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Highest Bridge in the World Nearing Completion
An anonymous reader writes "A weekend cookie for all engineering geeks out here. The central span of the Millau bridge (270 meters or 886 ft) has been completed!" The photo is awesome.
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Base Jump!
Nobodies Prefect
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..great, something i can stand on and pee my pants lookin off of...
im scared of heights, you insensitive clod!
I've never bungee jumped before, but that pic sure made me think about it. Damn! But I'm scared of heights...
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
Are these the same people who built the new terminal at Charles De Gaulle?
They get serious flooding in that valley.
Double Compile
..I can just see the headlines. "World's tallest bridge collapses! Engineers: 'What were we thinking?'"
Get your bungie jumping ropes and take a plane to france!!!
Just make sure you don't land at the new International Terminal. That would be dangerous
Does it run Linux?
Is there an engineering reason for it being this tall?
Because heights are the only thing the French aren't afraid of.
and the flood water reaches that high? amazing.
There's probably a sign before you drive onto the bridge that reads: "World's tallest bridge! World's highest toll!"
Double Compile
Let's hope that Vinci is the chintzy and fewer corners were cut on the bridge then.
And if not, look at it this way, you have a better chance of flying off their bridge than out of their airport.....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I mean, did they even bother to future-proof this thing so that when we reach the age of 300m high boats that it won't have to be torn down?
Because the german army hates to march up and down hills, of course.
So now the US Navy pilots have a slalom course in Europe. Sweet!
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Well, you Frenchmen are taxed enough, might as well use the money for something useful!
Obivously, they built the bridge to protect french culture from the cancer that is americanism. Too many people over there drive american-made cars rather than the home-grown Renault. As such, the prime minister made it a priority to get a law passed to protect people from the site of Fords and chevys. No foreign made cars are allowed below an altitude of 656 ft. 20% of the revenue from tolls will be used to firebomb McDonald's and to petition the UN to pass a resolution forbidding california vintners to call their brew "champagne".
There is a nice cobblestone road in the valley, for which people riding in horse-drawn carriages are welcome.
But let's talk about some of the other technical marvels of this bridge. Did you know that it has the most sensitive microphones ever built, placed every 20 feet of roadway. A supercomputer monitors them, filtering out road noise and wind, and doing speech recognition. It can detect someone saying "le weekend" with their windows rolled up while they're driving 80kph, and report them to the police instantly! Or how about the anti-gravity conveyors on the westbound lane, that will allow french citizens to retreat at over 500kph, should there ever be a need. These are the kinds of things yahoo just fails to mention.
But doesn't it seem more fitting to computer geeks if the road to Béziers is curved?
Darwin Awards!
That still doesn't explain the apparently unnecessary height. Or are higher bridgers faster?
... better than their server.
You know your right...
And on behave of all Americans we are so sorry we kept you from your destiny with your Nazi overlords.....
That's true. But the French are masters of deception. For example, the Maginot Line could not really be a defensive bulwark against Germany since Hitler could so obviously just drive around it. It was actually a party crib for the militizzle nizzles. A thousand mile long tube, it was the quintessential "penis boast".
Similarly this is not really a bridge. It is a French Terrorism Honeypot. It is just screaming to be blown up by one of those Arab terrorist cells and when they do... the french police will have it all on videotape and will put their top man on it, Inspector Clouseau. I wouldn't want to be one of those terrorists. I can tell you that.
A spectacular crash has just accured on the newly opened Millau bridge. Witnesses report that a small car collided with a truck causing the car to flip over the side rail. The driver of the car was seen climbing out of the falling car...
--The best thing about working at home... Homebrew!
Warning: mysql_connect(): Too many connections in /home/millau/public_html/pnadodb/drivers/adodb-mys ql.inc.php on line 170
mysql://millau1_us:@localhost/millau1_db failed to connectToo many connections
Better post this as funny :)
"No Fishing From Bridge"
(seriously!)
...but they missed the perfect opportunity to build the "world's tallest cloverleaf interchange".
Jump smart... you'll live longer.
Don't jump.
You'll live even longer.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.