Praise Murphy

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Nat Torkington
Sep. 09, 2002 02:09 PM
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I think it was Dave Winer's Scripting News where I first saw "Murphy willing" in print. The phrase must have stuck in my head, because I just had a brainstorm ...

The phrase Murphy willing (as in I'll ship version 1.0 on Monday, Murphy willing) is God willing with a tip of the hat to the Murphy of Murphy's Law (anything that can go wrong, will go wrong). I've had my fair share of exploding drives, file corruption, and programmer (i.e., my) stupidity that conspire to make me miss deadlines. I can easily believe that the old whitehaired guy in the sky who screws with our lives is called Murphy.

So what other religious phrases can we adapt to Murphyism? Well, obviously when Monday comes around and you do manage to ship 1.0, you should Praise Murphy!. And if you find yourself in management or some other messy situation, you should ask yourself What Would Murphy Do? (the answer might be: Murphy Would Read The F.... Manual).

Don't be the last on your block to get a Murphy Saves bumpersticker. Ask your friends, Have you accepted Murphy as your personal savior?. I haven't read enough of the Book of Murphy yet to know whether Murphy died for my bugs, or because of them. I'll keep you posted ...

--Nat
(Servant of Murphy)

Nat Torkington is conference planner for the Open Source Convention, OSCON Europe, and other O'Reilly conferences. He was project manager for Perl 6, is on the board of The Perl Foundation, and is a frequent speaker on open source topics. He cowrote the bestselling Perl Cookbook.

Do you have other Murphyite sayings? Shout 'em out, for Murphy's sake!
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Showing messages 1 through 5 of 5.

in'sh'Murphy
2002-09-11 23:18:40 Christian Crumlish | [Reply | View]

Murphy the merciful, the compassionate...

If the mountain won't come to Murphy...
2002-09-11 06:55:30 ponderor [Reply | View]

...Murphy will hit the Mountain.

Murphy has a younger brother named "Just". Most tasks that whose instructions are preceded with 'just...' just simply don't get done simply or in time.
Repeated exposure to Just may cause symptoms related to JITters which is curable by saying 5 hail Murphys.

This just in: The Global Insurance Consortium has reported a spike in the number of lightning related claims on computers connected to the internet.

Murphy wept.

blasphometer units
2002-09-10 11:22:17 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

>So what ARE the units on a blasphometer?

Hellians.

--Mark

Murphy willing
2002-09-10 11:20:56 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

I found the first Usenet reference to "Murphy willing" -- it was in 1989 in, appropriately enough, a CFV for talk.religion.pagan...

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22murphy+willing%22&start=20&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&scoring=d&selm=22881%40ut-emx.UUCP&rnum=24

PS What's up Nathan, this is former t.b regular Mark Schnitzius...

Re: Praise Murphy and pass the perplexity...
2002-09-09 17:35:48 ponderor [Reply | View]

To be completely unbiblical:
"Murphy helps those who help themselves."

So what ARE the usits on a blasphometer?

Showing messages 1 through 5 of 5.

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