> > > Somewhere in Murphy's Law it states that if paint is going to run, it will do so on the most visible part of the painted surface.
> > >
> > > I painted some scooter wheels today and only got one run, but it proved that Murphy was, as usual, right.
> >
> > According to what I've heard, Murphy's law is greatly misunderstood.
> > People think Murphy's law says "things always go wrong". That is not what it says at all. Murphy's law measures human stupidity, not bad luck or general "SNAFU"-ness.
> > The original Murphy's law (my paraphrasing):
> > "If there are two ways to install a component, and only one of them is the right way, sooner or later someone will come and install it in the wrong way."
> > This says that someone is bound to be stupid enough to misunderstand or ignore the instructions and do it the wrong way. The moral of the story: don't tell people not to do things wrong. Make it impossible for them to do things wrong, whether they know how to do them or not.
>
> I always thought Murphy's Law was simply "Anything than can go wrong, will go wrong."

I'd put that more as "If it can be done wrong, it will sooner or later be done wrong". The element of human stupidity has to be involved. Murphy's law doesn't say that everything will always go in the worst possible way, especially if it happens by itself, and not because of human intervention.