Re: Murphy's Law: (was Re: off-topic: scheduled backup to external hard drive

["George Scithers" owlswickpress@xxxxxxxx]

Murphy Himself took the view that the Law applied to people
goofing things up -- first, by designing things that can be put
together wrong -- and then, by assembling those things without
checking to make sure the assembly is done right. That, of
course, can be expanded to lots of areas -- basically, to
designing both things and procedures so that goofing up is more
trouble than doing right!
The other view of the Law is that the Universe is Out To Get us,
and it's futile to try to outwit so malignant an entity -- which
is exactly the opposite of what Murphy Himself intended, both
when he first stated the Law, and throughout his quality control
career afterwards. The Universe is NOT out to get us -- the Awful
Truth, which many of us don't want to face up to, is that the
Universe simply doesn't care about you, or me, or all of the rest
of us, individually or in e-discussion groups like this one.

George H Scithers
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil White" 
To: 
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 9:15 AM
Subject: RE: Murphy's Law: (was Re: off-topic: scheduled backup
to external hard drive
IMO, Murphy was actually referring to a specific rocket sled
deceleration
measuring component just didn't work when during the first live
rocket sled
test trial. (FYI: the rocket sled itself was built for research
on
development of the first jet fighter ejection seats.)
He determined that the component had been mounted correctly on
the bolt
holes provided for it, only backwards, completing defeating the
purpose of
the device.
Over the years, his statement has (d)evolved into the statement
that "if
anything can possibly go wrong, it will."
[snip]