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Significant Digits For Friday, May 8, 2015

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5 degree angle

The laughably porous White House fence is about to get a little more intimidating as the Secret Service plans to install sharp metal points extending outward at a five degree angle on the top of the fence. At the very least that will show the pigeons who’s boss. [Reuters]


$10 per day

The starting wage for some manicurists in New York City, according to a new New York Times expose. That is not a typo. [The New York Times]

56 seats

Two top stories out of the U.K. election: the Conservative party’s surprising dominance — as of this writing it’s within a seat of an outright majority, and is projected to attain it — and the rise of the Scottish National Party, which won 56 Parliamentary seats, up from 6 seats previously. [FiveThirtyEight]

150 percent

Hepatitis C infections increased 150 percent from 2010 to 2013, driven largely by people who used injected drugs. [BuzzFeed]

152 selfies

A Fusion analysis of 152 Instagrammed selfies taken by Kim Kardashian over the course of one year found that 21 percent were taken in a mirror, 12 percent were taken outdoors, and 8 percent were taken while the celebrity was in bed. You may scoff at this, but this is probably the use of numbers that the most Americans will care about all year. [Fusion]

186.4 miles per hour

“Guy goes fast on a thing in a place” records are not usually that interesting, but I’m willing to make an exception. Idris Elba — the guy from “The Wire” and “Thor” — broke the U.K. land speed record in a Bentley Continental GT Speed on a beach, maxing out at 186.4 miles per hour. [CNN Money]


$35,000

The biggest issue Tesla has had with getting normal people to buy their cars has been the price. But that may change. Founder and plausible Bond villain Elon Musk said in an earnings call that the company is planning on unveiling the Tesla Model 3 with a predicted price of $35,000 sometime next March. [Geek.com]

$800,000

LOCAL BOY MAKES GOOD: Stephen Colbert announced that the sales of his old set would be put towards funding every single grant request from teachers at South Carolina public schools on DonorsChoose.org. The donation amounts to about $800,000 overall. [Greenville News]

10.9 million

FitBit, the fitness and sleep tracker company, sold 21 million devices since the company began operations in 2007. What’s more, almost half of those wearables — 10.9 million — were sold last year. The company is looking to have an IPO. [Re/Code]


$4.5 billion

That’s Nintendo’s sales last year, bolstered by the Amiibo interactive figurine. The biggest news out of the company, though, was a plan to team up with Universal Parks & Resorts to build Nintendo attractions in theme parks. Just FYI Nintendo, I would probably pay $500 for the experience of actually catching a Pokémon. [Wired]


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Have a great weekend everyone!

Walt Hickey was FiveThirtyEight’s chief culture writer.

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