SortStack #962 — 2029-01-26

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A single Powerball lottery ticket $2.00

   The odds of hitting the jackpot are about 1 in 292 million — you are far likelier to be struck by lightning multiple times in your life.

2. A full tank of gas for a midsize car in the US $45

   About half the pump price of US gasoline is the crude oil itself — refining, distribution, and taxes split the rest.

3. One year at Harvard, including tuition, room, and board $82K

   Harvard's endowment is so large that the university could theoretically let every undergraduate attend free and barely notice — financial aid means many already pay little.

4. A McLaren F1 supercar at its original Nineties sticker price $815K

   The engine bay was lined with real gold foil for heat reflection. The same cars now trade for over $20 million — among history's best car investments.

5. The median home in San Francisco $1.3M

   San Francisco is only about 121 square kilometers — smaller than Walt Disney World in Florida — which helps explain the brutal housing math.

6. The Codex Sassoon, the earliest most-complete Hebrew Bible $38.1M

   The roughly 1,100-year-old manuscript sold in 2023 and was donated to a museum in Tel Aviv — it had spent decades in private hands, rarely seen.

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