SortStack #619 — 2028-02-18

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A single steel paperclip $0.02

   Norwegians wore paperclips on their lapels during WWII as a quiet symbol of resistance against the Nazi occupation.

2. A new hardcover bestseller $30

   Hardcovers exist partly as price discrimination: publishers sell to eager fans at a premium first, then release the cheaper paperback a year later.

3. An Apple Vision Pro headset $3.5K

   Each Vision Pro contains more pixels in its two tiny displays than a 4K television — packed into screens roughly the size of postage stamps.

4. The average new car in the United States $48K

   The average new-car price has nearly doubled since 2010, driven by buyers abandoning sedans for loaded SUVs and trucks.

5. Constructing the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building $1.5B

   It was renamed at the last minute for the president of Abu Dhabi, whose emirate bailed out Dubai during the 2009 debt crisis — it was to be called Burj Dubai.

6. The entire Apollo Moon program, in the dollars of its day $25.4B

   At its peak, Apollo employed about 400,000 people and consumed more than 4% of the US federal budget — per landing, each Moon mission cost less than a modern aircraft carrier.

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