I long ago observed that Famous Laws come in groups of three – The Three Laws od Thermodynamics, Kepler’s three laws, Newton’s three laws of motion, Asimov’s Three Laws od robotics, Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws.
I therefore decided that All Great Sets of Laws Come in Groups of Three. I call this CalMeacham’s Third Law
I haven’t come up with the first two yet.
BrotherCadfaels’ Law: One Size Fits All… doesn’t.
If I may suggest:
CalMeacham’s First Law: Any law about sets of laws will inevitably have an exception.
There is no CalMeacham’s Second Law.
**Chronos’ Observation on the Exclusivity of Humor:
The smaller the set of people who would get a joke, the funnier the joke will be to the people in that set.**
Thus, for instance, if you tell a joke that depends on knowledge of the process of time evolution in quantum mechanical systems, the vast majority of people will look at you blankly… but the physics department at the local university will all double over with laughter (and then immediately start nitpicking it). And of course, inside jokes, which will only be understood by two or three people on the planet because “you had to be there”, are the funniest of all.
(1) The Ben Herman 200 Hearing Limit: “If you hear a tune 200 times you never want to hear it again.”
(2) Rayburn’s Law of Invisibility: “At night, everything outside your window is functionally invisible. During the day the reverse is true.”
(3) The Chinese Remainder Theorum: “After World War N, where N > 2, the number of surviving Chinese will be non-zero.”
(4) My personal fave has no name, but I see Shodan has a variant: “If you don’t paint it the first time, you never paint it the second time.”
Having worked for a number of volunteer organizations of one form or another over the years, I have developed the Rule of the Dozen:
In a volunteer organization of about
[ul]
[li]a dozen people, about a dozen will be doing most of the work.[/li][li]twenty people, about a dozen will be doing most of the work.[/li][li]fifty people, about a dozen will be doing most of the work.[/li][li]a hundred people, about a dozen will be doing most of the work.[/li][li]. . .[/li][/ul]
I have lots of laws I could list here, but I’ll stick with just the three:
The smaller the selection on a restaurant menu the better the food.
Companies that use whistling-based songs in their advertising are not to be trusted.
Never list more than three examples in an internet discussion.
I tended bar for ~3 years and can confirm that I never want to hear “Margaritaville” ever again.
When you know you’re going to have a particularly loud bowel movement at work, someone will come in 15 seconds after you and take the stall right beside you.
Nothing ever repairs itself.
In offices, every network drop and electrical outlet will be blocked by a large piece of furniture.
If four socks(two matching pairs) go into the dryer, and two socks disappear, then the chance that the two that are left will match is zero.
The Law of Relative Service Need: The harder an item is for you to find in a store, the harder it will be to find someone who works in that store to help you find it.
Similarly, the Rocket Surgery! Law of Restaurant Fluid Dynamics: As the amount of refillable drink in your glass at a restaurant approaches zero, so will the chance your waitstaff will ask about a refill. Corollary for spicy food: The hotter the meal, the slower the rate of refills.
Our household rule is that if you don’t like how someone does something–dishes, laundry, grocery shopping–do it yourself. (And shut up about it.)
As for pizza, if the pizzeria doesn’t offer anchovies, the pizza itself will not be any good.
Robot Arm’s Corollary to BrotherCadfael’s Law: Makes a Great Gift… doesn’t.
DrumBum’'s theory of motion states that the ink pad used by the custom official will run dry when I present my passport.
Not me but my father. I call it Dad’s Law: “Never trust a man who says ‘trust me’.”
Law of the first birthday: when you go to babyproof the house, you will go, room by room, sticking those little things in the plugs so the kid can’t electrocute himself. You pull out furniture, to be good parents, and plug every single unused outlet, even high ones out of his reach. You buy the good kind that can’t be removed without a screwdriver. You run out of plugs with one outlet left, out in the middle of everything, not blocked by anything, and right down by the baseboard.
Rule of the diaper: never change a dry diaper, just because the kid has been in it for a while, or karma will see to it that you run out of diapers right when the kid has a major blow-out.
Law of sibling rivalry: Whatever one of your kids likes, the other (or another) will hate.
Probably because it’s the second closest spot. :rolleyes:
Plant’s Rule of Children: Best $400 I ever spent.