Lots of discussion about long tails and links and what not, matched with more statistics than I’ve seen since college. I knew about Phil but thanks to Dave, I also found Adam and Sacred Cow Dung, who brings us the Sacred Cow Dung 500 Index, which is as good a rank list name as any.
All this math and figuring reminded me of a conversation I had with my Dad once. We were talking about the odds of winning Powerball. He would hold a ticket in his hand and read out that the odds were 23 gazillion to one or something like that; I would say that in actuality, you had one chance to win. He would shake his head in frustration, and start going into the math and such; I would just reply that it didn’t matter: at some point when the numbers get so high, the only thing that counts is what you can hold in your hand.
