Montreal_geo

 Sometimes it is a good idea to see oneself from the perspective of someone other.

Below, Montreal. Gets all the Geography right!!

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What is 232 meters in feet?

232 meters is approximately 761.15 feet.

Quick breakdown:

The exact conversion factor is 1 meter = 3.28084 feet

So: 232 × 3.28084 = 761.15488

Rounded to a clean number, you can say 761 feet.

If you want it in inches, yards, or compared to something familiar (like building heights), I can do that too.

How tall are the super high-rises on Billionaire's row in NYC?

The super‑tall towers on Billionaires’ Row rise from about 1,000 feet to over 1,550 feet, making them some of the tallest residential buildings on Earth. Here are the key heights of the major towers, grounded in the most authoritative sources available:

🏙️ Heights of the major Billionaires’ Row supertalls

Central Park Tower — 1,550 ft (472 m)

The tallest residential building in the world and the tallest structure on Billionaires’ Row. 

111 West 57th Street (Steinway Tower) — 1,428 ft (435 m)

The world’s most slender skyscraper, famous for its extreme 1:24 width‑to‑height ratio. 

432 Park Avenue — 1,397 ft (426 m)

One of the earliest “pencil towers” and a defining icon of the Row. 

One57 — ~1,005 ft (306 m)

Not as tall as the newer towers but historically important as the building that kicked off the Billionaires’ Row boom. (Height inferred from its classification as a supertall >300 m in the source.) 

🧭 What counts as “Billionaires’ Row”?

The term refers to the ultra‑luxury residential skyscrapers clustered along West 57th Street, just south of Central Park. Many of these towers exceed 1,000 ft (300 m), placing them in the supertall category. 

🏗️ Why they’re so tall

Developers compete for unobstructed Central Park views, which requires extreme height.

NYC zoning allows very high floor‑area ratios on 57th Street, enabling slender, ultra‑tall designs. 

Demand from global ultra‑wealthy buyers fuels the economics of building upward.

📌 Quick comparison table

                                                                               

For comparison, how tall is the Empire State Building?

The Empire State Building is 1,454 feet (443 m) tall at its very top, including the antenna. 

To compare directly with the Billionaires’ Row towers you asked about:

Tip height: 1,454 ft (443.2 m) 

Roof height (no antenna): 1,250 ft (381 m) 

Floors: 102 

📏 How it stacks up against Billionaires’ Row

Central Park Tower: 1,550 ft → taller than the Empire State Building’s tip

111 W 57th: 1,428 ft → slightly shorter than the Empire State Building’s tip

432 Park Ave: 1,397 ft → shorter than the Empire State Building

One57: ~1,005 ft → significantly shorter

If you want, I can put together a clean side‑by‑side height chart of all of them.

The ESB is an office tower built in 1930, in Art Deco style. Has it ever had structural problems??

Here’s the short, clear answer up front:

The Empire State Building has never had a structural failure, and it has never faced any fundamental structural problems.  

Its steel frame is famously over‑engineered and has proven exceptionally resilient for nearly a century.

That said, it has experienced a few notable incidents and engineering challenges — none of which compromised the building’s overall integrity.

🏗️ What the page you have open confirms

From the Empire State Building article you’re viewing :

1. The steel frame is extremely stiff and robust

The building was designed to handle heavy gravitational loads and strong winds.

Its structural stiffness is 42 lb/ft², higher than the Willis Tower (33) and John Hancock Center (26).

  

This is one reason it has aged so well.

2. It withstood a direct airplane impact in 1945

A B‑25 bomber crashed into the 79th–80th floors in fog, killing 14 people — but the building suffered only localized damage and reopened two days later.

  

This is often cited as proof of the building’s structural resilience.

3. No long‑term structural issues have ever been recorded

The article notes no foundational problems, no frame fatigue, and no major structural retrofits.

The building’s steel skeleton and limestone façade have held up remarkably well.

🧱 Minor or non‑structural issues over the decades

These are not structural failures, but they’re worth noting:

Airship mooring mast proved unusable due to dangerous wind conditions — but this was an operational issue, not a structural flaw.

Elevator modernization was required over time (normal for a 1930s skyscraper).

Not structural.

Broadcast antenna changes in the 1950s and after 9/11 required engineering work, but again, not structural problems.

Facade and window replacements occurred as part of modernization, not because of structural failure.

🧩 Why the ESB has aged so well

A few reasons:

Overbuilt steel frame — early skyscrapers used more steel than strictly necessary because engineers were still learning the limits.

Simple, symmetrical massing — no extreme cantilevers or slenderness ratios like modern “pencil towers.”

Deep foundations anchored in Manhattan schist — extremely stable bedrock.

Regular maintenance — as a landmark, it receives continuous care.

🏁 Bottom line

The Empire State Building has never had a structural problem that threatened its integrity.  

It remains one of the most solidly built skyscrapers ever constructed — a testament to early 20th‑century engineering.

If you want, I can compare its structural robustness to the modern super‑slender towers on Billionaires’ Row, which do face engineering challenges the ESB never had to deal with.

BDay

Ken,  Looks like I didn't wish you a Happy Birthday on your actual BD. Let me do so now:

Have a very Happy Birthday!. Below, a little ad-free music to enjoy this summer...

https://www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=Yw7X98ATN5A

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Perplexity Ai ...SpaceX, cont'd:

But then Apple stock became insanely valuable once the company matured... Maybe this is...

Yes—your intuition is reasonable, but it depends on what Apple had become at each stage. Apple’s mature years were still rewarded with a premium valuation because the market believed it could keep generating strong cash flow, expanding services, and defending its ecosystem, even as growth slowed.

That said, a company can be both mature and still valuable if it has huge profits, pricing power, and a loyal installed base. In Apple’s case, investors were not paying for raw sales growth alone; they were also paying for reliability, margins, and recurring revenue.

So the comparison to SpaceX is not a simple “high P/S means overvalued forever.” A high P/S can make more sense when a company is growing fast and has a credible path to much larger profits later, but it becomes much harder to justify if growth slows or losses stay large. Apple eventually looked expensive at times too, but it was a very different business profile from a pre-profit or deeply loss-making company.

A clean way to phrase your thought is:

“High revenue multiples can be justified for companies with exceptional scale, profitability, and durable competitive advantages, but not every expensive stock is an Apple-like exception.”

So for the humble investor, it is a trade-off between not wanting to miss out on what may be the opportunity of a lifetime, and not wasting what little investment capital one has!!??

Yes — that is basically the dilemma, and it is a real one in investing: the tension between FOMO and capital preservation.

On one side, some opportunities do become extraordinary winners, and missing them can matter a lot over time. On the other side, chasing a hot story can lead to overpaying, which increases the risk of permanent capital loss if the valuation cools or the business disappoints.

A sensible way to frame it is:

If the position is small, the upside of being early can be meaningful, but the loss should still be survivable.

If the position is large, preservation matters more, because one bad outcome can damage the whole portfolio.

If the thesis depends mainly on hype rather than fundamentals, caution is usually warranted.

So the humble investor is not choosing between “miss everything” and “buy everything.” The real task is to size risk so that you can participate in upside without turning one speculative idea into a capital-destroying mistake.

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https://chat.deepseek.com/share/95cb3snd6l23r5r5c9

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Asked Gemini Ai for the Graph...

https://gemini.google.com/share/d40366de9148

                                                                                           

SpaceX_IPO

 From the German-language MSN:

SpaceX is courting small investors - and that's not a good sign

Article by Frohn, Philipp • 1 day

June 12 could be a day of superlatives for the stock market: The US space company SpaceX is planning its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) for next Friday - at a valuation of around 1.8 trillion dollars. This would put SpaceX ahead of Meta and Tesla. It would be the largest IPO in history.

The IPO is likely to make SpaceX founder Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. Musk wants to raise around 75 billion dollars with the IPO. A good part of this is to come from private investors. SpaceX is courting these with conspicuous vehemence.

On Thursday, the neobroker Trade Republic first announced in a customer mail that it had been confirmed as a sales partner for the SpaceX IPO: Users should be able to subscribe to the shares. In the evening, the Flatex brand Degiro followed suit with a similar email. Meanwhile, even more banks and brokers are offering their customers to participate in the SpaceX IPO, including ING, Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank. This is remarkable because it is usually difficult or impossible for European private investors to get a direct hit on new US issues. At Trade Republic, it is even the first time that customers can subscribe to shares.

SpaceX is also targeting retail customers in the USA: Private investors will be able to participate in the IPO at the same time and at the same issue price as institutional investors via five online brokers – including Robinhood and Fidelity.

At first glance, this sounds like the "democratization of investment" that financial companies repeatedly invoke in the finest marketing speak: Everyone can participate.

In reality, however, SpaceX’s push toward retail investors is more of a warning sign for investors. It raises questions: Is Musk unable to place the roughly 555 million SpaceX shares that are set to go public with major institutional players? Does he need retail investors—even those in Germany—to fully sell the shares at his ambitious price expectations?

SpaceX is an extremely highly valued speculative stock. With a price-to-sales ratio of 94 for 2025, the space company is very expensive. At the same time, the company reported a net loss of just over $4.9 billion in the 2025 fiscal year. Many investment professionals are unlikely to be convinced by these figures. A Danish pension fund has already announced that it is placing SpaceX on its blacklist.

Another warning signal: SpaceX plans to offer its shares at a fixed price. Typically, IPOs include a price range as a way to test market demand at different valuations. A fixed price limits this price discovery process.

The fact that Musk is offering the shares at a fixed price suggests that he wants to defend SpaceX’s valuation—and may fear that the desired level would not be achieved through a standard pricing process. This shifts the risk toward investors, who now face an even greater danger of subscribing at an inflated price.

The recent decision by index provider S&P Global—not to approve a special rule for SpaceX, unlike Nasdaq—may also have contributed to Musk now increasingly targeting retail investors. The special rule that had been under discussion would have meant that the aerospace company could have been included in S&P indices and related ETFs more quickly than usual. Without the automatic demand boost from index investments, the stock will need to be more convincing after its debut in order to gain value.

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Perplexity AI:

Explain to me what a 'price-to-sales ratio' of a stock is...

A price-to-sales ratio, often written as P/S, tells you how much investors are paying for each dollar of a company’s revenue. It is calculated as the company’s market value divided by its sales, or on a per-share basis as share price divided by sales per share.

For example, a P/S ratio of 94 means investors are valuing the company at 94 times its annual sales. That is usually considered very high, but whether it is “too high” depends on the industry, growth expectations, and whether the company is profitable.

This ratio is especially useful for companies that are not profitable yet, because earnings-based measures like the P/E ratio may not work well in that case. In practice, investors usually compare a company’s P/S ratio with similar companies in the same sector rather than judging it in isolation.

For SpaceX in the article you were translating, the high P/S ratio is being used to argue that the stock is priced very aggressively relative to revenue.

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What constitutes a typical P/S ratio range for different industries?

Typical P/S ratios vary a lot by industry because some businesses naturally deserve higher revenue multiples than others. As a rough rule, capital-light, high-margin, high-growth sectors such as software, internet, biotech, and some semiconductors often trade at several times sales, while low-margin, asset-heavy, or highly cyclical sectors like airlines, grocery, and many distributors often trade below 1 times sales.

A practical way to think about it is:

Below 1.0: Often seen in mature, low-margin, or cyclical industries.

Around 1 to 3: Common in many ordinary businesses and mixed-quality growth companies.

Above 3 to 5: Usually indicates premium growth expectations or strong margins.

Above 5: Often found in very fast-growing sectors or especially favored companies, but it can also signal elevated risk if growth disappoints.

Examples from current industry data show wide dispersion: airlines around 0.46, grocery stores around 0.38, oil and gas refining around 0.64, while semiconductors are around 5.13 and biotechnology around 7.29. That is why a P/S ratio only makes sense when compared with peers in the same industry, not across unrelated sectors.

For a stock like SpaceX, a P/S of 94 would be far outside normal ranges for almost any industry, which is why the article treats it as a sign of very aggressive valuation.

Everest

https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/30/travel/everest-1996-disaster-guiding-industry-intl-hnk-dst-vis?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc&recs_exp=personalized-inline&tenant_id=homepage-module.web

Copilot:

Mount Everest; a big deal is made of people who have the reached the summit, but then one hears of the guides - sherpas - who make it all possible. Have these people been able to climb up all along??

Yes — Sherpas have been capable of climbing Everest‑level terrain long before Western climbers ever arrived, but they did not traditionally climb the high sacred peaks until foreign expeditions introduced mountaineering in the early 20th century.

🏔️ The key point

Sherpas always had the physical ability and high‑altitude adaptation to climb Everest, but they did not climb it for sport or conquest. Their culture regarded the highest mountains — especially Everest (Chomolungma) — as sacred, so they lived among them, traded across them, and worked at altitude, but did not attempt summits until hired by Western expeditions in the 1920s.

🌄 What Sherpas were doing long before mountaineering

Sherpas migrated from eastern Tibet centuries ago and settled in the high Khumbu region, living at 3,000–4,000 m and above. They:

farmed and herded at extreme altitude

traded across high passes like the Nangpa La

developed unique physiological adaptations to low oxygen

This meant that when British expeditions arrived, Sherpas were already far better adapted to altitude than any outsider.

🧗 When did Sherpas start climbing Everest?

Sherpas began climbing only when Western expeditions hired them as porters and guides:

1920s: Sherpas first employed on British Everest expeditions

1922: Tenzing Norgay among the first recorded Sherpa climbers to attempt Everest

Initially, they carried loads and fixed ropes, but soon became indispensable high‑altitude experts.

🏅 Did Sherpas reach the summit early on?

Yes — and famously.

1953: Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary became the first confirmed people to stand on Everest’s summit.

Norgay had already participated in multiple attempts in the 1930s–1950s and was considered the most experienced climber on the mountain.

Since then, Sherpas have summited Everest thousands of times, often multiple times per season, and are responsible for fixing ropes, carrying loads, and making the route possible for others.

🧭 So why do outsiders get most of the attention?

Historically, early expedition reports credited foreign climbers and treated Sherpas as hired labor rather than full team members. Only in recent decades has the global mountaineering community begun to acknowledge their central role.

⭐ Bottom line

Sherpas always had the ability to climb Everest.  

They simply didn’t climb sacred peaks until outsiders arrived, after which they quickly became — and remain — the world’s most skilled high‑altitude mountaineers.

If you’d like, I can also explain why Sherpas are so physiologically adapted to altitude, or how modern Sherpa climbers dominate Himalayan mountaineering today.

Rainy_Days

 For a long time, it has been assumed that the most extreme sacrifice that

could be asked of a citizen was to go to war for one's country, and possibly loose one's 

life doing it. Now it appears that there is worse: one can envisage going into space as 

a settler, and - at best - becoming a different life form. Still an American, no doubt, but an 

Martian-American !! Now that is weird!

Fine, the video above is perhaps a tad melodramatic, and some of these adaptation 

problems will need to find solution before anybody strutts out there. But physical things break 

down, and need replacement and repair. Material progress on Earth would be vertiginously rapid 

when seen from the vantage point of a Mars colony.

To be humane about it, people would need to be allowed to come back. Neanderthals and Early 

Humans were separated for long periods, but when they did meet they could still mate. In 

the case of settlement on Mars, this ability could well disappear quite quickly. So out and out

madness is never far!!

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It' supposed to keep raining till 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Just thought I would

share this little late-night moment. Kumail Nanjiani is a likeable comedian. Read on Wikipedia

that he studied philosophy; a kindred soul for me...

Thin_Air_Tech

 I saw a video, yesterday, which says China has developed the technology to create jet fuel directly... What is this about?

You almost certainly saw one of the new videos about China’s “jet fuel from air” projects — and yes, this is a real technology China is now deploying at industrial scale.  

The core idea: synthetic jet fuel made from CO₂ captured from the atmosphere + hydrogen made from water, powered by renewable electricity. This is called e‑fuel or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Below is the clearest, evidence‑based explanation of what’s actually happening.

✈️ The short answer

China has begun operating real factories that produce jet fuel directly from air and water, using:

Direct Air Capture (DAC) to pull CO₂ from the atmosphere

Electrolysis to split water into hydrogen

Fischer–Tropsch synthesis to turn CO₂ + H₂ into liquid hydrocarbons identical to kerosene

This is not a lab experiment — a Shanghai facility is already producing fuel, with larger plants planned.

🌍 What the videos are referring to

Several recent videos describe the same breakthrough:

1. A Shanghai company making jet fuel from air and water

A startup called Carbonology (founded 2024) opened a 300‑million‑yuan facility in January 2026 in Shanghai’s Lingang district.

It captures CO₂ from the air

Uses solar-powered electrolysis to make hydrogen

Synthesizes real jet fuel

First barrel produced in 2025

Scaling to 1,000 tons → 5,000 tons → 100,000 tons by 2027

2. China’s “six energy breakthroughs”

Multiple videos mention that China is building:

A liquid air battery in the Gobi Desert

A solar ammonia plant running continuously for 50 days

Artificial photosynthesis facilities

CO₂‑to‑chemicals bacteria plants  

These projects all support the same strategic goal: reducing dependence on imported oil, especially through the Strait of Malacca.

🔬 How “jet fuel from air” works (in simple terms)

Step 1 — Capture CO₂ from the atmosphere

Direct Air Capture machines filter air and trap CO₂.

Step 2 — Make hydrogen from water

Electrolyzers use renewable electricity (solar/wind) to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

Step 3 — Combine CO₂ + H₂ → hydrocarbons

Using Fischer–Tropsch chemistry, the plant produces:

Synthetic kerosene

Diesel

Other hydrocarbons identical to fossil fuels

This fuel works in existing jet engines with no modification.

🧭 Why China is doing this

According to the videos and reporting:

70% of China’s oil imports pass through the Strait of Malacca, a major strategic vulnerability.

Synthetic fuel lets China manufacture energy domestically using sunlight, air, and water.

The EU is mandating airlines use sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), guaranteeing a future market.

This is as much geopolitics as it is climate technology.

🧨 Is this “game-changing”?

Potentially yes — if scaled.

Advantages

Carbon-neutral (if powered by renewables)

Works with existing aircraft

Reduces oil dependence

Can be produced anywhere with enough electricity

Challenges

Currently expensive

Requires massive renewable energy

Scaling to millions of tons is non-trivial

But China is building the factories now, not waiting for 2035–2050 targets like many Western countries.

🎥 The exact video you likely saw

Based on your description (“China developed technology to create jet fuel directly”), the closest matches are:

,,,

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RMtyFRGi6h8?playlist=RMtyFRGi6h8&autoplay=1&iv_load_policy=3&loop=1&start=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGlduRCy8wQ

https://youtu.be/UpJ9yD_KDyg?si=WqXaHTsN5dKMaFFK

All three describe the same Shanghai synthetic-fuel facility.

If you want, I can also:

Explain the chemistry in more detail

Compare China’s approach to the U.S. and EU

Evaluate whether this could actually replace fossil jet fuel

Identify the exact video based on visuals you remember

Would you like a deeper technical explanation or a geopolitical one?

What the West is doing:

https://copilot.microsoft.com/shares/CWSqMgwgMG4ahSr9zeecB

Food_cleanliness

 Much hss been said about the lack of hygiene in historical palaces. Below, how

this relates to food salubrity.

... by the time of Queen Victoria!

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Learned a little trick (on Facebook) that can be used on YouTube that will disconnect those annoying

adds that start a viveo when one wants to listen to music!! One adds a dash after the 't'

of the YouTube address. That's it.

Go to end of the address, press enter.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/r8f0Ja5zq0k?playlist=r8f0Ja5zq0k&autoplay=1&iv_load_policy=3&loop=1&start=