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Payne's Laws

  1. - censored -
  2. Size is important - small boobs are more sensitive (1965)
    Ask a doctor. A fixed number of nerve endings spread over a larger area means fewer per square inch. Forget bazookas - those little things that barely rise from the chest are worth HOURS of attention in terms of nerve endings per square inch per second. Per hour.
  3. He who writes the rules wins the benchmark (1980)
    Finanzamt Charlottenburg in Berlin - IBM proposed a 3033S and wrote a benchmark that completely fitted within the 512 byte (correct - 1/4 kilobyte) high speed buffer, making it run as fast as a 3033U
  4. The amount of fluff found at any time in any given navel is a constant (1985)
  5. The odds of a strategic alliance succeeding are given by the product of its partners' commitments, not their sum (1987)
    AD/Cycle. Two amazing things - first that IBM would make a firm like Bachmann part of such a critical strategy, and second that they could sell the "alliance" as a benefit when it was really their greatest weakness. There have been several versions of this law, including one using the number of partners as a determinant - but this one survived. The concept of strategic alliances didn't - seen one lately? Although in sheer desperation.
  6. If it's free on the Internet anywhere, it's free everywhere (1989)
    Originally a comment to someone planning on setting up another search engine. Back then, searching was a costly service - then DEC launched AltaVista to showcase the 64 bit Alpha chip. Searching has been no-revenue ever since - so why is Google worth $80 billion?
  7. Domestic freezers always fill with unpalatable food (2000)
    Take a look in your own. How much could be described as "tasty"? You're preserving the food industry's throwouts
  8. Annoying a webmaster is always a bad idea (2002)
    Try it
  9. If it's under the covers, it doesn't matter much which cover it's under (2004)
    This was a fairly advanced comment on virtualisation, except we're not there yet
  10. All web designers should be forced to use 9600 baud links (2005)
    The result of a calculation showing that downloading the home page from http://www.audi.de into a Nokia 9210i would take 23 hours and cost around £40
  11. If an exile tells you something no one else tells you about the country that exiled him, he is lying (2005)
    The Collapse of Saddam's Secret Subway. Applies to companies as well as countries
  12. The Googlebot never sleeps (2009)

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