DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

On the topic of Laws, here’s the story of the origin of Murphy’s Law. The article draws no certain conclusions, except that every player disagrees about what really happened. And, they’re all pretty tired of being asked about it.

The single undisputed bit is that the man who made the expression famous (whether or not he coined it) was Col. John Paul Stapp, M.D., who is best known for piloting the rocket sleds “Gee Whiz” and “Sonic Wind” to measure the ability of the human body to withstand sudden force. He was apparently a fan of wordplay and author of a book of witty expressions. He’d chrisened his own Law, Stapp’s Ironical Paradox: the universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle.

He’s a man after my own heart. Well, except for all that business about strapping himself to a rocket sled and braking so hard that his eyes just about popped out of his skull.

Cheers to correspondent Jacque Harper for pointing out the Ig Nobel Prize website. The 2003 winners include John Paul Stapp.

When the sun goes down, the cliff lights up. The sight is awesome. Bring a tripod.

We’d inadvertently timed our days in Ia so that the moon rose just after dinner. I recommend this. We would have been walking around anyway, soaking up the atmosphere. In that magical place it seemed perfectly reasonable to think that celestial bodies had aligned just to suit us.

Midway between our apartment and the main shopping district of Ia, paths converge to form a rest stop of sorts. It’s probably somebody’s patio, but we paused there frequently, i.e. every time there wasn’t already a crowd of people gawking. The view is terrific, especially at night, and there’s a low wall ideal for repose. The sight of the city lights curving away in the distance, around the crescent of the island, is especially excellent.

I don’t know why it always seemed so incongruous to me, but the shops in Ia tend to have million-dollar views. Sometimes I’d go into a store just to look out the window. This picture was taken through the open window of a jewelry-and-kitsch shop; I had to press the camera up against the wall of the building to steady it for the long exposure. The string of lights in the distance outlines the wall of the caldera midway around the crescent. I believe those lights mark the town of Imerovigli, which stands 300 meters above the sea, on the highest point of the caldera.

My favorite night picture shows the western edge of the city, from below. I took the picture from the long path that descends to the port town of Amoudi. Looking up the hillside to see the resorts and homes from below, and the darkening sky above, I was struck (again) by how strange the terrain is on Santorini. I felt like I was immersed in it. Santorini is much more three-dimensional than most places I’ve visited, except maybe Zion National Park.

I’m jealous of Metcalf and Ohm and Boyle; they all have Laws. Occasionally I wonder what my law would be… something I’d be remembered for long after I’m gone.

Today I thought of a potential candidate. It comes from years of software development, throughout which I have frequently been faced with incredibly detailed, complex, sometimes self-contradictory functional specs that have to be boiled down, reduced to code and data storage, and put online right now. Here’s the law:

If it takes three days to explain, it will take three months to build.

Here’s a sample application of the law: If you want it done by next week, tell me about it in simple terms. You have ten seconds.

I don’t get too many of those 10-second requests, except for the ones that go, “You know that thing you built last week? Turn it off. I changed my mind.”

Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 09:53:49 +0100
From: lost and found
Subject: Second bag found

we have good news for you : as we were still waiting for reply from Athens the missing bag was found at Frankfurt. There are no more Baggagetags attached but accord. to the name label it must be yours. The bag type does also match.
We are going to fwd the baggage onboard LH454/01Oct to SFO.
Best regards from Frankfurt Airport

Uwe Prager

Ia is known for its sunsets. From the western edge of the city, visitors are afforded an unimpeded view of the sun dropping into the Aegean. The islet of Thirasia lays just south of west, poking an edge into the scene.

The Lonely Planet guide to the islands warns that by 7:00 PM, tourists crowd the westernmost sidewalk in Ia, jockeying for the best position from which to view the sunset. We found this to be true… we hurried there on our first evening to find that the rest of the city had already arrived.

We also found that many of the people there had been somewhat overexposed. Greece is as famous for its sun as Ia is for its sunsets. The fact that all the mini-marts in town have display racks of sun lotion didn’t apparently register with some of these (formerly) pale western Europeans.

Standing in a crowd watching the sun set did not appeal to us — as ironic as it might sound, we didn’t come to Greece to hang out with a bunch of German tourists. We left the lobster people behind and resolved, first, to find a table for dinner before the crowd rushed back east to fill all the best restaurants, and second, to not get sunburned.

Moving back east, we found a much better way to enjoy the sunset. The red light does wonderful things to whitewashed buildings. This is one of my favorite pictures.