Hanlon's Law

Well, I am on a roll, but it is a roll of mistakes it seems.

An astute reader points out in the comments that what I (with tongue firmly in cheek) denoted as Smith's law in a recent post:

"Never assume malevolence when incompetence will do."

in fact is already well established in the world as Hanlon's law, which states (somewhat less elegantly) that one should

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

There are also links to Robert Heinlein and Napolean!

So, thanks to the poster.

It is important to get the attribution right.