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The Twelve Laws of Inaccurate Perception

• SOD’S LAW, ALSO KNOWN AS MURPHY’S LAW
  If anything can go wrong, it will.

• O’TOOLE’S COMMENTARY ON MURPHY’S LAW
  Murphy was an optimist.

• THE FIRST COROLLARY TO SOD’S LAW
  Anything that is to go wrong will do so at the worst possible moment.

• THE UNSPEAKABLE LAW
  As soon as you mention something, if it’s good, it goes away; if it’s bad, it happens.

• NON-RECIPROCAL LAWS OF EXPECTATIONS
  Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results.

• HOWE’S LAW
  Every man has a scheme which will not work.

• ZYMURGY’S FIRST LAW OF EVOLVING SYSTEM DYNAMICS
  Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can.

• SKINNER’S CONSTANT
  The quantity which must be multiplied by, divided by, added to or subtracted from the answer you get to give the answer you should have got.

• LAW OF SELECTIVE GRAVITY
  An object will fall so as to do the most damage.

• JENNING’S COROLLARY
  The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

• BARTH’S DISTINCTION
  There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types and those who do not.

• NINETY-NINETY RULE OF PROJECT SCHEDULES
  The first 90% of the job takes 90% of the time, the last 10% takes the other 90%.

• FARBER’S RULE
  Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.