Cognitive Daily, my I-haven’t-completely-abandoned-my-college-major daily read, has a link to this NPR interview with a probability expert on the futility of trying to predict the next Harry Potter phenom and other highly unlikely things. My favorite part (of course) of the Cognitive Daily article:
He also mentions the propensity to risk more to avoid losses than to make gains. This can explain why publishers are so quick to reject even promising works by unproven writers. Taleb suggests that publishers should be offering more contracts to writers because that small risk can have such a vast reward.
Stephanie Zvan is one of the hosts for the Minnesota Atheists' radio show and podcast, Atheists Talk. She serves on the board of Secular Woman. She speaks on science and skepticism in a number of venues, including science fiction and fantasy conventions.
Stephanie has been called a science blogger and a sex blogger, but if it means she has to choose just one thing to be or blog about, she's decided she's never going to grow up. In addition to science and sex and the science of sex, you'll find quite a bit of politics here, some economics, a regular short fiction feature, and the occasional bit of concentrated weird.
Oh, and arguments. She sometimes indulges in those as well. But I'm sure everything will be just fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.