On GitHub - a few examples:
Gall's Law
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
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Hofstadter's Law
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
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The Dilbert Principle
Companies tend to systematically promote incompetent employees to management to get them out of the workflow.
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The Shirky Principle
Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.
This last one is seen everywhere, not just technology. The homeless population are just a crop farmed by the people who run the homeless benefit agencies. If the homeless problem were fixed, those agencies would be out of work and would have to disband. A perfect example of this is from Los Angeles station KTLA:
Los Angeles is spending up to $837,000 to house a single homeless person
A $1.2 billion program intended to quickly build housing for Los Angeles’ sprawling homeless population is moving too slowly while costs are spiking, with one project under development expected to hit as much as $837,000 for each housing unit, a city audit disclosed Wednesday.
About 1,200 units have been completed since voters approved the spending in 2016, which was then a centerpiece in a strategy intended to get thousands of people off the streets. But the tally of units built so far is “wholly inadequate” in the context of the homeless crisis, said the audit issued by city Controller Ron Galperin.
And of course, instead of auditing the agency and cutting its funding for being so egregiously inefficient and wasting taxpayer money, they are going to double-down and spend even more money on "the homeless problem" instead of realizing that this is 90% a mental health and/or addiction problem and this can be fixed simply by institutionalizing the people in question. Much cheaper and more effective. More merciful too as the people on the streets are demonstrably unable to care for themselves. This will be the same if they are given a place to live.
Same story for the EPA - it was founded for good reason, our environment was polluted. Now, it is not but they keep finding things to "fix" so they can keep their jobs. Department of Education? Department of Energy?
Much much more at the site - well worth reading.
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