You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
69.7 percent
Satisfaction with the federal government, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which measures how satisfied people are with the quality of services offered by the government. People are happier with the Department of Justice (81 percent satisfaction) and Interior (78 percent) than, for instance, the Treasury (61 percent). [ASCI]
93,000 pounds of Mardi Gras beads
Cleaning crews are unclogging New Orleans storm drains and one five-block stretch of the city was jammed with 46 tons of discarded Mardi Gras beads. The crews have collected 7.2 million total pounds of debris from New Orleans sewers since late September. [The Times-Picayune]
400,000 acre-feet
That’s the annual amount of water Stewart Resnick, the biggest farmer in California, uses to water 15 million trees he has in the San Joaquin valley. For comparison, the city of Los Angeles consumes 587,000 acre-feet annually. [The California Sunday Magazine]
1.2 million nonvoters
A federal judge ruled that Florida’s system of banning voting rights for felons — and asking them to apply for the rights to be reinstated — is unconstitutional. The ruling comes days after a ballot measure was approved for a plebiscite that would restore the voting rights of 1.2 million people. [The Miami Herald]
50 million hours a day
Humans spent about 50 million fewer hours a day on Facebook last quarter, the company said. That was before the company changed its news feed algorithm to emphasize updates from friends and family. [Recode]
3.6 billion
That’s roughly the number of people who use the internet. Of those billions, 1.6 billion are regular Facebook users, meaning they logged in or posted content on the service at least one time in the last 30 days of the quarter. As for the people who don’t, half are in China, where Facebook is banned. But the company is really trying to get a hold of the people who can but don’t use Facebook. Many are already on the service, but have disengaged despite the company’s best efforts to drag them back. [Bloomberg]
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