while perusing some information on Occam's Razor, i came across a not dissimilar companion called Hanlon's Razor, which states:
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
then the beauty of the internet kicked in and within 10 minutes i knew that: some people attribute the phrase to Robert Heinlein (corrupted to become Hanlon) while others claim that a Robert J. Hanlon coined it and still more trace it back to Napoleon or Goethe. numerous hackers have glommed onto this principle (as it "probably reflects the hacker's daily experience of environments created by well-intentioned but short-sighted people"), while others would use it as a military principle.
perhaps it's a little 1998 to be raving about the internet with slack-jawed wonderment, but it was pretty sweet to find something interesting and immediately be able to find out enough about it to write a short research paper had i somehow transported myself back to English 236 or something. now, having said that, i'm a little sick of the subject.
Posted by jamie at April 28, 2004 04:57 PM