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A comment on The secret to success in the arts. Parent comment

Re:The secret to success in the arts by yummyfajitas on Friday August 17, 2012 @10:03AM (#4396369)
Um, the 50'th sigma is nonexistent on any physical scale. The 27'th sigma is 10^-317, and the 28'th sigma is too small to represent with doubles. For comparison, the number of atoms in the universe is about 10^80.

Hollywood actors are, at best, in the 3-4'th sigma.

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Re:The secret to success in the arts by nateberkopec on Friday August 17, 2012 @04:46PM (#4398716)
Taleb and Salmon are thinking about a non-normal fat tail distribution (that's the point of Taleb's book) so it's entirely possible.
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