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Significant Digits For Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2016

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.


0.9 percent

A poll that checked in on the same group of voters throughout the election found that between October and Election Day 0.0 percent of respondents moved from Trump to Clinton, while 0.9 percent switched from Clinton to Trump. If there was indeed a comparable swing on a national level, that’s 1.2 million votes. [FiveThirtyEight]


17.9 points

Average points allowed from the New York Giants defense, a squad that has managed to stop their opponents’ short passes, which are the main way modern NFL offenses advance the ball. It’s why the team is a 97 percent chance to make the playoffs. Also, the Giants have given the Dallas Cowboys their only two losses of the season. The Giants have a precedent of denying the league’s top team an undefeated season, of course. [FiveThirtyEight]


$20

A bill filed by South Carolina state Rep. Bill Chumley would require all sellers of computers to install online pornography blocking technology or face a fine of $20 per computer sold, and South Carolinians would have to pay $20 to remove the blocker. This is gonna go over great with the constituents, I just know it. [The Charlotte Observer]


11 days

Saudi Arabia is adopting the Gregorian calendar. The state previously used the Islamic calendar, where it is 1438, not 2016. The shift from a lunar calendar to one based on the rotation of the earth means people have to work an “extra” 11 days per year. [The Economist]


728 clues

The New York Times’s iconic crossword puzzle tried something new this past weekend, with a 728-clue crossword puzzle in a special print section. [The Verge]


$5 million

A sham botnet operated by Russian criminals is skimming up to $5 million a day from a counterfeit advertising ring, where bots visit fake web pages with real advertisements to juice fake video hits that generate real money. [CNN]


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Walt Hickey was FiveThirtyEight’s chief culture writer.

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