Significant Digits For Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015

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$2

Tablet magazine, a Jewish culture site, will now charge $2 for any user to comment on its articles for a day, with bulk deals at $18 for a month of commenting and $180 for a year. [Capital New York]

7.5 percent growth

India posted a spectacular rate of year-on-year growth — 7.5 percent, compared to China’s 7.3 percent — that has raised some eyebrows. Part of the reason for the higher growth rate is changes in the way its government calculates the statistic. [Reuters]

This growth rate estimate leads us to our next number …

13 bullshits

An analysis of swearing in “Nature” has found that uses of profanity in the preeminent scientific journal are few and far between. There have been 48 uses of derivatives of the word “shit,” 13 uses of “bullshit” and “8 deliberate fucks in roughly 145 years.” [Stuart Cantrill]

40 percent

According to a Rasmussen Reports poll, 40 percent of respondents said they thought “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams should resign. Williams was caught overstating details from anecdotes about his time reporting in Iraq. That number indicates that he essentially has to save Veronica Corningstone from a bear attack to recover. [Huffington Post]

81 percent

Percentage of Russians who said their opinion of the United States is very or mainly bad. I blame “Taken 3.” [Bloomberg Business]

5,360 subscribers

The number of fixed broadband subscribers in Cuba in 2013. The country has about 11.3 million people, who once wired with broadband might be a huge potential market for Netflix. The company just announced it intends to move into the island nation (though very few there could currently afford the video-streaming service). [Bloomberg Business]

34,000

Soon, 34,000 medical students will be matched to residency programs at hospitals with the National Resident Matching Program algorithm. Last year, 94.4 percent of residents were matched. [FiveThirtyEight]

58,500

The homeless population in New York City shelters this month, up from 52,144 last year. The city plans to allocate more funding and resources to reaching out to the unsheltered homeless. [The New York Times]

191,000 Islamic State fighters

The difference between the low estimate (9,000 fighters, from CNN’s Barbara Starr) and the high estimate (200,000 fighters, from a former chief of staff to the Kurdish president) for the ranks of the Islamic State. That’s a wide range, underlining the difficulty in estimating the true figure. [War on the Rocks]

6.9 million viewers

“Better Call Saul,” the Bob Odenkirk-helmed spinoff from the hit AMC drama “Breaking Bad,” premiered Sunday night to the highest-rated cable debut ever, with 4.4 million viewers among the 18-to-49 demographic and a total of 6.9 million viewers. [Deadline]

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