Encyclopedia of Humor

Des Moines, Iowa:

A repentant burglar returned his loot to its owners, along with a note explaining why: “My priest said I done a wrong.”

More than $200, a pair of sunglasses and some golf balls were found Monday morning on the steps of Potthoff Foods Incorporated, a meat wholesaler.

“He took my sunglasses, but I didn’t know he took them until I got them back this morning,” sales representative Phil Barber said. “You know, I don’t think something like this happens that often. It’s sort of neat. The guy did wrong, but he tried to make it right.”

The break-in at Potthoff’s happened late Friday or early Saturday. The thief pried open a door and rummaged through some desks.

Potthoff officials said they’re not going to depend on the honesty of thieves’ nature in the future.

“We are adding an extra security system today,” Barber said.

Whistler’s Law: You never know who is right, but you always know who is in charge.

Whitehead’s Law: The obvious answer is always overlooked.

William’s Law: There is no mechanical problem so difficult that it cannot be solved by brute strength and ignorance.

Wood’s Axiom: As soon as a still-to-be-finished computer task becomes a life-or-death situation, the power fails.

Woodward’s Law: A theory is better than its explanation.

Zall’s Laws: First Law – Anytime you get a mouthful of hot soup, the next thing you do will be wrong. Second Law – How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.

Zymurgy’s First Law Of Evolving System Dynamics Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.

Vuilleumier’s Laws For Building Electronic Prototypes: First Law – Any pre-cut equipment is too short; this is specially true of optic fiber cables with expensive connectors at both ends. Second Law – If n electronic components are required, n-1 are available. Third Law (also known as “Selective Gravitational Field”) – Any tool escaping manipulator’s hands will not necessarily follow Earth’s gravitational field, but will land in the most unreachable location in the prototype, smashing on its way the most expensive component of the prototype; this will know only one exception if the tool is particularly heavy, in which case it will land on the manipulator’s foot. Fourth Law – When proteup first, thankfully leaving the fuses intact. Fifth Law – Prototype npn blackboxes actually hold pnp transistors, and vice-versa. Sixth Law – A quartz oscillator oscillates at a frequency off the rated one by a minimum of 25%, if it does oscillate at all. Seventh Law – When the prototype has been fully assembled according to lab instructions, a minimum of 11 components are left.

Cutler Webster’s Law: There are two sides to every argument, unless a person is personally involved, in which case there is only one.

Weiler’s Law: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do the work.

Weinberg’s Corollary: An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.

Wethern’s Law: Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.

Schemmer’s Law (Organization & Programs): When an organization faces a 20 year threat, it responds with 15-year programs, organized with 5-year plans, managed by 3-year directors, and funded by 1-year appropriations.

Simmons’s Law: The desire for racial integration increases with the square of the distance from the actual event.

SNAFU Equations: 1) Given any problem containing N equations, there will be N+1 unknowns. 2) An object or bit of information most needed will be least available. 3) Any device requiring service or adjustment will be least accessible. 4) Interchangeable devices won’t. 5) In any human endeavor, once you have exhausted all possibilities and fail, there will be one solution, simple and obvious, highly visible to everyone else. 6) Badness comes in waves.

Thoreau’s Theories Of Adaptation: 1) After months of training and you finally understand all of a program’s commands, a revised version of the program arrives with an all-new command structure. 2) After designing a useful routine that gets around a familiar “bug” in the system, the system is revised, the “bug” taken away, and you’re left with a useless routine. 3) Efforts in improving a program’s “user friendliness” invariable lead to work in improving user’s “computer literacy”. 4) That’s not a “bug”, that’s a feature!

Thyme’s Law: Everything goes wrong at once.

Universal Technical Document Units Law: Characteristics, specifications, dimensions, and any other data included in technical documents must be stated in exotic units, such as “tenth of troy once per barn” for pressures, or “acre times atmosphere per kilogram” for speeds.

Vail’s Second Axiom: The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the amount of work already completed.

Rhode’s Corollary To Hoare’s Law: Inside every complex and unworkable program is a useful routine struggling to be free.

Ross’s Law: Bare feet magnetise sharp metal objects so they always point upwars from the floor-especially in the dark.

Rudin’s Law: In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, people tend to choose the worst possible course.

Rudnicki’s Nobel Prize Principle: Only someone who understands something absolutely can explain it so no one else can understand it.

Rule Of Accuracy: When working toward the solution of a problem it always helps you to know the answer.

Ryan’s Law: Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish yourself as an expert.

Sattinger’s Law: It works better if you plug it in.