The most recent IEEE Spectrum (v40i12 Dec 2003) has a great article with a ridiculously long title: "5 Commandments Some technology laws and rules of thumb have stood the test of time, but not all. Spectrum looks at five to see how they have fared, starting with the grandaddy of them all--Moore's Law." It basically goes through five common "rules of thumb" about how the tech world works and looks at how it compares with reality. They are:

• Moore's Law: The number of transistors on a chip doubles annually.
• Rock's Law: The cost of semiconductor tools doubles every four years.
• Machrone's Law: The PC you want to buy always will be $5000.
• Metcalfe's Law: A network's value grows proportionately to the number of users squared.
• Wirth's Law: Software is slowing faster than hardware is accelerating.