In January 1994, ‘The Economist’ magazine reported that one of Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary’s success stories about government research scientists hired out for civilian business uses was the Argonne National Laboratory’s helping McDonald’s to find a way to speed up french frying. A team headed by physicist Tuncer Kuzay, who interrupted his work on advanced photons, placed sensors inside the frozen fries and was able to design special frying baskets to deal with the effect of steam created by melting ice crystals and to cut 30 to 40 seconds off each batch’s frying time.

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.

Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?

Why do people who know the least know it the loudest?

If the funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their headlights off?

If a stealth bomber crashes in a forest, will it make a sound?

If a turtle doesn’t have a shell, is he homeless or naked?

When it rains, why don’t sheep shrink?

Should vegetarians eat animal crackers?

If the cops arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?

When companies ship Styrofoam, what do they pack it in?

If you’re cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right?

Sue and Bob, a pair of tight wads, lived in the mid west, and had been married years.

Bob had always want to go flying. The desire deepen each time a barn stormer flew into town to offer rides.

Bob would ask, and Sue would say, “No way, ten dollars is ten dollars.”

The years went pay, and Bob figured he didn’t have much longer, so he got Sue out to the show, explaining, it’s free to watch, let’s at least watch.

And once he got there the feeling become real strong. Sue and Bob started an arguement.

The Pilot, between flights, overheard, listened to they problem, and said, “I’ll tell you what, I’ll take you up flying, and if you don’t say a word the ride is on me, but if you back one sound, you pay ten dollars.

So off they flew. The Pilot doing as many rolls, and dives as he could.

Heading to the ground as fast as the plane could go, and pulling out of the dive at just the very last second. Not a word. Finally he admited defeat and went back the air port.

“I’m surprised, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well I almost said something when Sue fell out, but ten dollars is ten dollars.”

As supposedly reported on CNN:

Undercover police, staging the wedding of “a drug kingpin’s daughter”, let it be known on the street that dealers were “invited” (i. e. Expected to attend).

The bride and groom were police, as was the band, bartender, and about half the guests. The band playing at the wedding was “S. P. O. C.” (COPS, backwards), and the wedding went through the full ceremony, including the dancing afterward.

The long-sought dealers were arrested after the “band” took their break. The last song the band played before taking its break? “I Fought The Law, And The Law Won”

Some years ago, Michael J. Flanagan, a successful New York contractor, was standing on the deck of the Staten Island Ferry when a car got loose and sent him into the river where he drowned.

The following Sunday his widow, all decked out in deepest black, was standing on the church steps after Mass, receiving condolences and enjoying every minute of it, when an old friend of the contractor came up.

“I’m sorry, Mary, for your trouble,” offered the friend. “Did Mike leave you well fixed?”

“Oh, he did!” she said. “He left me almost a half million dollars.”

“Well now, that’s not bad for a man who couldn’t read or write.”

“Nor swim either,” added the widow.

The American tourist in Dublin had been complaining a great deal about the food.

“Here,” he said to the waitress holding out a piece of meat for inspection, “do you call that pig?”

“Which end of the fork, sir?” the waitress asked sweetly.

These are supposedly actual signs that have been found in and around parts of England.

Seen at the side of a Sussex road: SLOW CATTLE CROSSING. NO OVERTAKING FOR THE NEXT 100 YRS.

Outside a disco: SMARTS IS THE MOST EXCLUSIVE DISCO IN TOWN. EVERYONE WELCOME

Sign warning of quicksand: QUICKSAND. ANY PERSON PASSING THIS POINT WILL BE DROWNED. BY ORDER OF THE DISTRICT COUNCIL.

Notice sent to residents of a Whiltshire parish: DUE TO INCREASING PROBLEMS WITH LETTER LOUTS AND VANDALS WE MUST ASK ANYONE WITH RELATIVES BURIED IN THE GRAVEYARD TO DO THEIR BEST TO KEEP THEM IN ORDER

Notice in a dry cleaner’s window: ANYONE LEAVING THEIR GARMENTS HERE FOR MORE THAN 30 DAYS WILL BE DISPOSED OF.

Sign on motorway garage: PLEASE DO NOT SMOKE NEAR OUR PETROL PUMPS. YOUR LIFE MAY NOT BE WORTH MUCH BUT OUR PETROL IS.

Notice in health food shop window: CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS