Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Humor: Adages of the Internet

According to Wikipedia, adages are short, but memorable sayings, which hold some important fact of experience that is considered true by many people, or it has gained some credibility through its long use.

I was reading up on Moore's Law and started to think about all the weird Murphy's Law variants that my friends and I used in college. So, I started to dig. Wikipedia has a pretty good list going and I can only laugh when I read them.

Here are some of the better ones:

  • Murphy's Law - "If anything can go wrong, it will." - So true. I first heard about this law in college programming but by the end of college, it make so much sense (on many different levels)
  • Occam's Razor - "Given two equally predictive theories, choose the simpler." - Perfect example of not following this? Steve Gibson and the WMF exploit. Need I say more...
  • Hanlon's Razor - "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. " - It is commonly said that people are the weakest security link, but why? Well this Jinx.com t-shirt says it all.
  • Parkinson's Law - "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. " - Anyone that has ever worked in the corporate world, knows this is true. =)
  • Godwin's Law - "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." - Anyone that has watched a security mailing list has seen this happen right in front of their eyes.
  • Amara's Law - "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. " - Happens all the time.

I am sure there are more floating around the internet today. Anyone have any to add??

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