Gordon Strang Rule of Thumb

Standard parts are not.

Niccolo Machiavelli Rule of Thumb

The question is, then, do we try to make things easy on ourselves or do we try to make things easy on our customers, whoever they may be?

Eugene McCarthy Rule of Thumb

The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency!

Willa Cather Rule of Thumb

That's the only thing that isn't fake ... making men and machines go, and actually turning out a product.

Aki Ra Rule of Thumb

I poke my stick in the ground till I find a mine ... then I dig around it, to make sure that it is not booby-trapped ... then, I unscrew the detonator, and the mine is safe.

Rube Goldberg Rule of Thumb

People will always find a complicated means to perform a simple task.

Brian Gottschall Rule of Thumb

A compact-florescent light (CFL) produces 3 to 4 times as much light per watt as an incandescent ... most CFL packaging will tell you what the conversion is, for instance, 13 Watt CFL = 60 Watt incandescent.

Jim's Corollary: "Green" isn't just about how we produce energy (solar, wind, geothermal, etc.), it's about what we do with the energy once we have it ... use less to do more!

Frank Novy Rule of Thumb

There are certain tractor implements that should be considered as standard equipment when using your tractor for producing a garden ... a plow is one on these must-have attachments.

Mark Burkholder Rule of Thumb

You shouldn't load any circuit more than 80 percent of its capacity, so the total load on a 15 amp circuit should be no more than 12 amps.

[The Agua Caliente Elementary School's First Grade Stone Soup Corollary: Five crock-pots on one circuit will pop the breaker and the soup will be cold!]

Steve Andrews Rule of Thumb

If a windshield crack is longer than three inches, a complete replacement is probably necessary.

Marco Eagle Rule of Thumb

The more a nursing home feels like a hospital, the less resident-focused it is.

P J Hamel Rule of Thumb

When you poke “good” bread dough it should feel like a baby’s bottom: firm, yet giving.

Alan Skorkin Rule of Thumb

Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks ... rather than letting employees gain experience themselves, scientifically select, train, and develop each employee.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Rule of Thumb

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

Mitch Hedberg Rule of Thumb

With a stop light, green means 'go' and yellow means 'slow down' ... with a banana, however, it is quite the opposite: yellow means 'go', green means 'whoa, slow down', and red means 'where the heck did you get that banana?'

Carter Mathies Rule of Thumb

It takes 50 people to run an oil well rig during the drilling phase ... well completion can require significantly more people.

Thomas Dombrowski Rule of Thumb

The cost of installing an electric power transmission line is roughly $400 per linear foot above ground and as much as $4,000 per linear foot underground.

Peter R. Leffe Rule of Thumb

When an airplane is full of fuel, which is lighter than water, it will float, as long as its structural integrity is intact.

William Smith Jr. Rule of Thumb

In determining the right size chess board square, take the diameter of the king base, and add ¼” to it.

Allan Mutter Rule of Thumb

The old (but now widely discarded) rule of thumb is that a newspaper ought to have one journalist for every 1,000 subscribers.