Murphy's Laws G

G

Gadarene Swine Law
Merely because the group is in formation does not mean that the group is on the right course.

Galbraith's Law of Political Wisdom
Anyone who says he isn't going to resign, four times, definitely will.

Galbraith's Law of Prominence
Getting on the cover of "Time" guarantees the existence of opposition in the future.

Gallois's Revelation
If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes back out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery,
having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled, and no one dares to
criticize it.
Corollary - An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the Grand
Fallacy.

Gardner's Rule of Society
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and
tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing
nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

Garfinkle's Law of Quality
of two possible events, only the undesired one will occur.

Gell-Mann's Dictum
Whatever isn't forbidden is required.
Corollary - If there's no reason why something shouldn't exist, then it must exist.

Law of General Assistance
In dealing with their own problems, helping professionals are the most extreme conservatives.. In
dealing with the problems of others, they are the most extreme liberals.

Law of Generalizations
All generalizations are false.

Gerrold's Fundamental Truth
It's a good thing money can't buy happiness. We couldn't stand the commercials.

Gerrold's Law
A little ignorance can go a long way.
Lyall's Addendum ...in the direction of maximum harm.

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

Gerrold's Pronouncement
The difference between a politician and a snail is that a snail leaves its slime behind.

Gershwin's Law
It ain't necessarily so.

Getty's Reminder
The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.

Gibb's Law
Infinity is one lawyer waiting for another.

Gilb's Laws of Unreliability (see also Troutman's Laws of Computer Programming)
1.Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
Corollary - At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two
human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.
2.Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
3.The only difference between the fool and the criminal who attacks a system is that the fool attacks
unpredictably and on a broader front.
4.A system tends to grow in terms of complexity rather than of simplification, until the resulting
unreliability becomes intolerable.
5.Self-checking systems tend to have a complexity in proportion to the inherent unreliability of the
system in which they are used.
6.The error-detection and correction capabilities of any system will serve as the key to understanding
the type of errors which they cannot handle.
7.Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are
limited.
8.All real programs contain errors until proved otherwise -- which is impossible.
9.Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or somebody insists
on getting some useful work done.

Gilmer's Motto for Political Leadership
Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone's following you.

Ginsberg's Theorems (Generalized Laws of Thermodynamics or Ginsberg's Restatement of the
Three Laws of Thermodynamics)
1.You can't win.
2.You can't break even.
3.You can't even quit the game.

Glatum's Law of Materialistic Acquisitiveness
The perceived usefulness of an article is inversely proportional to its actual usefulness once bought
and paid for.

Glyme's Formula for Success
The secret of success is sincerity. Onceyou can fake that, you've got it made.

Godin's Law
Generalizedness of incompetence is directly proportional to highestness in hierarchy.

(Vic) Gold's Law
The candidate who is expected to do well because of experience and reputation (Douglas, Nixon)
must do BETTER than well, while the candidate expected to fare poorly (Lincoln, Kennedy) can put
points on the media board simply by surviving.

(Bill) Gold's Law
A column about errors will contain errors.

Gold's Law
If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

Golden Principle
Nothing will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

The Golden Rule
He who has the gold, makes the rules.

The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences
Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

Goldstein's Law
In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save.

Goldwyn's Law of Contracts
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Golub's Laws of Computerdom
1.Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid the embarrassment of estimating the corresponding
costs.
2.A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; if carefully
planned, it will take only twice as long.
3.The effort required to correct course increases geometrically with time.
4.Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of
progress.

The 19 Rules for Good Riting
1.Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
2.Just between you and I, case is important.
3.Verbs has to agree with their subject.
4.Watch out for irregular verbs which has cropped up into our language.
5.Don't use no double negatives.
6.A writer mustn't shift your point of view.
7.When dangling, don't use participles.
8.Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
9.And don't use conjunctions to start sentences.
10.Don't use a run-on sentence you got to punctuate it.
11.About sentence fragments.
12.In letters themes reports articles and stuff like that we use commas to keep strings apart.
13.Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.
14.Its important to use apostrophe's right.
15.Don't abbrev.
16.Check to see if you any words out.
17.In my opinion I think that the author when he is writing should not get into the habit of making use of
too many unnecessary words which he does not really need.
18.Then, of course, there's that old one: Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
19.Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

Goodfader's Law
Under any system, a few sharpies will beat the rest of us.

Goodin's Law of Conversions
The new hardware will break down as soon as the old is disconnected and out.

Goodman's Law of Value
The more an item costs, the farther you have to send it for repairs.

Gordon's Dictum of Direction Giving
The possibility of getting lost is directly proportional to the number of times the direction-giver says
"you can't miss it".

Gordon's First Law
If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well.

Goulden's Axiom of the Bouncing Can
If you drop a full can of beer, and remember to rap the top sharply with your knuckle prior to opening,
the ensuing gush of foam will be between 89 and 94 percent of the volume that would splatter you if
you didn't do a damned thing and went ahead and pulled the top immediately.

Goulden's Law of Jury Watching
If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than 24 hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those
instances when it votes guilty.

Government's Law
There is an exception to all laws.

Grabel's Law
2 is not equal to 3 - not even for very large values of 2.

Graditor's Laws
1.If it can break, it will, but only after the warranty expires.
2.A necessary item goes on sale only after you have purchased it at the regular price.

Grandma Soderquist's Conclusion
A chicken doesn't stop scratching just because the worms are scarce.

Gray's Law of Bilateral Asymmetry in Networks
Information flows efficiently through organizations, except that bad news encounters high impedance
in flowing upward.

Gray's Law of Programming
N+1 trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as N trivial tasks.
Loggs Rebuttal - N+1 trivial tasks take twice as long as N trivial tasks for N sufficiently large.

Rule of the Great
When someone you greatly admire and respect appears to be thinking deep thoughts, they are
probably thinking about lunch.

Law of The Great Idea
The only time you come up with a great solution is after somebody else has solved the problem.

Green's Law of Debate
Anything is possible if you don't know what you'retalking about.

Greenberg's First Law of Influence
Usefulness is inversely proportional to reputation for being useful.

Greener's Law
Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel.

Greenhaus's Summation
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

Gresham's Law
Trivial matters are handled promptly; important matters are never resolved.

Greshams Observations
1.On the theory that one should never take anything for granted, follow up on everything, but especially
those items varying from the norm.
2.The greater the divergence from normal routine and/or the greater the number of offices potentially
involved, the better the chance a never-to-be-discovered person will file the problem away in a
drawer specifically designed for items requiring a decision.
3.Never say without qualification that your activity has sufficient space, money, staff, etc.
4.Always distrust offices not under your jurisdiction which say that they are there to serve you.
"Support" offices in a bureaucracy tend to grow in size and make demands on you out of proportion
to their service, and in the end require more effort on your part than their service is worth.
Corollary - Support organizations can always prove success by showing service to someone... not
necessarily you.
5.Incompetents often hire able assistants.

Grierson's Law of Minimal Self- Delusion
Every man nourishes within himself a secret plan for getting rich that will not work.

Grocery Bag Law
The candy bar you planned to eat on the way home from the market is hidden at the bottom of the
bag.

Grosch's Law
Computing power increases as the square of the cost. If you want to do it twice as cheaply, you
have to do it four times slower.

Gross's Law
When two people meet to decide how to spend a third person's money, fraud will result.

Grossman's Law (Grossman's Misquote)
Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers.

Grossman's Misquote
Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers.

Gummidge's Law
The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the
general public.

Gumperson's Law
The probability of a given event occuring is inversely proportional to its desirability.
Corollaries:
1.After a salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the month than you had before.
2.The more a recruit knows about a given subject, the better chance he has of being assigned
to something else.
3.You can throw a burnt match out the window of your car and start a forest fire, but you can use
two boxes of matches and a whole edition of the Sunday paper without being able to start a
fire under the dry logs in your fireplace.
4.Children have more energy after a hard day of play than they do after a good night's sleep.
5.The person who buys the most raffle tickets has the least chance of winning.
6.Good parking places are always on the other side of the street.

Gumperson's Proof
The most undesirable things are the most certain (death and taxes).

Gunter's First Law of Air Travel
When you are served a meal aboard an aircraft, the aircraft will encounter turbulence.

Gunter's Second Law of Air Travel
The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of you coffee.

Guthman's Law of Media
Thirty seconds on the evening news is worth a front page headline in every newspaper in the world.