Fitts's Law

The rest of the story. Few people remember that Stalin was trying to develop three-armed soldiers. Even fewer people know that the project was -- technically -- a tremendous success. Stalin did, in fact, manage to create a whole army of three-armed soldiers.

Unfortunately, Russian army uniforms only have two sleeves, so the third arm was of little use. After Stalin complained that the three-armed soldiers always looked frumpy (with the third arm stuffed inside the shirt), all the soldiers were eliminated. (You can tell this is a Russian joke.)

The good news is that one escaped. When he reached the West, a helpful German Hausfrau sewed him up a three-armed shirt. He said, "Hey, it Fitts!" And that's how he got his name.

Later, Fitts became obsessed with productivity in human-computer interaction. Being three-armed, he was a strong proponent of the mouse, and did a huge amount of empirical scientific research to prove how much more productive you are with a mouse. "You can get to the edge in no time!" (Those were the days of nine-inch monitors.)

Unfortunately for the rest of us, Fitts was very shy about his three-armed condition, so he was never seen in public, or some especially clever HCI scientist might have been lead to question Fitts's Law.

[Political Correctness Compliancy Statement: "Hausfrau" was chosen purely for the alliteration with "helpful". I have a note from my mother indicating my literary alliterative propensities. (I'm stretching the "literary" part. I'm a registered aliterate in nine states and the District of Columbia.)]