The ultimate metric that I would like to propose for user friendliness is quite simple: if this system was a person, how long would it take before you punched it in the nose?
I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.
No user-servicable parts inside. Refer to qualified service personnel.
Hard Copies and Chmod And everyone thinks computers are impersonal cold diskdrives hardware monitors
of course they're only bits and bytes
and characters and strings
and files
just some old textfiles from my old boyfriend
telling me he loves me and
he'll take care of me
simply a discarded printout of a friend's directory
deep intimate secrets and
how he doesn't trust me
couldn't hurt me more if they were scented in lavender or mould
on personal stationery
-- terri@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
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ACTON'S LAW Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. ALBRECHT'S LAW Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well-being. ALLEN'S (or CANN'S) AXIOM When all else fails, read the instructions. BOREN'S FIRST LAW When in doubt, mumble. BOVE'S THEOREM The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches. BOWIE'S THEOREM If an experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment. BROOK'S LAW Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. CANADA BILL JONES' MOTTO It's morally wrong to allow naive end users to keep their money. CANN'S (or ALLEN'S) AXIOM When all else fails, read the instructions. CARLSON'S CONSOLATION Nothing is ever a complete failure; it can always serve as a bad example. CLARKE'S THIRD LAW Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. COLE'S LAW Thinly sliced cabbage. COHN'S LAW The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time reporting on the nothing you are doing. CONWAY'S LAW In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired. LAW OF CONTINUITY Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way. CORRESPONDENCE COROLLARY An experiment may be considered a success if no more than half of your data must be discarded to obtain correspondence with your theory. CROPP'S LAW The amount of work done varies inversely with the amount of time spent in the office. CUTLER WEBSTER'S LAW There are two sides to every argument, unless a person is personally involved, in which case there is only one. DEADLINE-DAN'S DEMO DEMONSTRATION The higher the "higher-ups" are who've come to see your demo, the lower your chances are of giving a successful one. DEMIAN'S OBSERVATION There is always one item on the screen menu that is mislabeled and should read "ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE". DENNISTON'S LAW Virtue is its own punishment. DOW'S LAW In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the greater the confusion. DR. CALIGARI'S COME-BACK A bad sector disk error occurs only after you've done several hours of work without performing a backup. ESTRIDGE'S LAW No matter how large and standardized the marketplace is, IBM can redefine it. FINAGLE'S LAWS 1) Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse. 2) No matter what results are expected, someone is always willing to fake it. 3) No matter what the result, someone is always eager to misinterpret it. 4) No matter what occurs, someone believes it happened according to his pet theory. FINAGLE'S RULES 1) To study an application best, understand it thoroughly before you start. 2) Always keep a record of data. It indicates you've been working. 3) Always draw your curves, then plot the reading. 4) In case of doubt, make it sound convincing. 5) Program results should always be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way. 6) Do not believe in miracles. Rely on them. FINSTER'S LAW A closed mouth gathers no feet. FIRST RULE OF HISTORY History doesn't repeat itself --- historians merely repeat each other. FRANKLIN'S PARAPHRASE OF POPE'S LAW Praised be the end user who expects nothing, for he/she will never be disappointed. GILB'S LAWS OF UNRELIABILITY 1) At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. 2) Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. 3) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited. 4) Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done. GLYME'S FORMULA FOR SUCCESS The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made. THE GOLDEN RULE Whoever has the gold makes the rules. GOLD'S LAW If the shoe fits, it's ugly. GORDON'S FIRST LAW If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well. GOVERNMENT'S LAW There is an exception to all laws. GREEN'S LAW OF DEBATE Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about. GUMMIDGES'S LAW The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public. GUMPERSON'S LAW The probability of a given event occurring is inversely proportional to its desirability. HANLON'S RAZOR Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. HARP'S COROLLARY TO ESTRIDGE'S LAW Your "IBM PC-compatible" computer grows more incompatible with every passing moment. HARRISON'S POSTULATE For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. HELLER'S LAW The first myth of management is that it exists. HINDS' LAW OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING 1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete. 2) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. 3) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. 4) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory. 5) The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. 6) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it. 7) Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, andyou will find that programmers cannot write in English. HOARE'S LAW OF LARGE PROGRAMS Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out. HOPPER'S AXIOM (Admiral Grace Hopper, USN, who discovered the first computer "bug" in the 1940's---an actual insect) It's better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. HUBBARD'S LAW Don't take life too seriously; you won't get out of it alive. JENKINSON'S LAW It won't work. JOHNSON-LAIRD'S LAW Toothaches tend to start on Saturday night. LARKINSON'S LAW All laws are basically false. THE LAST ONE'S LAW OF PROGRAM GENERATORS A program generator creates programs that are more "buggy" than the program generator. LIEBERMAN'S LAW Everybody lies; but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. LYNCH'S LAW When the going gets tough, everyone leaves. MASON'S FIRST LAW OF SYNERGISM The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut. MAY'S LAW The quality of correlation is inversely proportional to the density of control. (The fewer the data points, the smoother the curves.) MENCKEN'S LAW There is always an easy answer to every human problem --- neat, plausible, and wrong. MESKIMEN'S LAW There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over. MUIR'S LAW When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. MURPHY'S LAWS 1) If anything can go wrong, it will (and at the worst possible moment). 2) Nothing is as easy as it looks. 3) Everything takes longer than you think it will. MURPHY'S FOURTH LAW If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. MURPHY'S LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS 1) You can't win, 2) You can't break even, 3) And you can't get out of the game. ALSO: Things get worse under pressure. NINETY-NINETY RULE OF PROJECT SCHEDULES The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent. NIXON'S THEOREM The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on. NOLAN'S PLACEBO An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. OLIVER'S LAW OF LOCATION No matter where you are, there you are. O'REILLY'S LAW OF THE KITCHEN Cleanliness is next to impossible. OSBORN'S LAW Variables won't, constants aren't. O'TOOLE'S COMMENTARY ON MURPHY'S LAW Murphy was an optimist. PARKINSON'S LAW Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. PARKINSON'S LAW (MODIFIED) The components you have will expand to fill the available space. PEER'S LAW The solution to a problem changes the problem. PETER'S PRINCIPLE In every hierarchy, each employee tends to rise to the level of his incompetence. THE LAW OF THE PERVERSITY OF NATURE You cannot determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter. PUDDER'S LAW Anything that begins well will end badly. [Note: The converse of Pudder's law is not true.] RHODE'S COROLLARY TO HOARE'S LAW Inside every complex and unworkable program is a useful routine struggling to be free. ROBERT E. LEE'S TRUCE Judgment comes from experience; experience comes from poor judgment. 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. 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. SAUSAGE PRINCIPLE People who love sausage and respect the law should watch neither being made. SHAW'S PRINCIPLE Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. SNAFU EQUATIONS 1) Given any problem containing N equations, there will be N+1 unknowns. 2) The object or bit of information most needed will be the least available. 3) The device requiring service or adjustment will be the least accessible. 4) Interchangeable devices aren'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. STEWART'S LAW OF RETROACTION It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. 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" invariably 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. THE LAW OF THE TOO SOLID GOOF In any collection of data, the figures that are obviously correct beyond all need of checking are the figures that contain the errors. Corollary 1: No one you ask for help will see the error either. Corollary 2: Any nagging intruder, who stops by with unsought advice, will spot it immediately. UNNAMED LAW If it happens, it must be possible. 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. WEINBERG'S LAW If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. WHITEHEAD'S LAW The obvious answer is always overlooked. WILCOX'S LAW A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants. 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. 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.
Index:
HEPPLEWHITE, GEORGE (d. 1786), one of the most famous English cabinet-makers of the 18th century. There is practically no biographical material relating to Hepplewhite. The only facts that are known with certainty are that he was apprenticed to Gillow at Lancaster, that he carried on business in the parish of Saint Giles, Cripplegate, and that administration of his estate was granted to his widow Alice on the 27th of June 1786. The administrator's accounts, which were filed in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury a year later, indicate that his property was of considerable value. After his death the business was continued by his widow under the style of A. Hepplewhite & Co. Our only approximate means of identifying his work are _The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide_, which was first published in 1788, two years after his death, and ten designs in _The Cabinet-maker's London Book of Prices_ (1788), issued by the London Society of Cabinet-Makers. It is, however, exceedingly difficult to earmark any given piece of furniture as being the actual work or design of Hepplewhite, since it is generally recognized that to a very large extent the name represents rather a fashion than a man. Lightness, delicacy and grace are the distinguishing characteristics of Hepplewhite work. The massiveness of Chippendale had given place to conceptions that, especially in regard to chairs--which had become smaller as hoops went out of fashion--depended for their effect more upon inlay than upon carving. In one respect at least the Hepplewhite style was akin to that of Chippendale--in both cases the utmost ingenuity was lavished upon the chair, and if Hepplewhite was not the originator he appears to have been the most constant and successful user of the shield back. This elegant form was employed by the school in a great variety of designs, and nearly always in a way artistically satisfying. Where Chippendale, his contemporaries and his immediate successors had used the cabriole and the square leg with a good deal of carving, the Hepplewhite manner preferred a slighter leg, plain, fluted or reeded, tapering to a spade foot which often became the "spider leg" that characterized much of the late 18th-century furniture; this form of leg was indeed not confined to chairs but was used also for tables and sideboards. Of the dainty drawing-room grace of the style there can be no question. The great majority of modern chairs are of Hepplewhite inspiration, while he, or those who worked with him, appears to have a clear claim to have originated, or at all events popularized, the winged easy-chair, in which the sides are continued to the same height as the back. This is probably the most comfortable type of chair that has ever been made. The backs of Hepplewhite chairs were often adorned with galleries and festoons of wheat-ears or pointed fern leaves, and not infrequently with the prince of Wales's feathers in some more or less decorative form. The frequency with which this badge was used has led to the suggestion either that A. Hepplewhite & Co. were employed by George IV. when prince of Wales, or that the feathers were used as a political emblem. The former suggestion is obviously the more feasible, but there is little doubt that the feathers were used by other makers working in the same style. It has been objected as an artistic flaw in Hepplewhite's chairs that they have the appearance of fragility. They are, however, constructionally sound as a rule. The painted and japanned work has been criticized on safer grounds. This delicate type of furniture, often made of satinwood, and painted with wreaths and festoons, with amorini and musical instruments or floral motives, is the most elegant and pleasing that can be imagined. It has, however, no elements of decorative permanence. With comparatively little use the paintings wear off and have to be renewed. A piece of untouched painted satinwood is almost unknown, and one of the essential charms of old furniture as of all other antiques is that it should retain the patina of time. A large proportion of Hepplewhite furniture is inlaid with the exotic woods which had come into high favour by the third quarter of the 18th century. While the decorative use upon furniture of so evanescent a medium as paint is always open to criticism, any form of marquetry is obviously legitimate, and, if inlaid furniture be less ravishing to the eye, its beauty is but enhanced by time. It was not in chairs alone that the Hepplewhite manner excelled. It acquired, for instance, a speciality of seats for the tall, narrow Georgian sash windows, which in the Hepplewhite period had almost entirely superseded the more picturesque forms of an earlier time. These window-seats had ends rolling over outwards, and no backs, and despite their skimpiness their elegant simplicity is decidedly pleasing. Elegance, in fact, was the note of a style which on the whole was more distinctly English than that which preceded or immediately followed it. The smaller Hepplewhite pieces are much prized by collectors. Among these may be included urn-shaped knife-boxes in mahogany and satinwood, charming in form and decorative in the extreme; inlaid tea-caddies, varying greatly in shape and material, but always appropriate and _coquet_; delicate little fire-screens with shaped poles; painted work-tables, and inlaid stands. Hepplewhite's bedsteads with carved and fluted pillars were very handsome and attractive. The evolution of the dining-room sideboard made rapid progress towards the end of the 18th century, but neither Hepplewhite nor those who worked in his style did much to advance it. Indeed they somewhat retarded its development by causing it to revert to little more than that side-table which had been its original form. It was, however, a very delightful table with its undulating front, its many elegant spade-footed legs and its delicate carving. If we were dealing with a less elusive personality it would be just to say that Hepplewhite's work varies from the extreme of elegance and the most delicious simplicity to an unimaginative commonplace, and sometimes to actual ugliness. As it is, this summary may well be applied to the style as a whole--a style which was assuredly not the creation of any one man, but owed much alike of excellence and of defect to a school of cabinet-makers who were under the influence of conflicting tastes and changing ideals. At its best the taste was so fine and so full of distinction, so simple, modest and sufficient, that it amounted to genius. On its lower planes it was clearly influenced by commercialism and the desire to make what tasteless people preferred. Yet this is no more than to say that the Hepplewhite style succumbed sometimes, perhaps very often, to the eternal enemy of all art--the uninspired banality of the average man. (J. P.-B.) Entry: HEPPLEWHITE
There was hardly any selling and little letting of land in ancient times. Flaiths and other persons holding large areas let to clansmen, who then became _Ceiles_, not land, but the privilege of feeding upon land a number of cattle specified by agreement. Flaiths and Bo-aires also let cattle to a _ceile_ who had none or not enough, and this was the most prevalent practice. There were two distinct methods of letting and hiring--_saer_ (= free) and _daer_ (= base), the conditions being fundamentally different. The conditions of _saer_-tenure were largely settled by the law, were comparatively easy, did not require any security to be given, left the _ceile_ free within the limits of justice to end the connexion, left him competent in case of dispute to give evidence against that of the flaith, and did not impose any liability on the _fine_ of the _ceile_. By continued user of the same land for some years and discharge of the public obligations in respect of it in addition to the _ciss_ or payment as tenant, a _ceile_ became a sub-owner or permanent tenant and could not be evicted. There is no provision in these laws for evicting any one. For the hire of cattle a usual payment was one beast in seven per annum for seven years; after which the cattle that remained became the property of the hirer. A _saer-ceile_ on growing wealthy might become a _bo-aire_. _Daer-tenure_, whether of cattle or of the right to graze cattle upon land, was subject to a _ciss-ninsciss_ (= wearisome tribute), for the payment of which security had to be given. A man not in the enjoyment of full civil rights, if able to find security, could become a _daer-ceile_. A free clansman by becoming a _daer-ceile_ lowered his own status and that of his _fine_, became incompetent to give evidence against that of a flaith, and could not end the connexion until the end of the term except by a large payment. The members of his _fine_ were liable, in the degree of their relationship, to make good out of their own property any default in the payments. Hence this tenure could not be legally entered into by a free clansman without the permission of his fine. _Daer-ceiles_ were also exposed to casual burdens, like that of lodging and feeding soldiers when in their district. All payments were made in kind. When the particular kind was not specified by the law or by agreement, the payments were made according to convenience in horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, wool, butter, bacon, corn, vegetables, yarn, dye-plants, leather, cloth, articles of use or ornament, &c. As the clan system relaxed, and the fine lost its legal power of fixing the amounts of public tributes, which were similarly payable to the _flaith_, and neglected its duty of seeing that those tributes were duly applied, the _flaith_ became able to increase these tributes with little check, to confuse them with rent, to confuse jurisdiction with ownership, and to exalt himself at the expense of his fellow-clansmen. A _flaith_ by arranging that his tenants should make their payments at different periods of the year, secured a constant and copious supply without an inconvenient surplus. Entry: BREHON