Do you want your name to go down in history? The Guinness Book of Records will ensure that. It has achievements for every taste, color and size.
We have already written about new world records in 2020 included in the Guinness Book of Records... And this article is about money. Or rather, about the most expensive and cheapest achievements from the Guinness Book of Records. Perhaps, having familiarized yourself with them, you will remember things that are more expensive or cheaper that have not yet come to the attention of the experts of the Book.
Cheapest Guinness World Records
5. The cheapest supercomputer decoder
In 2011, the American company Pico Computing released a mini-supercomputer for breaking codes, the price of which is only $ 400. It is the size of a regular desktop, but it has all the power of a supercomputer and is designed for military and government tasks, like other developments of Pico Computing.
The computers of this company are based on a programmable gate array (FPGA), also known as FPGA. It can be configured post-production, but it cannot be done using C or Java. The FPGA has to be programmed at the level of logic gates that give an on or off signal.
Despite such difficulties, Pico Computing products are in demand "in narrow circles", because computers with FPGA-matrix can be programmed for a specific computational task, with which they will cope much faster than solutions from Intel and AMD.
4. The cheapest car of all time
When A.O. The Smith Company from Milwaukee, USA, decided to get into the auto business, it was not looking to build the cheapest car in the history of the world. But that's exactly what she did in the end.
The car, initially called the Smith Flyer, and later became the Briggs & Stratton Flyer (the rights to its production were transferred to the firm Briggs & Stratton) cost from 125 to 150 dollars.
For this price, you received a vehicle without a body, muffler, shock absorbers, with a maximum speed of about 18 km per hour, and with little hope for the driver's survival in the event of an accident. But the services of the motorist were:
- wooden base-bench,
- hard seat,
- 4 wheels,
- 2 hp engine located on the fifth wheel.
And all this splendor was offered and bought from 1915 to 1925. Briggs and Stratton then sold the rights to the "flying bench," as the car was affectionately called, to another manufacturer, who eventually fitted it with an electric motor that powers the wheels. Then the traces of Flyer are lost, apparently he did not gain popularity.
3. The cheapest mobile home
Experts from the Guinness Book of Records did not give the exact cost of this Chinese miracle, presented at the Get It Louder in 2013. However, it is this one that is the cheapest mobile home in the world. Which is a small three-wheeled accordion construction based on a bicycle.
Polypropylene served as the material for the Off-Grid mobile home.
This tiny structure contains a kitchen with a sink, a water tank, a convertible bed and even an attachable garden trolley.
If necessary, several tricycle houses can be connected to each other to create additional space.
2. The cheapest hotel
Do you think this hotel is located in a third world country? But no, it was built in prosperous London, and is part of the budget hotel chain "Tune Hotels". It can be rented for £ 9 per day.
Moreover, for this amount the guest will receive not only a bed, but also a separate bathroom, shower, air conditioning and even a desk. And for an additional fee, you can get a TV, housekeeping, safe and hairdryer.
1. The cheapest Android smartphone
If we asked you which smartphone is best to buy, if the budget is limited to $ 35, then most likely we received a variety of answers. But the Guinness Book of Records has its own opinion on this matter. And it sounds like Jivi JSP 20. The price of the cheapest Android smartphone is $ 32. It was announced in 2014.
The phone is equipped with a 3.5-inch screen with a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels, a 1 Ghz single-core processor, 128 MB of RAM and a rear 2 MP camera.
At the time of the announcement, firmware 20 JSP was ancient Android in version 2.3.5 of Gingerbread. Perhaps the manufacturer released updates, although given the budget of this model, there are doubts that its relevance was kept afloat.
The most expensive Guinness World Records
5. The most expensive comic in the world
In August 2014, Action Comics # 1, the first installment of the American comic book series about Superman's adventures, was sold on eBay. The series began in 1938 by Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel, and since then the comic has been published until 2011.
One of the copies of the first edition was priced at $ 3,207,852. Well, perhaps its new owner cannot boast of the power of Superman, but he certainly has the power of money.
4. The most expensive type of animals kept in the zoo
The pride of China, the giant panda (Ailuropoda Melanoleuca), although exported outside the Middle Kingdom, is not at all for nothing. Four zoos in the American cities of San Diego, Atlanta, Washington and Memphis pay the Chinese government $ 1 million annually for the right to keep a pair of these rare creatures.
If the pandas bring offspring, then it costs the zoo $ 600,000.
Curiously, zoos in Australia and Thailand pay less than Americans ($ 300,000) for the right to own giant pandas. Why? Because America, according to the Chinese government, is a rich country, which means it can afford to pay more for Chinese animals.
3. The most expensive card in the world
Now you can plan a route and track it using a smartphone app or a navigator. But there were times when people had to rely solely on handmade cards. And the value of some of them only grew over time.
The most expensive map with the long name Universalis Cosmographia Secundum Ptholomaei Traditionem et Americi Vespucii Alioru [m] que Lustrationes (“World map built according to Ptolemy's method and supplemented with new lands from Amerigo Vespucci”) was created in 1507.
Its author - the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller - was one of the first to plot accurate latitude and longitude readings on a map, and also used the name "America" for the first time. The southern part of the New World was named after the Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci. At the same time, the cartographer used the Latin version of the name of the Florentine.
Interestingly, while the main map shows North and South America as two distinct parts of land separated by a narrow strait, there is a small map inset at the top edge that shows the isthmus connecting them.
Only one copy of the map has survived to this day. Its cost is $ 10 million. Now Waldseemüller's creation is kept in the Library of the US Congress.
2.The most expensive milkshake
In Russia, an inexpensive milkshake can be bought for 95 rubles. But those for whom the desire to impress others is more expensive than money can (after the coronavirus epidemic) go to New York and buy the world's most expensive LUXE milkshake.
Its price is $ 100 and the recipe includes many ingredients, including:
- edible 23-karat gold, which gives the finished dish a pleasant sheen;
- vanilla ice cream made from premium Tahitian beans;
- donkey-caramel sauce, yes, you read that correctly, this is a sauce that contains donkey milk;
- vanilla Madagascar beans;
- Jersey milk is tasty and very fatty.
And a number of other components, each of which increases the cost of the LUXE cocktail. Would you like to try it?
1. The most expensive covert operation
Or, rather, it is the most expensive declassified operation, because we will not know for a long time how much modern special operations cost. So here we are talking about Operation Cyclone, a program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency to arm and train Islamist rebel groups (known as "mujahideen") to fight the USSR in Afghanistan.
Between 1979 and 1989, the CIA channeled more than $ 2 billion to buy weapons, logistics and training for the mujahideen.
Operation Cyclone was the brainchild of Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter. He believed that the USSR or its proxies could be drawn into a protracted and senseless anti-insurgency campaign (Brzezinski called it "their Vietnam").
The long-term impact of this program has been controversial. Cyclone certainly played a role in weakening the Soviet Union and possibly precipitated its collapse. However, the lack of control over the distribution of weapons and military aid led to the strengthening of the Mujahideen, who later turned their weapons against their benefactors. From their midst came infamous terrorists such as Mohammed Omar and Osama bin Laden.