Everest isn’t where the farthest point from the centre of the earth is. That honour belongs to the peak of Mount Chimborazo in Peru, which is some 2,000 meters “higher” than Everest.
This is because the earth is an oblate spheroid which bulges at the equator. The average sea level at the equator is over 21km farther from the centre of the Earth than it is at the poles.
I read somewhere that when Radhanath Sikdar measured Everest, he found it was exactly 20,000 feet. He knew that people would assume that such a neat number was an estimate, so he added 2 feet to make it look more like an exact measurement.
Kazakhstan (only Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus have more first-language Russians) is converting from Cyrillic script to Latin/Western script. Kazakh (a Turkic language - not Slavic) is the mother tongue of about 65% of the population. We are now in the middle of their five-year plan.
A sample highway sign shows Russian Cyrillic, Kazakh Cyrillic, and Kazakh Latin. Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet – here's why
29,000 feet 
Sounds like an estimate, that’s why he added 9002 feet.
Okay - 0 and 9 are next to each other on my keyboard.
Where did you find such a non-standard layout?
Speaking of layouts, whoever invented the QWERTY keyboard really didn’t think things through when they decided to put three vowels, u, i and o, right next to each other. I can’t count the number of time I have typed “in” when I mean “on” or “of” when I mean “if.”
Similarly, the Missississippippi River flows uphill: Its mouth is further from the center of the Earth than its head is.
This is so good I have to ask for a cite, just so I can be confident when I tell all my friends.
j
ETA: Missississippippi - am I being whooshed here?
Look hard enough and everything is on line: Earth radius by latitude.
Loosely speaking,
St Louis Min Altitude 117 m; latitude 37.5; Earth’s radius 6770 km
New Orleans Altitude 0 m; latitude 30; Earth’s radius 6773 km
Wonderful!
j
No whoosh; I was just feeling whimsical about spelllling.
Don’t know if you realize Americans learn to spell Mississippi in a sing-songy way at a very young age. Very easy and whimsical as stated to keep repeating portions of the spelling.
No, I didn’t know that - thanks.
j
And I can still, 60+ years later, sing that sing-song when typing the state name. That or get cracked across the knuckles for misspelling.
Ya mean like this?..
Nitpick: Chimborazo is in Ecuador.
I haven’t found one good site that has them all, and I guess various markets have their own personnel. When you listen to NPR, have you ever wondered what they look like?
According to Wikipedia: “Statuesque women in the South are called stallions”.
“Honey, you so fine, you like a huge, muscular horse with a penis!”
“Ah do declare, how you do flirt so eloquently, Cap’n Butler…”