The latest cost estimate for California’s high speed bullet train project: $71 billion. Seems like a lot.

“The Ratio Eight coffee machine makes delicious pour-over coffee,” Bloomberg reports. “But is it worth $480?”

On the real estate front, there's good news, and bad news. The bad news is you can't afford Manhattan. The good news is that Brooklyn is—oh. Hm. Well, the good news is that Queens is—oh. Shit. Uhhh....

There is a new Most Expensive Apartment For Sale in NYC: a Park Avenue triplex for $130 million. Good luck selling that $110 million piece of shit now.

Although the rent on Manhattan apartments is far too expensive for you to afford, look on the bright side: the prospect of buying a Manhattan apartment is also a laughable dream that recedes ever farther from the realm of possibility (for you).

The US Department of Education has a handy new website that allows you to easily compare the prices of all types of colleges in America. Its real purpose is to keep us up-to-date on who to make fun of.

NYU spent four years and $120 million to tear up Mercer Street and install its new, eco-friendly subterranean power plant. Too bad it's currently on fire.

The Wall Street Journal offers the world's best coverage of banana museums. But we wouldn't pay $600,000 for it! The WSJ jacked up the price it's charging the White House's news clipping service to $600,000! Not gonna happen.

One heavily tattooed L.E.S. bike messenger lost a bike belonging to his roommate, another heavily tattooed L.E.S. bike messenger. Solution: Judge Judy. Sir, you paid how much for that bike? On what planet, sir? [BBNYC via City Room]

Artist of our age Damien Hirst must have a busy schedule, what with all the shark embalming and gluing little diamonds onto skulls and bidding on white truffles. But he's determined to make sure that his art remains within reach of the common people, who wear jeans and patronize over-the-top art world events. So he teamed up with all-American brand Levis—and the Andy Warhol licensing machine—to design some jeans that anyone can buy, assuming they have $80,000 (really) to spend on psychedelic pants. After the jump, photos of Hirst's new clothing items from last weekend's opening in LA. The smart consumer will wait until these go on sale at Filene's.

As part of its brave new plan to stop hemorrhaging money, Starbucks went out and bought a company called Clover that makes coffee machines. These Clovers cost $11,000 each, and brew one cup of coffee at a time. We're not math whizzes or anything, but at that rate, those better be some good fucking cups of coffee. So the New York Times sent a coffee connoisseur to taste seven kinds of beans from the new machine, and he came to the stunning conclusion: not even a magical $11,000 gadget can make burned coffee beans taste good.