Lindy effect
There's a similar effect when waiting for a bus or other public transport. At first, the expected time you'll have to wait exhibits decreases as time goes by: if there's a bus every 10 minutes, after waiting 8 minutes you expect one to arrive in 1 minute, compared to 5 when you started waiting. Stand there longer without a bus arriving, however, and the Lindy effect starts to apply. After 15 minutes without a bus, most likely the bus broke down, but you can expect another within 5 minutes. After 30 minutes, well, maybe the drivers are on strike today or this bus route got cancelled or you misremembered the frequency of the bus - either way, expect to keep waiting.<p>Anyone know of a term for this kind of behaviour? I've never seen it named, though I do recall an article that made the HN front page that demonstrated this effect with the New York subway.