speed it up or make it more efficient." Second rule: "Evolution is cleverer than you are." Ostrom's law, in economics and property law: resource arrangements in practice can be represented in theory, such as arrangements of the commons or shared property. O'Sullivan's first law, in politics: "All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing." Papert's principle: "Some of the most crucial steps in mental growth are based not simply on acquiring new skills, but on acquiring new administrative ways to use what one already knows." Pareto principle: for many phenomena 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes. Named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, but framed by management thinker Joseph M. Juran. Parkinson's law: "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion." Corollary: "Expenditure rises to meet income." Coined by C. Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993). Parkinson's law of triviality: "The time spent on any agenda item will be in inverse proportion to the sum of money involved." Also due to C. Northcote Parkinson. Peltzman effect: Safety measures are offset by increased risk-taking. Peter principle: "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." Coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) in his book The Peter Principle. In his follow-up book, The Peter Prescription, he offered possible solutions to the problems his principle could cause. Planck's law, in physics, describes the spectral radiance of a black body at a given temperature. After Max Planck. Plateau's laws describe the structure of soap films. Named after Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau. Poe's law (fundamentalism): "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article." Although it originally referred to creationism, the scope later widened to any form of extremism or fundamentalism. Poisson's law of large numbers: For independent random variables with a common distribution, the average value for a sample tends to the mean as sample size increases. Named after Siméon Denis Poisson (1781–1840) and derived from Recherches sur la probabilité des jugements en matière criminelle et en matière civile (1837: Research on the Probability of Criminal and Civil Verdicts). Postel's law: Be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from others. Derived from RFC 761 (Transmission Control Protocol, 1980) in which Jon Postel summarized earlier communications of desired interoperability