You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
35 years
Saudi Arabia has lifted its 35-year ban on commercial movie theaters, and the Saudi government anticipates 300 theaters by 2030. Last week saw a number of screenings for the public, and they’ve wasted no time in catching up with the American classics of the past 35 years, such as “The Emoji Movie.” [The Verge]
36 percent
The number of times a garment was worn before disposal dropped 36 percent between 2000 and 2015, one symptom of fast fashion changing the way the marketplace works in the apparel industry. [Bloomberg]
910 carats
A diamond weighing 6.4 ounces has been unearthed in Lesotho and will make the London-based Gem Diamonds a boatload of money. It’s the fifth-largest gem quality diamond ever found. [The New York Times]
46 million
Average viewership for Sunday’ Vikings-Saints game was around 35.6 million, but toward the end of the hard-fought game — just about when one of the craziest finishes to an NFL playoff game ever went down — viewership peaked at around 46 million. [Frank Pallotta]
$2 billion
Dogecoin, an early 2013-era cryptocurrency designed as a tongue-in-cheek skewring of more prominent alternative digital currencies like Bitcoin, briefly hit a market cap of $2 billion. A joke coin with a Shiba Inu dog on it is now a multibillion dollar cryptocurrency, that’s how hot the market is in crypto five years later. In the interest of full disclosure, I own like three dogecoin, and while we’re at it a few Stalwartbucks. [Motherboard]
$3.3 billion
Facebook stock dipped 4.5 percent Friday on the news that Mark Zuckerberg had commissioned a major retooling of the News Feed, shifting content away from media outlets and businesses and toward things posted by people users actually know. Since he’s financially linked to the fate of his company, Zuckerberg’s decision meant his own fortune dipped $3.3 billion. [Bloomberg]
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