free agent signs for, the less effective he is the following season.

JACOBSON'S LAW:

The less work an organization produces, the more frequently it reorganizes.

JACQUIN'S POSTULATE ON DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT:

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.

JOHN GARDNER'S APOTHOGEM:

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because it is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, shall have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes or its theories will hold water.

JOHNSON'S THIRD LAW:

If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue which contained the article, story or installment you were most anxious to read.

Corollary: All of your friends either missed it, lost it, or threw it out.

JONES'S SECOND LAW OF TV PROGRAMMING:

If there are only two shows worth watching, they will both be on at the same time.

JUALL'S LAW ON NICE GUYS:

Nice guys don't always finish last; sometimes they don't finish. Sometimes they don't even get a chance to start!

KATHY WILSON'S LAW OF CHECKOUT DISTANCE:

No matter which door of a warehouse store you enter, the only checkout line (and there's always only ONE) will be at the extreme other end.

KAUFFMAN'S FIRST LAW OF AIRPORTS:

The distance to the gate is inversely proportional to the time available to catch your flight.

KETTERING'S LAW:

Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.

KLIBAN'S FIRST LAW OF DINING:

Never eat anything bigger than your head.

LAW OF CHRISTMAS DECORATING:

The outdoor lights that tested perfectly indoors, develop burn-outs as soon as they are strung on the house.

• Barb Jernigan's Addendum:

  ...and the ladder is put away.)

LAW OF DISPERSAL PROBABILITY:

Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

LAW OF GRAVITY:

The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down.

LAW OF HOBSON-JOBSON:

The "Jose, can you see" syndrome -- the transmutation of words when they pass through different cultures or languages -- is known to linguists as [this law]. British soldiers in India heard the Mohammedan cry "Ya-Hasan, ya-Husain!" and called it "hobson-jobson."
--William Safire, On Language, pg 168
(see MONDEGREENS, Appendix 18)

LAW OF INVERSE RELEVANCE: [THE]

It's the law of inverse relevance: the less you intend to do about something, the more you have to keep talking about it.
--Sir Humphrey, 'Yes Minister'

LAW OF MAXIMUM INCONVENIENCE:

The more inconvenient it is, the more likey it is to happen.

LAW OF PARSIMONY:

On hearing hoofbeats? -- expect horses, not zebras.

LAW OF ROTATING BANKRUPTCY: [THE]

Here's how it works: You're short of money, so you borrow from Friend A. Once he lends you the money, you're flush but he's a bit thin. At some point he gets tapped out and turns to Friend B for a short-term loan. Now he's okay again, but Friend B is strapped for funds. You get a paycheck and pay off Friend A, who's now in the money, but only briefly, because he then pays off Friend B, and so it goes.
--Dave Rosen, MD and stress managenment specialist, in The Little Book of Stress Relief, pg 125, and very slightly paraphrased

LAW OF T.V. ADVERTISING:

Breast size is inversely proportional to I.Q.

LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS:

You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't even get out of the game.

LAWS OF MANAGMENT:

• The arrogance level of any given member of management is inversely proportional to their intelligence quotient.
• The amount of favouritism you receive from management is directly proportional to the amount of ass you kiss, and inversely proportional to the quality of work you perform.
• Whenever management comes out with a so-called "policy", it is merely an attempt on their part to circumvent a provision in the Union contract they don't like.
• Don't ever get caught reading anything on the job; the management wants to keep us as clueless as they are.
• The workplace runs in spite of management, not because of them.
• As soon as management begins to talk about how to improve employee morale, the workers instantly know they are about to be screwed.
• Whenever training sessions are held for employees, all the information given will be obsolete, contradictory, or just outright false.
• A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned project takes only twice as long.

LAWS OF PHYSICS:

The laws of Physics are obvious enough even to those of us who have never taken a physics course in our lives. For example: [...] in any collision between an 18 wheel truck and a small passenger car, the car and its drivers will turn out the losers.
--Jordan W. Charness, 11 Feb 1998 (Montreal Gazette)

LAWS OF THE LAND:

The following are reported to be real laws in various areas of the United States by Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader 2002. It is illegal:

• to bathe two babies in the same tub at the same time in Los Angeles.
• to surf in the nude or with a sock over the male genitalia in Margate City, New Jersey.
• to draw funny faces on window shades in Garfield County, Montana.
• to sleep in a garbage can in Lubbock, Texas.
• to sleep in a cheese factory in South Dakota.
• to advertise on tombstones in Roanoke, Virginia.
• to fish for trout while sitting on the back of a giraffe in Idaho.
• to drive a car while you're asleep in Tennessee.
• to feed margarine instead of real butter to prisoners in Wisconsin.
• to walk across the street on your hands in Hartford, Connecticut.
• for a woman to remove her clothing while standing in front of a picture of a man in Oxford, Ohio.
• to cook more than 100 doughnuts in one day in Oak Park, Illinois.
• to make a monkey smoke a cigarette in South Bend, indiana.
• to peel an orange in your hotel room in California.
• to put coins in your ears in Hawaii.
• to let your horse ride in the backseat of your car in Hillsboro, Oregon.
• In Carmel, California, it's against the law for a woman to take a bath in a business office.
• to cross state lines with a duck atop your head in Minnesota.
• to sing off key in North Carolina.
• to hitch a crocodile to a fire hydrant in Michigan.
• to raise chickens in bottles in New Jersey.
• to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood Blvd. at one time.
• to paint a horse in Vermont.
• to wear suspenders in Nogales, AZ.
• to swim during the daytime in a pool or river within the city limits of Durango, CO.
• for lions to run wild in the streets of Alderson, WV.
• for pigeons to fly over Bellevue, KY.
• to whistle for a lost canary before 7 am in Berkeley, CA.
• to slurp soup in New Jersey.
• to knock on doors or ring doorbells in Barker, NJ.
• to pass a cow without tipping your hat in Pine Island District, MN.
• to buy a bag of peanuts after sunset and before sunrise the next day in Alabama.
• to take a bath in the wintertime in indiana.
• to throw shoes at weddings in Colorado.

  Moreover:

• In Virginia, under the terms of a 1950 law, no animal may be hunted on Sundays except raccoons, which may be hunted until 2:00 a.m.
• In Connecticut, a 1949 ordinance forbids the storing of town records in any place where liquor is sold.
• A 1974 Tennessee law states: "It is unlawful for any person to import, possess, or cause to be imported into this state any type of live skunk."
• In Idaho, you may not fish on a camel's back.
• In Ohio it is unlawful to get a fish drunk or to fish for a whale on Sundays. Tightrope walking is illegal in Winchester, Massachusettes (unless you're in church).
• In Fruithill, Kentucky, any man who comes face to face with a cow on a public road must remove his hat.

  LINNEA'S THEORY OF THE PROPER BALANCE OF ENERGY IN A RELATIONSHIP:

  Where C is the energy allowed in a relationship, so if X approaches C, then Y must needs compensate, and vice versa....

  LONE NUT THEORY:

  By depicting the demented acts of domestic terrorists as the work of loners, crazies and psychopaths, federal officials duck and dodge the fact that there are still a lot of Rudolphs running around in America. And even more frightening is that there are thousands more who are willing to aid and abet those who commit terror acts.

  A big hint of public complicity with hate terror is Rudolph himself. He had a million dollar price tag on his head. He was on the FBI's ten most wanted list for long stretches of time. Yet, he was able to evade police and FBI agents for five years. How could that happen? Where and from whom did he get his funds? What organizations did he belong to? Who were his associates? The questions have not been satisfactorily answered. And they may not be because the government has its "lone nut" suspected murderer and there may be no need to dig any further.
  --Earl Ofari Hutchinson, The Rudolphs of America, 08 Apr 2005

  LUDWIG'S THEORY:

  In 1842, German physiologist and physician, Wilhelm Ludwig put forward the radical 'Ludwig's Theory,' which explained, in purely chemical and physiological terms, the simple function of the liver. Why was it considered a 'radical' theory? Because most people at that time still believed that the liver had a mystical 'life force,' which explained, to their latent medieval minds, the very wonder that was urine. Though it seems a trifling argument now, Ludwig's Theory, medically and scientifically, was a forceful leap into the modern age of rational medical science.
  --Steven Laffoley, Dr. Bush's Big Bottle of Testicular Extract: Good For What Ails You, 28 Dec 2006

  LUNN'S APHORISM:

  The index of progress in science is the ratio of ideas to words.
  --Arthur C. Lunn, chemist, reprinted in Radiant Science, Dark Politics, by Martin Kamen

  LYNCH'S LAW:

  [1] When the going gets tough, everyone leaves.

  [2] When the going gets tough, everybody scatters.
  --L.M. Boyd Revisited, Austin American-Statesman, 16 Jul 2003

  MASON'S FIRST LAW OF SYNERGISM:

  The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.

  MARK TWAIN'S MAXIMS ON FREE SPEECH:

  • None but the dead have free speech.
  • None but the dead are permitted to speak truth.
  • In America -- as elsewhere -- free speech is confined to the dead.
  • The minority is always in the right.
  • When the country is drifting toward Philippine robber-raid henroost raid, do not shirk your duty, do not fail of loyalty, lest you win and deserve the reproach of being a "patriot."
  • The majority is always in the wrong.
  • Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform
    --Mark Twain, 1905

  MCEWAN'S RULE OF RELATIVE IMPORTANCE:

  When traveling with a herd of elephants, don't be the first to lie down and rest.

  MEASURE G:

  The text of the measure reads: Vote for Bolinas to be a socially acknowledged nature-loving town because to like to drink the water out of the lakes to like to eat the blueberries to like the bears is not hatred to hotels and motor boats. Dakar. Temporary and way to save life, skunks and foxes (airplanes to go over the ocean) and to make it beautiful.

  It is a city ordinance passed in Bolinas, California, circa Nov 2003, and which was sponsored by a local woman known for wearing hats made of tree bark and newspaper. Measure G passed by a vote of 314 to 152. Bolinas is a town of 1,200 residents who are so protective of their isolated way of life that they regularly remove highway signs pointing the way to the town.

  [That statement about they're removing signs was verified as factual by a keypal of this editor. --MN]

  MICHAEL TAUSON'S RULES OF DOMESTIC COMBAT:

  First rule of engagement: Never disagree with an armed spousal unit.

  Second rule of engagement: If you're right, apologize immediately.

  Third rule of engagement: If you're wrong, apologize immediately.

  Fourth rule of engagement: Even if you're right, you're wrong.

  Fifth rule of engagement: Flowers are an excellent aphrodisiac. Candy works almost as well.

  Sixth rule of engagement: "We'll discuss it in the morning" means that the sa fest place to be in the morning is anywhere else. Even Phylthydelphia or New Jersey will do under these conditions.
  --Micheal Tauson

  MILSTEAD'S CHRISTMAS CARD RULE:

  After you've mailed your last card, you will receive a card from someone you overlooked.

  MOORE'S LAW:

  Computing power will double every eighteen months to two years.
  --Gordon Moore, 1965
  [This law proved out for three decades from 1965 to 1995; and apparently was still proving out in 2005. --MN]

  MURPHY'S LAW:

  Originally: If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it that second way.

  Murphy's Law, usually mistaken for and misquoted as FINAGLE'S LAW, is a principle of defensive design. The misquoting results in a form that is less descriptive of the difficulties of design. Take for example a design for a two-pin symmetrical plug; it would not then be labelled "This Side Up." If it must be plugged in a certain way, then the plug should be designed to be asymmetrical.

  The Murphy of Murphy's Law is Edward A. Murphy, Jr., an engineer who worke d on USAF project MX981; the rocket-sled experiments to test human tolerance to acceleration done by the U.S. Air Force in 1949. One such trial required that sixteen accelerometers be mounted on a subject's body. There were only two ways the accelerometers could be mounted, and each was very carefully glued to its mount the wrong way. This resulted in Murphy making the original proclamation. The proclamation was quoted a few days l ater at a news conference by Major John Paul Stapp; on whom the devices had been incorrectly mounted.

  Murphy's Law caught hold and spread within months to a number of technical cultures affiliated with aerospace engineering. From there, in short order, it caught the public's imagination in the form of a number of variants frequently quoted as "Whatever can go wrong, will". The imitative drift demonstrated in these mutations are a clear indication of Murphy's Law acting on itself.

  Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain won't work.
  (see INVISIBLE MACHINES OF MURPHY also MURPHY, Appendix 19)

  MURPHY'S LAWS OF COMBAT OPERATIONS:

  • You are not Superman
  • Keep It Simple, Stupid (K.I.S.S.)
  • Automatic weapons - aren't
  • Recoiless weapons - aren't
  • Suppresive fire - won't
  • Incoming fire has the right of way
  • If the enemy is in range, so are you
  • Don't look conspicious, it draws fire
  • If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid
  • When in doubt, empty your magazine
  • The easy way is always mined
  • Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo
  • Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous
  • Teamwork is essential, it gives them somebody else to shoot at
  • Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you
  • Anything you do can get you shot, including doing nothing
  • No combat ready unit ever passed inspection
  • No inspection ready unit ever passed combat
  • Never share a foxhole with someone braver than you
  • If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush
  • No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy
  • Your weapon was made by the lowest bidder
  • The enemy diversion you're ignoring is the main attack
  • The only thing more accurate than enemy incoming fire is friendly incoming fire
  • When you have secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy
  • Make it tough enough for the enemy to get in, and you won't be able to get out
  • A sucking chest wound is Nature's way of telling you to slow down
  • If you're short on everything but the enemy, you're in a combat zone
  • The enemy invaribly attacks on only two occasions - when you're ready for them and when you're not.
    --Collected from Can Military echo
  • The most dangerous thing in a combat zone is an officer with a map.
  • Tracers work both ways.
    --Collected from WRITING echo

  NARCISSISM OF MINOR DIFFERENCES:

  Nationalist and ethnic conflicts are often "fratricides that turn on absurdities," as in the Balkans, where Croats and Serbs argued violently over the origin of gingerbread cookies. Freud called this kind of problem "the narcissism of minor differences."
  --Chris Hedges

  NON-RECIPROCAL LAWS OF EXPECTATIONS:

  Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results.

  NIVEN'S LAW:

  Mother Nature doesn't care if you are having fun.

  OGDEN'S LAW:

  The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.

  PAGE'S LAW:

  The wave of UFO concern moves eastward around the world, completing one full circuit in about seventeen years.
  --Thorton Page, Astronomer, in a lecture at an AAAS symposium on UFOs,
  26/27 December, 1969, and reprinted in UFOs: A Scientific Debate

  PANDORA'S LAW:

  Never open a box you didn't close yourself.

  PARADOX:

  EDDINGTON'S ~:

  Imagine a [stellar] body continually losing energy but with insufficient energy to grow cold.
  --Arthur Eddington, 1925
  [In confusion concerning the fate of dying stars before the discovery of neutron stars. --MN]

  GRELLING'S ~:

  If a homological adjective is one that is true of itself, e.g., "polysyllabic", and a heterological adjective is one which is not true of itself, e.g., "bisyllabic", then what about "heterological?" Is it heterological or not?

  HIPPORECTAL ~:

  More horse's asses than horses.

  MATRICIDE ~:

  Simply put, can a person travel back in time and kill his mother before he was born? If yes, then how can he have been born so as to travel back in time to kill her? Since he could not have done so, then his mother could not have been killed and she would have survived to give birth to the son who will travel back in time to kill her before he was born.

  MCCOY'S ~:

  A difference which makes no difference, is no difference.
  --From the Star Trek Novel The Two Spocks

  NEXT GENERATION'S ~: [THE]

  The right wing's demand to "teach" abstinence created the next generation's paradox. [E]quating "no sex" and safe sex suggests that no sex is safe.
  --Cindy Patton, Fatal Advice: How Safe-Sex Education Went Wrong, and reprinted in Harmful to Minors, pg 199
  [Also filed as NEXT GENERATION'S PARADOX: in Appendix 32: SEXUALITY]

  PARADOX OF ANTI-PEDOPHIILE HYSTERIA: [THE]

  In 1984, at the beginning of the sex-lawmaking frenzy, the authors of the final report on U.S. Senator Willam V. Roth's Child Pornography and Pedophilia hearings noted what they called a paradox. "Good laws often lead to more arrests," they wrote, "thus making it appear that more new laws are needed to curb what the public perceives as an increase in crime." Nevertheless, the commissioners recommended more laws, which led to more bureaucracy, more agents, more investigations, and more arrests. And that, said Eric Lotke of the National Center for Institutions and Altetrnatives, created another paradox: the public felt falsly safer and also more fearful.
  --Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors, pg 43
  [Also filed as PARADOX OF ANTI-PEDOPHIILE HYSTERIA: in Appendix 32: SEXUALITY]

  PARADOX OF PUNDITOCRACY:

  One of the uglier paradoxes of our time is that, as the world becomes vastly more complicated, the punditocracy becomes more simplistic.

  Today, those who get paid to deliver their opinions and convictions in newspapers, on television, in the White House, and on the floor of Congress are more undeniably, more absolutely, more positively certain their point of view is not only the right one, but the only one.

  What ever happened to respect for the ideas of another? What ever happened to the question that anyone about to put forth some set-in-concrete viewpoint should ask himself or herself: What if I'm wrong?

  It's called intellectual humility. It's the opposite of hubris. It's the un-arrogance of the thoughtful. And it's gone.
  --William Fisher, The Weapon of Mass Change, 21 Feb 2007
  [Also filed as UN-ARROGANCE OF THE THOUGHTFUL, in APPENDIX 35.]

  POCHINSKI'S ~:

  Take a wormhole that has been made into a time machine, and place its two mouths at rest near each other, out in interplanetary space. Then, if a billiard ball is launched toward the right mouth from an appropriate initial location and with an appropriate initial velocity, the ball will enter the right mouth, travel backward in time, and fly out of the left mouth before it entered the right (as seen by you and me outside the wormhole), and it will then hit its younger self, thereby preventing itself from ever entering the right mouth and hitting itself.
  [A restructuring of the Matricide Paradox. --MN]

  ZENO'S ~:

  There is an old paradox, Achilles and the Tortoise, in which the remaining distance to your goal is halved at each step. The question is: How long does it take to reach your goal? The answer is: You can't get there from here.
  --Alexander Hergensheimer, Job: A Comedy Of Justice, pg 313

  ZENO'S ~ OF THE WATER AND THE WINE:

  Zeno's Paradox of the Water and the Wine goes something like this: Pour a cupful of wine into a barrel. Then, add one drop of water, and taste it to see if it is still wine. Repeat this, one drop of water at a time, until you have the drop that changes it to water. Of course, there is no such "drop" -- and yet when the barrel is full, we say: "It's not wine anymore--it's flavored water." Zeno thus concluded: "If we don't know when we are on the boundary between two situations or things, how can we possibly say that they are different?"
  --paraphrase by Quinn Tyler Jackson
  * This version adapted from Introducing Mathematics, Totem Books, 1999 reprint, pg 58.
  (also see SEWAGE EQUATION
  (Return to PARADOX, main volume)

  PARKINSON'S LAWS:

  (An incomplete list)

  Parkinson's Law for Medical Research: Successful research attracts the bigger grant which makes further research impossible.

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

  Parkinson's Second Law: Expenditures rise to meet income.

  Parkinson's Sixth Law: The progress of science varies inversely with the number of journals published.

  PETER PRINCIPLE:

  In every hierarchy, each employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence; every post tends to be filled by an employee incompetent to execute its duties.

  PHLOGISTON THEORY:

  An early theory to explain combustion and the chemical changes that occur within it. [In]flammable substances were hypothesized to contain a colorless, odorless, etc., substance called "phlogiston" and, for wood, ash, and for metals, a powdery substance called "calx." When something burned the "phlogiston" was burned off, and the ash, the true nature of the material that had burned, remained. It was discredited by Lavoisier in his discovery of oxygen.

  PRINCIPLE OF SERENDIPITY:

  In all scientific research, the researcher may or may not find what he is looking for -- indeed, his hypothesis may be demolished -- but he is certain to learn something new . . . which may be and often is more important that what he hoped to learn.

  This is the Principle of Serendipity. It is so invariant that it can be considered an empirically established natural law.
  --Robert Anson Heinlein, Spinoff, a transcript of his congressional testimony, 19 July 1979, and reprinted in Expanded Universe, pg 502
  (see ROBERT ANSON HEINLEIN, Appendix 19; CRISIS OF THE LIBRARIAN, main volume; COROLLARY TO STURGEONS LAW, SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE SIMON-PURE SCIENCE FICTION STORY, THREE AXIOMS OF PROPHESY)

  RACCOON'S LAW:

  Nothing is ever anything.
  --Rocky Frisco
  (see RACCOON'S LAW (the publication), main volume)

  RAINCHECK HYPOTHESIS:

  All baseless speculation will be considered valid reasoning until said items may or not be in stock.
  --Fred Austin

  REGULATIONS ON THE SALE OF CABBAGE:

  The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, there are 1,322 words in the Declaration of Independence -- but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words.
  --From an article on the growth of federal regulations
  [This is actually an urban legend according to a textbook on epistomolgoy I've read. The pricing board which supposedly wrote those regulations had never made any attempt to regulate the price of cabbages. {Reference to this can also be found at the Urban Legends Reference Page} --MN]

  ROCKY'S LEMMA OF INNOVATION PREVENTION:

  Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will reject the proposal.

  ROMER'S RULE:

  The initial surival value of a favorable innovation is conservative, in that it renders possible the maintenance of a traditional way of life in the face of changed cirumstances.

  RULE #1 OF THE SHOOT-EM-UP MOVIE GENRE:

  Whether set in Tombstone, Gangsterland, or Alongtimeagoinagalaxyfarfaraway: the bad guys are always bad shots. Otherwise the movies would be much shorter.
  --Jack Lynch, 08 Jan 2000

  RULE OF THREE:

  Wiccan:

  Do good, and good will be returned to you threefold; do ill, and ill will be returned to you threefold.
  [Sometimes known as: What goes around comes around; in spades!]

  Forensic Science:

  Three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, three weeks without food.

  RULES FOR CHRISTMAS EATING:

  1. About those carrot sticks. Avoid them. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door where they serve rum balls.

  2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-malt scotch, it's rare. In fact, it's even rarer than single-malt scotch. You can't find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnogaholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think.

  3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

  4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass! Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.

  5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people's food. Lots of it. Hellloo?

  6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.

  7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. You can't leave them behind. You're not going to see them again.

  8. Same for pies - Apple - Pumpkin - Mincemeat. Have a slice of each! Or, if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?

  9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards. [Unless, of course, you LIKE fruitcake -- I mean, there's no accounting for genetics.]

  10. And one final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention.

  RULES OF LIFE FOR YOUNG ADULTS:

  Origins: No, this list didn't originate with Microsoft head Bill Gates. (It's frequently cited on the Internet as having come from his book Business @ The Speed of Thought, but it didn't.) Why it's attributed to Gates is a mystery to us;[1] it doesn't really sound the least bit like something he would write. Possibly, the item the Internet-circulated version of the list generally ends with ("Be nice to nerds") struck a chord with someone who views Gates as the ultimate successful nerd of all time.

  Nor is this list is the work of Kurt Vonnegut, another person to whom authorship has been attributed. A clue found in those versions ("From a college graduation speech by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.") explains why folks want to lay these random words of wisdom on his doorstep: In 1998, the Internet was swept with a narrative that has come to be known as the sunscreen speech. That work of inventive fiction was actually the product of Chicago Tribune writer Mary Schmich, but Internet-circulated versions claimed it was a college graduation speech given by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut thus became associated in the minds of some people with pithy advice to young adults.

  This list is the work of Charles J. Sykes, author of the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add. (The list has appeared in newspapers, although not necessarily in this book.) Many versions of this list omit the last three rules:

  Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

  Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

  Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.

  Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

  Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

  Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.

  Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

  Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2, and Rule No. 4.)

  Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

  Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

  Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

  Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

  Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

  Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome.

  [1] "Us" is the Urban Legend References Page, from whence this entry was cribbed.

  RULES FOR MY BOSS:

  Dear Folks:

  Everyone has little run-ins with their bosses every once in a while. Except me, of course. Mere mortals, though, might find the following tips useful. Pass these on to your boss, and your boss's boss, and expect a raise any day now....
  Cheers,
  Megan
  joke@mail.ivillage.com

  Rules For My Boss:
  Submitted by iVillager pat

  1. Never give me work in the morning. Always wait until 4:00 p.m. and then bring it to me. The challenge of a deadline is refreshing.

  2. If it's really a rush job, run in and interrupt me every 10 minutes to inquire how it's going. That helps. Or even better, hover behind me, advising me at every keystroke.

  3. Always leave without telling anyone where you're going. It gives me a chance to be creative when someone asks were you are.

  4. If my arms are full of papers, boxes, books, or supplies, don't open the door for me. I need to learn how to function as a paraplegic and opening doors with no arms is good training in case I should ever be injured and lost all use of my limbs.

  5. If you give me more than one job to do, don't tell me which is the priority. I am psychic.

  6. Do your best to keep me late. I adore this office and really have nowhere to go or anything to do. I have no life beyond work.

  7. If a job I do pleases you, keep it a secret. If that gets out, it could mean a promotion.

  8. If you don't like my work, tell everyone. I like my name to be popular in conversations. I was born to be whipped.

  9. If you have special instructions for a job, don't write them down. In fact, save them until the job is almost done. No use confusing me with useful information.

  10. Never introduce me to people you're with. I have no right to know anything. In the corporate food chain, I am plankton. When you refer to them later, my shrewd deductions will identify them.

  11. Be nice to me only when the job I'm doing for you could really change your life and send you straight to manager's hell.

  12. Tell me all your little problems. No one else has any and it's nice to know someone is less fortunate. I especially like the story about having to pay so much taxes on the bonus check you received for being such a good manager.

  13. Wait until my yearly review and THEN tell me what my goals SHOULD have been. Give me a mediocre performance rating with a cost of living increase. I'm not here for the money, anyway

  RULES FOR SUCCESS:

  There are two rules for success; One: Never tell all you know.

  RULES OF ELECTORAL POLITICS:

  First rule of electoral politics: Governments are defeated, not elected.
  Second rule of electoral politics: when your political opponents are busy getting themselves in trouble — leave them alone.
  Third rule of electoral politics: the first two rules do not always apply.
  --Duncan Cameron, 30 May 2007

  SATTINGER'S LAW:

  It works better if you plug it in.

  SEDUCTION THEORY:

  In the middle of the 20th-century most popular were theories of sexual orientation that saw early experiences as crucial. It went like this: if you had pleasurable sex with someone of a particular gender you would want to go on having sex with that same gender in [the] future. If the sex were unpleasurable, though, you would not. One indication of the continuing hold of these theories is the notion that a person, especially one who is sexually inexperienced, can be seduced or recruited into becoming lesbian or gay. This "seduction theory" implicity accepts that people will "naturally" develop into heterosexuals unless seduced into homosexuality by a predatory homosexual.
  --Vannessa Baird, The No-Nonsense Guide to Sexual Diversity, pg 103-104

  SEROCKI'S STRICTURE:

  Marriage is always a bachelor's last option.

  SEVAREID'S LAW:

  The chief cause of problems is solutions.

  SEVEN RULES FOR HOLLYWOOD SUPERHEROINES:

  Superheroines since the 1970s -- from Wonder Woman to Princess Leia, Charlie's Angels to Lara Croft, Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Alias' Sydney Bristow -- have all followed a few simple rules to find success on the big and little screen. And every would-be action babe who has flopped has broken at least one of them. So what's the secret?

  1. Do fight demons. Don't fight only inner demons.
  2. Do play well with others. Don't shun human society.
  3. Do exhibit self-control. Don't exhibit mental disorders.
  4. Do wear trendy clothes. Don't wear fetish clothes.
  5. Do embrace girl power. Don't cling to man hatred.
  6. Do help hapless men. Don't try to kill your boyfriend.
  7. Do toss off witty remarks. Don't look perpetually sullen.

  SHANNON'S OBSERVATION:

  Nothing is so frustrating as a bad situation that is beginning to improve.

  SPEED OF THOUGHT:

  The distance thought travels in a second is infinitely greater than the distance light travels in a year . . . only it tends to spiral, so it gets nowhere fast.
  --Brook McEldowney

  JERNIGAN'S EXPLICATION OF THE SPEED OF THOUGHT:

  That's because most people have the equivalent of intellectual black holes for minds. Information goes in and is never seen again.
  --Russ Jernigan

  STRONG LAW OF SMALL NUMBERS:

  There aren't enough small numbers to meet the many demands made of them.
  --Richard K. Guy, mathematician

  STURGEON'S LAW:

  Ninety percent of everything is crud.

  Corollary 1: The existence of immense quantities of trash in science fiction is admitted and regretted; but it is no more unnatural than the existence of trash anywhere.

  Corollary 2: The best science fiction is as good as the best fiction in any field.
  --Theodore Sturgeon

  Holzgraffe's Collary: However, that which survives more than fifty years is pretty good.
  (see HEINLEIN'S COROLLARY TO STURGEONS LAW)

  SUEKER'S NOTE:

  If you need N items of anything, you will have N minus one in stock.

  SUTTON'S LAW:

  Willie Sutton succeeded as a bank robber and escape artist for a number of years. When captures and sent to prison he was interviewd by newsmen who asked, in effect, "Willie, to what do you attribute your success?" He replied, "Boys, I have one rule. I go where the money is." Sutton's Law is to go where the money is.
  --Dwight J. Ingle, Is It Really So?, pg 119

  TESTICULAR EXTRACT THEORY:

  [I]n 1889, the Testicular Extract Theory - posed by French-American physician Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard - posited that the injection of liquefied guinea pig testicle under the skin of an aged man would invigorate his sexual drive and prowess. Not surprisingly, the Testicular Extract Theory was eventually discredited - though not before who knows how many injections were dispensed to willing, well, human 'guinea pigs.' (Which, as an aside, does make me wonder: exactly what is in Viagra?)
  --Steven Laffoley, Dr. Bush's Big Bottle of Testicular Extract: Good For What Ails You, 28 Dec 2006

  THEOREM ON SALARY:

  Dilbert's Theorem on Salary states that Engineers, teachers, programmers, and scientists can never earn as much salary as business executives and sales people. This theorem can now be supported by a mathematical equation based on the following three postulates:

  Postulate 1: Knowledge is power (Knowledge = power)

  Postulate 2: Time is money (time = money)

  Postulate 3: (as every physics student knows) power = work/time

  It therefore follows:

  Knowledge = work /time
  and since: time = money
  we have: knowledge = work/money

  Solving for money, we get:
  money = work/knowledge

  Thus, as knowledge approaches zero, money approaches infinity, regardless of the amount of work done.

  Conclusion:The Less You Know, the More You Make!

  THEOREM THEOREM: [THE]

  If if, then then.

  THEORY OF ANGER AS A SOCIAL PROCESS:

  An emotion without social rules of containment and expression is like an egg without a shell: a gooey mess.
  --psychologist Carol Tarvis, summarizing.
  (see ANGER in main volume of text)

  THOMS'S LAW:

  The duration of the marriage is inversely proportional to the cost of the wedding.

  THREE OBSERVATIONS ABOUT CENSORSHIP:

  1. Censorship advocates are nuts.
  2. There is no rhyme or reason to censorship.
  3. Censorship is not about pornography.

  
  --Michael Nellis; first stated in this form 08 Feb 2001

  TRICKLE-DOWN THEORY:

  The Trickle-Down Theory, an economic scheme that can trace its roots to the medieval practice of throwing unwanted food over the walls of castles and monasteries to provide divine bounty for starving peasants, made an impreessive comeback in the United States during the 1980s. If nothing else, it proved that abstract theory can have an effect on the so-called "real world." How else might ketchup have become a vegetable?
  --David Marc, Bonfire of the Humanities, pg 123

  TRUMAN'S LAW:

  If you cannot convince them, confuse them.

  UGLY SECRET OF COMMAND: [THE]

  Sometimes you give a bad order [...] and people die. Or you give no order and people die. Or you give a good order and people die. The really ugly truth is, sometimes the best order, the order that will win the objective, is not the order where the fewest people die. In fact it almost never is.
  --Bolos: Book 5, The Sky Is Falling, pg 243
  by J. Steven York and Dean Wesley Smith

  UNAMED LAW:

  If it happens, it must be possible.

  USGA RULES OF GOLF - PROPOSED CHANGES:

  (Applies to Seniors age 65 or over)

  Rule 1.a.5
  A ball sliced or hooked into the rough (uncontrollable mechanical phenomena) shall be lifted and placed on the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough with no penalty.

  Rule 2.d.6 (b)
  A ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree (uncontrollable mechanical phenomena). The player must estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there.

  Rule 3.b.3 (g)
  There shall be no such thing as a lost ball. Since the missing ball is on or near the course and will eventually be found and pocketed by someone else, it is, technically, a STOLEN ball. The player is not to compound the forthcoming felony by charging him or her self with a penalty.

  Rule 4.c.7 (h)
  If a putt passes over a hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The law of gravity supersedes the law of golf.

  Rule 5.
  Putts that stop close enough to the cup that they could be blown in, may be blown in. This does not apply to balls more than three inches from the hole. If you are truly 65 years or older, you won't be able to blow a ball that far anyhow.

  Rule 6.a.9 (k)
  There is no penalty for so-called "out of bounds." If your eyesight is good enough to know where your ball is, you can play it wherever it lies. If you cannot find the ball, see Rule 1.a.5, above.

  Rule7.g.15(z)
  Senior citizen's balls should FLOAT. That they do not is a manufacturing technical problem border lining on age discrimination. There is no penalty for a ball in a water hazard. Senior Golfers should not be punished for manufacturer's shortcomings. Ask the lawyer you are playing with for class-action lawsuit particulars.

  Rule 8.k.9(s)
  Advertisements claim that golf scores can be improved by purchasing new clubs, balls, shoes etc. Since this is financially impractical for the average fix-incomed Senior Golfer, 1/2 a stroke per hole may be subtracted for using older equipment.

  VAN ROY'S LAW:

  An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.

  VON DANIKEN HYPOTHESIS:

  Any sufficiently advanced ability looks like God.
  --Raccoon's Law, pg 29

  WEINER'S LAW OF LIBRARIES:

  There are no answers, only cross references.

  WESTHEIMER'S DISCOVERY:

  A couple of months in the laboratory can save a couple of hours in the library.
  --Frank H. Westheimer, chemistry professor (1912- )

  W.H. AUDEN'S OBSERVATION:

  Those to whom evil is done
  Do evil in return.

  WIKER'S LAW:

  Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.

  ZEROTH LAW OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING: [THE]

  If you don't care about quality you can meet any other requirement.
  --Gerald M. Weinberg

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