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FourQ -> RE: The Laws (12/20/2008 10:08:11 AM)
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The network lead is nearly always too short for the job.
Those that are long enough are the ones that don't work.
A user always knows just enough about IT to kill the PC.
Those who 'think' they know how to fix it should on no account be allowed to attempt it.
It's only after you've set up the wireless security on the network that you realise you've not kept the security key anywhere.
The closer to the deadline the slower the machine will run.
Your most important data will always get corrupted only moments before the backup is scheduled to run.
No matter how much you explain it, even the simplest operations will baffle the company director.
There's always one person who still insists on doing his job on paper several years after being given a laptop.
Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilisation.
The attention span of a computer is only as long as it CPU.
An consultant is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.
Nothing ever gets done on schedule or within budget.
All's well that ends.
A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.
The first myth of management is that it exists.
A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.
New systems generate new problems.
To err is human, but to really fuck things up requires a computer.
We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clark
A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make.
Nothing motivates a man more than to see his manager putting in an honest day's work.
The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the technician.
To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most.
After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.
Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number.
Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of rules, pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables the user will do as he damn well pleases.
If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious.
The urgent solution required for the Saturday installation will continue to baffle you long after 5pm on Friday. The solution will not become evident until 8am on Monday.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.
The only perfect science is hind-sight.
Always spell check before clicking Send.
If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
When all else fails, read the manual.
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
Any simple theory will be worded in the most complicated way.
Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.
The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the level of management.
A difficult task will be halted near completion by one tiny, previously insignificant detail.
There is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.
The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches.
If something breaks, and it stops you from doing something, it will be fixed when you:
1. no longer need it
2. are in the middle of something else
3. don't want it to be fixed, because you really don't want to do what you were supposed to do
Each profession talks to itself in it's own language, apparently there is no Rosetta Stone
The more urgent the need for a decision to be made, less apparent become the identity of the decision maker
It is never wise to let a piece of electronic equipment know that you are in a hurry.
There are 71,563 acronyms in IT. Nobody can name them all much less understands them or give you their meanings.
Don't fix something that ain't broke, 'cause you'll break it and you still can't fix it
If you are not thoroughly confused, you have not been thoroughly informed.
A screw will never fit a nut.
Standard parts are not.
Never trust modern technology. Trust it only when it is old technology.
The most ominous phrase in IT: "Uh-oh . . ."
The 2nd worst thing you can hear the tech say is "Oops!" The worst thing you can hear the tech say is "oh s**t!"
Any example of hardware/software can be made fool-proof. It cannot, however, be made damn-fool-proof.
For any given software, the moment you read software reviews and manage to master it, a new version of that software appears.
The new version always manages to change the one feature you need most.
In today's fast-moving tech environment, it is a requirement that we forget more than we learn.
It is simple to make something complex, and complex to make it simple.
Measurements will be quoted in the least practical unit; velocity, for example, will be measured in 'furlongs-per-fortnight'.
Multi-million pound technology is worthless in the hands of morons.
If you install a 50p fuse to protect a £100 component, the £100 component will blow to protect the 50p fuse.
An expert will always state the obvious.
On a cruise ship, the one, most important part you don't have in stock always breaks on a Friday evening, just when you left harbour and the next time you will be in harbour is a Sunday or Christmas eve.
The chance a copy machine will break down is proportional to the importance of the material that needs to be copied and inversely proportional to the amount of time till the material will be needed.
If it works in theory, it won't work in practice.
No matter how clever and complete your research is, there is always someone who knows more.
Any wire cut to length will be too short.
Equivalent replacement parts aren't.
When you finally update to a new technology, everyone stops supporting it.
This will happen faster than you think.
The less intelligent the idea, and the person stating it, the more likely it will be funded.
A man with one watch is certain about time. A man with two watches isn't.
The more knowledge you gained, the less certain you are of it.
95% of the population only understand which way the clocks go, and when, by looking at the computer.
If you think you understand computers, you're clearly not an expert
Technicians are the only ones that don't trust technology
No impossible failures will happen during testing.
The most embarrassing failures occur during the roll out presentation.
The more you want to contact someone over an instant messenger is inversely proportional to the chances that they will be on-line.
The more important your email is, the worse your exchange server will screw it up.
The degree to which a device will function is directly proportional to the number of times it has been bashed and inversely to its cost.
A device having an indestructible component or is user serviceable is deemed unsafe until it's replaced by an expensive, unobtainable, inefficient component which needs constant servicing.
A failed 25p part cannot be replaced by a new 25p part, but by a sub-assembly whose cost is equal to or greater than that of the device in need of the part.
The cost and availability of a replacement part are in inverse proportion to the cost of the whole system: a £1500 device will fail because of the burnout of a 25p capacitor. But the 25p capacitor is either
o no longer manufactured
o manufactured only by a company in Outer Mongolia with an 18-month backlog
o available only as part of a £1450 sub-assembly
All things mechanical/electrical will catastrophically fail after the guarantee has expired, unless an extended guarantee has been purchased.
Given any system n linear equations, there will be n+1 unknowns
The technician will have never seen a model quite like yours before
While technology progresses at the speed of light it's implementation is filtered through the speed of bureaucracy
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.
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