World's Tallest Building To Open Monday

dtmos writes "The Burj Dubai ('Dubai Tower' in Arabic) is scheduled to open to the public on Monday. Its height, claimed to be 824.55m (2,705.2 feet), but believed to be 818m (2,684 feet) — either way, more than half a mile — makes it far taller than Taiwan's Taipei 101, which had been the world's tallest skyscraper at 509m (1,670 feet)."

Comments

Great timing

[ta bu shi da yu]

Right in time for the Dubai economy to start tanking.

Re:Great timing

[MichaelSmith]

You... want to buy a building? I can get you a great price.

Re:Great timing

[thePig]

Not quite. This building already made 10% more than what was spent. The company was hoping at max for break-even, since their whole idea was to make money from the 500 acres near it which is also owned by it.
That part might have to wait a little, but anything else now is a bonus.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm gonna save this gem for later. Well trolled, my friend, well trolled.

Re:Great timing

[MichaelSmith]

AMERICAN PATHETIC LOSER GHETTO ASS

Thats an Australian PATHETIC LOSER GHETTO ASS thanks.

Abu Dhabi is sitting on 7 TRILLION dollars of money, real cash, they made from oil trade

There is more to life than money, and you should know that. My personal measure of a good city is one I can ride my bike around in reasonable safety. From what I have read, Dubai fails on that account.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's Australia's big cities out - because you'd be suicidal to ride around Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne on a bike.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa! I didn't know the strawman had a real name!

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

So you'd agree with Cadel Evans that Australian cities aren't any good then.

Re:Great timing

[feepness]

The Chrysler State Building was completed in 1930. The Empire State Building in 1931. The WTC completed at the start of the 1970s stagflation.

Construction hubris and economic crash seem to be close companions.

Re:Great timing

[MichaelSmith]

Oh definitely. I ride a bike to work in Melbourne and I agree totally we have serious problems.

Re:Great timing

[MichaelSmith]

Its pretty dangerous, bot not as suicidal as it would be in Dubai.

Re:Great timing

[jcr]

About two years late for that, actually.

-jcr

Re:Great timing

[amRadioHed]

Or it could be that every decade sees several new highest buildings erected in various places, regardless of pending economic troubles. Any correlation between ongoing construction hubris and economic crashes is likely coincidental.

Re:Great timing

[Jeeeb]

Construction hubris and economic crash seem to be close companions.

Come on think about it for a bit. They didn't build this in the last few months. Burj Dubai was started during an economic boom. I doubt anyone was predicting that it would be completed in an economic crash.

Although you are right about construction and economic downturn going hand in hand. It's a great way for government to keep people employed reducing discontent. It can potentially have some follow through stimulus effects. It can be seen as a form of investment. I.e. the infrastructure has future value (generally speaking).

Re:Great timing

[ta bu shi da yu]

You'd be amazed how many people ride bikes in Sydney.

Re:Great timing

[feepness]

That reasoning is both specious and incorrect. The Empire State Building, in fact, remained the tallest building in the world from 1931 until the WTC was completed four decades later, then eclipsed by the Sears Tower the very next year, which remained the tallest building in the world until 1998. Of the five buildings that surpass the Sears Tower, four of them were built in the last half decade.

Perhaps you can spot the correlation now.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

So what do you have to say about this Mr Australian http://www.smh.com.au/national/online-fury-over-stabbing-death-of-indian-man-20100103-lnb9.html. It is amazing how one can jump to any conclusion without actually knowing the place and its people.

Re:Great timing

[amRadioHed]

Ok, but the preceding reasoning was just as specious. Did significant regional economic troubles follow the construction of Taibei 101 or the Petronas Towers? Not that I can tell.

It's not impossible that there is a correlation here, since as we just saw real estate bubbles can be a symptom of serious financial problems, but just by looking at the few tallest building records from the last century isn't enough to build a case on.

Re:Great timing

[feepness]

Did significant regional economic troubles follow the construction of Taibei 101 or the Petronas Towers?

The Petronas Towers were initiated during the boom which preceded the Asian Financial Crisis.

I would consider Taipei 101 to be part of the financial boom engineered following the Dotcom crisis and 9/11.

You are correct that this is only a correlation. I am recalling it from a study I read that also included an analysis of the fortunes of those who financed and those who operated these "tallest" projects. They were not good. I wish I could recall the author/book I read it from. I apologize for my inability to do so.

Re:Great timing

[yobjob]

I'm not the other guy, but I'd agree here. Australian cities across the board are not very safe for cycling, the clear exception being Canberra. Although it's rather ironic that Canberra, the safest cycle city with dedicated bike only lanes to every corner of the metropolitan area, is the only city in which I've been hospitalised from "Car v Bike" injuries! I'd still rate Sydney as the worst overall, with Adelaide having the most individually dangerous roads, and Perth being too far away to care.

And of course, this has just about as much to do with Dubai's stunning achievment in engineering as people getting stabbed in Melbourne. My, what an emotional thread this is!

Re:Great timing

[MichaelSmith]

I can see why those people are angry. I have been a victim of violence here myself. As for cycling in Dubai this article is consistent with others I have read:

Dubai is not a very bicycle-friendly city but there are plenty of areas where you can ride, and it can be a great way to explore as well as keep fit. The pedestrian areas on both sides of the creek are pleasant places for a spin, especially in the evening, and riding through the souks can also be an experience. Clubs and groups of cyclists generally ride at the weekends, and early mornings and evenings when roads are quieter and the temperatures are cooler. If you have no choice but to ride in busy areas, exercise a lot of care and attention. Although helmets are not legally required, it is recommended that you wear one considering how crazy Dubai traffic can be. Outside the city limits the roads are flat until you near the mountains. Jebel Hafeet near Al Ain, the Hatta area of the Hajar Mountains, and the central area in the mountains near Masafi down to the coast at either Fujairah or Dibba, offer interesting paved roads with better views. The new road from Hatta through the mountains to Kalba on the east coast is probably one of the most scenic routes in the country.

Re:Great timing

[A12m0v]

lol what?

Burj Dubai wasn't built nor designed by Arabs. The architect was Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, structural engineer was Bill Baker, and it was built by cheap labor from South Asian countries like India and Bangladesh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Dubai

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrysler State Building?

Re:Great timing

[jonbryce]

Abu Dhabi has lots of money, and lots of oil, yes, and has followed traditional prudent Islamic financial practices.

Dubai has very little oil, and lots of debt, and has not followed traditional prudent Islamic financial practices, instead preferring to be more "westernised".

When Dubai World Ports (nothing to do with Abu Dhabi) took over Peninsular and Oriental from the British, the Americans forced them to sell the US ports division as a condition of allowing the sale to go through.

Re:Great timing

[Chris Mattern]

Abu Dhabi is sitting on 7 TRILLION dollars of money, real cash, they made from oil trade. So, doesn't matter if Dubai is broken

Yes, it does. It matters a lot. Putting aside that you have exaggerated Abu Dhabi's reserves by a factor of about five (and that's including their sovereign investment fund, most of which is NOT cash and would be difficult to liquidate on a large scale on short notice), Abu Dhabi has no obligation to cover Dubai's debts. They may cover some of them, but they have already given indications that there a limits to how far they'll go.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother arguing with amRadioHead. He's just one of those "correlation does not imply causation" faggots.

Re:Great timing

[yabos]

Osama? I thought you were dead or locked up in some super secret US prison

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they put as mosque on the top? I tought a mosque must be the tallest building in town...

Re:Great timing

[ceoyoyo]

It could be regression to the mean. You only start giant construction projects during a boom period, and when a boom regresses to the mean our growth-requiring economic theory calls it a recession.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for hitting the 'Submit' key before strapping on your explosive filled vest, which seems to be the greatest achievement of the current Arabic 'civilization'. The only Arabic contributions to that building are paying for it, finding a spot to put it, and eventually driving a truck bomb into it. Have fun!

Re:Great timing

[MiniMike]

Might find this tidbit from CNN interesting:

Last month the emirate was bailed out to the tune of $10 billion by neighboring Abu Dhabi after its state-owned holding company, Dubai World, shocked investors but asking for a freeze on payments owed on its $26 billion in debts.

The announcement by Dubai World -- an umbrella group which includes the Burj's developers, delivered a cold dose of reality to speculators worldwide who believed the oil-rich region was impervious to the global financial crisis.

Re:Great timing

[Aldenissin]

So what do you have to say about this Mr Australian http://www.smh.com.au/national/online-fury-over-stabbing-death-of-indian-man-20100103-lnb9.html. It is amazing how one can jump to any conclusion without actually knowing the place and its people.

Does every stabbing have to be hate related? Of course it does, evil wants us to hate and look for reasons to do so.

Re:Great timing

[Aldenissin]

Construction hubris and economic crash seem to be close companions.

Come on think about it for a bit. They didn't build this in the last few months. Burj Dubai was started during an economic boom. I doubt anyone was predicting that it would be completed in an economic crash.

Well, I think I will next time. :) It seems that the stock markets can indeed have a correlation between the boom to start a building and the crash just about the time it is done. Interesting.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that posting was ghetto.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, I thought that mathematics was the single greatest achievement of the Arab nation. Silly me.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

2 things - the GP is a yank, and you got trolled.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Proving that lots of oil may give you money, but you are still a nouveau riche and utterly without-class society of uneducated violent thugs and religious fanatics. Enjoy your caliphate, moron. But if it tries to come anywhere near our civilized parts of the world, please do understand that your desert will be nuked to a toasty, glassy finish.

Re:Great timing

[Trailer Trash]

Burj Dubai wasn't built nor designed by Arabs. The architect was Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, structural engineer was Bill Baker, and it was built by cheap labor from South Asian countries like India and Bangladesh.

Using money culled from American gasoline stations...

Re:Great timing

[oldspewey]

Canberra is one of the best cycling cities I've ever visited.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that I needed to put the word 'current' in capital letters in a large blinking font for you to see it. Yes, silly you.

Or do you consider a 'Golden Age' that ended around 1600 AD current? What's been done since then that's noteworthy instead of notorious?

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say we are a diverse country with 98% of the population immigrants, so it's not unusual for a foreign national to be caught up in everyday violence.

Re:Great timing

[wmac]

I have a question!

Do you know what happens if a single missile comes does on Dubai City? I mean just one.

If you don't know let me tell you. It becomes a city of spirits and buildings. That easy. No one ever again will bring his money to that city.

BTW I have been in there and I know very much about UAE, its economy, government and everything else.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Abu Dhabi is sitting on 7 TRILLION dollars of money, real cash, they made from oil trade. So, doesn't matter if Dubai is broken (they got no oil...).

I hope it's all in singles because if the US goes down it will be good for wiping your ass and that's about it.

Re:Great timing

[eugene ts wong]

You know, I was thinking a very similar thing. At first, I thought that a tall building would be great, in general, because of the smaller footprint per square foot of floor space. Then I thought about what the building is about. Does the building help to create community or encourage foot traffic? I doubt it. So, I'm not excited about it.

Re:Great timing

[dwye]

> Right in time for the Dubai economy to start tanking.

The Dubai economy already tanked (they are the "Arabs" without oil, just a good location between Arabia and India) months ago, and Abu Dhabi (Arabs WITH oil) bailed them out.

OTOH, the Empire State Building was finished in the depths of the Great Depression, and took decades to fill up. Again, the towers of the World Trade Center were finished after the US went into a recession, and took years to fill up (that is why Cantor Fitzgerald was able to get the top floors). This sort of thing happens in every downturn, since SOMEONE has to be last to start the biggest whatever and get caught when the economy tanks.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to point out the irony of someone threatening to nuke a country into oblivion calling himself "civilized," but I'm sure it would be lost on you...

Re:Great timing

[abigor]

then eclipsed by the Sears Tower the very next year, which remained the tallest building in the world until 1998

No, the CN Tower in Toronto was completed in 1976 and was the world's tallest building until 2007, when it was beaten by Burj Dubai. It's still the tallest building in the Americas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cn_tower

Re:Great timing

[Nuskrad]

Except that the majority of the CN Tower does not have usable floor space, and therefore is not comparable to other skyscrapers. The general authority on these matters is the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, and they do not consider the CN Tower to be a building.

By your logic, the Warsaw Radio Mast, built in 1974 was taller than the CN Tower.

Re:Great timing

[mosb1000]

The CN tower was the world's tallest structure, but it's not a building in the conventional sense since it is not filled with floors for people to live/work on. Yes, it is still the tallest structure in the Americas.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

"...doesn't have usable floor space??!!??!..."

Funny, I seem to have had several very nice meals, in their very nice(expensive) restaurant, up near the top...didn't seem crowded to me in the least...I thought there was lots of "usable floor space"...maybe you should actually visit it sometime, before spouting off nonsense...

Re:Great timing

[MaWeiTao]

The Petronas Towers were indeed linked fairly closely to the Asian Financial Crisis. Taipei 101, however, had little to do with the dotcom boom. Construction on the building, first of all, began well after that bubble burst. And secondly, Taiwan has a robust economy that is dependent on far more than internet startups.

I was living in Taiwan when the bubble burst in the US. Taiwan felt it before Americans wanted to acknowledge it was coming. When the US was at the height of that recession, after 9/11, Taiwan was already recovering.

Re:Great timing

[abigor]

Hmm, I had no idea they distinguished between a "tower" and a "building" - I stand corrected!

That said, they do distinguish between radio towers and other towers, as they call the CN Tower the world's tallest still. I suppose it might be because radio towers generally aren't freestanding? Not sure.

Re:Great timing

[ckaminski]

The bhuddist in me would claim that every stabbing/murder short of self-defense (including war), is motivated and predicated by hatred.

But that's just me.

Re:Great timing

[Nuskrad]

If you're going to quote me, at least quote me all instead of selectively quoting. I said the majority of the CN Tower does not have usable floor space. That is, it doesn't have the 50% required to be recognised as a building by the CTBUH. It's basically just a big lift shaft with a few floors on the top.

Re:Great timing

[A. B3ttik]

Unless you are referring to the really steep hills, Sydney is one of the best places in the world for a nice bike ride or a relaxing walk.

Re:Great timing

[md65536]

Is the Ryugyong Hotel also evidence?

It's not coincidental. There is at least a logical connection. If you're building with "exaggerated pride or self-confidence" you are likely exceeding your means or relying on a source of funding that isn't reliable. If you're doing that, you may be creating risk that can turn a downturn into a crash. Likewise, a crash tends to happen after a period of prosperity, during which excessive spending and self-confidence in things like building construction is at its highest.

Tall buildings are not all built with the same degree of hubris, and not all builders are hit with a downturn of the same degree and timing. But the connection applies even at the level of individuals: If you're building a home, the more you exceed your means, the harder you'll fall.

Re:Great timing

[Captain Splendid]

That was fucking awesome. The quality of the trolling here has picked up of late.

Re:Great timing

[mgblst]

Yeah, I am one of them, and hardly anybody does. Compare it to a European city, and it is a joke.

Sydney's roads are not wide enough for cars, let alone cars and a bike. Sydney is one of the shittest cities I have ever lived in for transport, and I have lived in medieval cities with roads thrust upon them, around castles and ancient walls.

NSW is the only state to have a transport minister AND a roads minister, whose entire job is to build MORE roads. For a city that has had a higher increase of cars over the last 10 years than people.

Sydney is a shithole.

Re:Great timing

[mgblst]

Bullshit. Canberra has great parks to ride through, and nice wide streets, but everything is so far away, it becomes a joke. Sure, if you only want to ride around the city, you are ok. But you need to go to one of the 5 satellite suburbs, it becomes a real pain.

Plus, Canberra is the most boring city in the world, it has actually sucked the life out of people flying overhead. Planes will no longer fly over it anymore, seriously, look it up.

Re:Great timing

[mgblst]

Fuck off. Maybe you are talking about one of the isolated parks miles out of town. But if you actually want to travel by cycling, it is a joke of a city.

I guess you are one of those people who drive to the sea or a park, and get your bike out of the boot. Fuck you.

Re:Great timing

[RockDoctor]

You... want to buy a building? I can get you a great price.

In Dubai? Is it for scrap? Are the Chinese buying?
I can't imagine what, apart from being given a fairly substantial lump of money, would give me any grounds to go back to the sunny, sub-tropical Emirates on a visit. And I simply can't comprehend the idea of actually living there.
On an integer scale running from "zero" to "profound shithole", of scale length "one", Dubai (and Abu Dhabi ; I can't speak for Sharja. Yet.) do not score zero.

Re:Great timing

[XDirtypunkX]

I'd say Brisbane's roads are worse than even Adelaide in terms of danger. It's like instead of some sort of city planning, they just built roads where a special needs kid scrawled with a crayon.

Anecdotally, Brisbane is the only Australian city where I've personally witnessed the aftermath of an accident where a truck hit a man riding a bike. I actually had to drive between his corpse and his severed leg (it was the only open lane) while the police and paramedics tried to hold onto their lunches.

Re:Great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late... it's called Burj Kalifah now.

More than tallest building

[ari_j]

This is the tallest manmade structure in the world, freestanding or otherwise. The previous record was held by a TV mast in eastern North Dakota, which took the lead when a mast in Poland fell down if I am not much mistaken about the history. This building has occupied floors higher than the world's tallest TV mast. The only thing possibly taller would be offshore oil rigs, but I can't remember how those stack up against it. A very impressive accomplishment, so long as it stays standing through Monday.

Re:More than tallest building

[pecosdave]

Monday - Worried a Jew or American Capitalist pig might fly a plane into it or something?

Re:More than tallest building

[MichaelSmith]

You could launch sailplanes by dropping them from an upper storey, and have enough altitude to go off looking for lift. Hmmm I wonder if they encourage or prohibit parasailing.

Re:More than tallest building

[ls671]

> freestanding or otherwise

I have regularly worked to build more than 1 mile tall structures while working on the oil rigs back then. We inserted permanent steel casing after digging the hole most of the time so the casing would constitute a taller non-freestanding permanent steel structure ;-)

While drilling in the Rockies, we were well above sea level so our steel structures would actually be standing higher than the 'Dubai Tower' which I think is is at sea level (or almost).

The deapeast holes are well above 5 miles !

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/AdamCassino.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well

Re:More than tallest building

[PingPongBoy]

The only thing possibly taller would be offshore oil rigs, but I can't remember how those stack up against it

In the open sea height is not your friend. Some platforms that have legs all the way down operate at depths up to 170 m. The above-water portion is about the size of a regular office tower. The deep water platforms float, so their height doesn't include the water depth.

Re:More than tallest building

[Trepidity]

This building has occupied floors higher than the world's tallest TV mast.

That part isn't actually true (though not by much). The roof of Burj Dubai's highest occupied floor seems to be 620m or so, slightly less than the 629m TV mast (the last 200m or so of Burj Dubai is unoccupied structure). However, the structure as a whole is much taller than any other structure, and the highest occupied floor is over 100m higher than any other building's occupied floor.

Re:More than tallest building

[Majik Sheff]

nah, it'd have to be the prince cooperating with an international cabal to plant explosives/incendiaries in the building and setting them off at the exact moment volunteers fly aircraft into it.

Re:More than tallest building

[Boronx]

That's not how we'll take it down.

Re:More than tallest building

[Anonymous Coward]

Monday - Worried a Jew or American Capitalist pig might fly a plane into it or something?

I'd say there was more risk from fellow arabs. Dubai is considered the most decadent country in the middle east by the radicals. Also the radicals have killed far more arabs than Americans, or non arabs collectively even. The tower is definitely see as a symbol of capitalism in the middle east so the odds of an attack are fairly strong. It's unlikely a complete collapse is possible but an airliner would do major damage and could do more damage than could easily be repaired. I'm equally sure if it does happen the west and the Jews will get blamed for it no matter who is at the controls.

Re:More than tallest building

[amRadioHed]

I'm not sure how having a building at a higher elevation in the Rockies is relevant. If height above sea-level is considered instead of height above local ground-level then the first homeless guy to set up a cardboard box in Denver beat the Dubai Tower by half a mile.

Re:More than tallest building

[ls671]

Agreed, I was just raising the question whether an oil well permanent casing, 2 miles or more tall, could qualify as a non-freestanding structure ;-)

It sure would be noticeable with some sort of ground scanning device when looking at the planet. I mean, they are all over the place and their height can be an order of magnitude taller than the conventional structures we were talking about ! ;-)

Re:More than tallest building

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is, Sky News (our equivalent of Faux News) ran a report on that building sometime around the end of the summer, and one of the scenes they shot of it showed a plane flying across behind the tower, but was shot from an angle that made it appear as if it was flying straight into it. No joke. They re-ran the same report the day after with that particular shot omitted.

Seems like you're far from the first to have that idea. :)

Re:More than tallest building

[Anonymous Coward]

no. they'll bomb the whole building from the air if there is a "suspected" "terrorist" inside.

Re:More than tallest building

[TheCarp]

Duh! No.

They will let the terrorist blow it up. Insurance policies wouldn't pay off otherwise.

Given how much must be riding on their ability to fill this place out to bring in gobs of disposable income, well... I wouldn't be surprized that someone wouldn't be looking for an exit strategy with recent economic news.
 

Re:More than tallest building

[sznupi]

...which took the lead when a mast in Poland fell down if I am not much mistaken about the history...

Yup, radio mast in Konstantynow which fell down in 1991 due to cable handling error during maintenance (which was a bit neglected anyway). 646 meters, though supposedly chosen because it was half-wavelength of its transmission (giving it fabulous "range")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_radio_mast

Re:More than tallest building

[sznupi]

Having at least a parachute while living on upper floors might be a good idea in such a building...

Re:More than tallest building

[Muad'Dave]

Americunts like you lack the education required to understand the difference between the words you are so ignorant of.

Education indeed.

That would be:

Americunts like you lack the education required to understand the difference between the words of which you are so ignorant.

Re:More than tallest building

[WindBourne]

It's unlikely a complete collapse is possible but an airliner would do major damage and could do more damage than could easily be repaired.
Interesting. That was exactly the same phrase uttered on WTC and sears.

Re:More than tallest building

[Muad'Dave]

You're correct about it being a half-wavelength, but that has less to do with 'range' and more to do with matching the impedance of the antenna with that of the transmitter. An antenna that is a half wavelength and fed in the center is called a dipole, and typically presents an impedance of 50-80 ohms to the transmitter (with most of being purely resistive, one hopes). This arrangement would allow the station to omit a matching circuit, which would be enormous and costly for 2 MW of power.

Re:More than tallest building

[donaggie03]

Well played sir, well played.

Re:More than tallest building

[ari_j]

You raise a valid point. I'm from oil country myself, and hadn't considered well casing - made of the same two main materials as the Burj Dubai, at that, good old steel and concrete. Most of our current drilling is to around 10,000 ft. as I understand it, with another 2 miles of horizontal drilling once you get there, but I don't know that the horizontal legs are cased. At any rate, straight-bore holes have been drilled well beyond a mile for a long time, so if you count basements they win hands-down.

Re:More than tallest building

[ari_j]

I'm thinking it will stand tall for a long time. I just try not to account for remote possibilities in wishing people luck. That's the particular breed of American capitalist pig I am!

Re:More than tallest building

[MiniMike]

No building is invincible, but I'm sure the lessons learned from the WTC were well studied when designing this building. Especially as this is such an obvious target.

Re:More than tallest building

[sznupi]

I'm not really into details with radio tech, I saw it up to this point basically as "gives the biggest 'range' for the amount of effort", so not that far from your explanation luckily ;) (though I assumed it was some kind of resonance...and the links basically support that notion?)

Re:More than tallest building

[elrous0]

If Dubai's economy keeps tanking, America will just buy it (with money the Chinese loan them).

Re:More than tallest building

[ls671]

Agreed, I was digging holes in the ground between 1979-1984 and the average depth was also 10,000 feet, with the deepest close to 14,000 feet. I think I remember having to add 1 loop of cable going around the block when getting close to 14,000 feet. The rigs were "a-leg" style, triple.

I only dug straight holes (no directional drilling). We would drop a survey tool hold by a wire down the hole (inside the drill pipes) every so many feet to make sure we remained straight ;-)

The tool was really basic; inside it, a small weight hung by a string would have a part be pushed by a spring at a time preset by us and punch a mark on a little paper target below. If our pipes were straight, the punch mark would have to be in the middle of the target ! ;-)

Re:More than tallest building

[Martian_Kyo]

or...just buy it

Re:More than tallest building

[ari_j]

Oilfield tools have always been fascinating to me. The technology is all really simple on one level, but incredibly complex when you take into account what it has to go through in a typical day. From mud motors to the exhaust plume from the diesels when you trip out 4 miles of drilling pipe, it's just cool stuff. Then there's the guy I know who made his millions doing nothing but fishing tools out of holes, which tells me that even your basic "how straight is the hole?" gizmo wasn't cheap, if it was on the list of things worth paying a guy to fish out when it gets dropped.

Re:More than tallest building

[Anonymous Coward]

The detail is in free-standing or otherwise. Tallest structure, not tallest free-standing building. You could also claim the Chinese wall isn't the longest building, because it is a wall.

Re:More than tallest building

[interploy]

I believe he's referring to the total building height, as opposed to the building height that's above ground. In which case he may be right, although I don't recall the sub-levels of a building ever being factored in when measuring its height so it's a moot point.

Re:More than tallest building

[zippthorne]

Well, at least they won't have to worry about muslims trying to terror it into the ground. That's the reason why the replacement for the WTC towers is going to be uninspiringly non-superlative.

Re:More than tallest building

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this not +5 yet?

Re:More than tallest building

[GodfatherofSoul]

You know that hanging preposition thing isn't a real rule of grammar right?

Re:More than tallest building

[ls671]

Dropping tools down the hole is something I have never seen in my 5 years career.

The reason why you need to fish them out is not because of the price of the tool but because of the price of the well ! ;-))

Most tools are made of hardened steel which isn't found in nature so no drilling rig machinery can drill through them. I heard stories of holes that were abandoned, hence all the invested money on them was lost because they couldn't manage to fish some dropped tools out of it so they couldn't resume drilling. There was even stories about drill strings that could not get pulled out of the hole because it was stuck due to a dropped tool. Same result; abandoned well plus abandoned drill string. (Remember that the drill bit is always bigger than the drill string, hence it can easily get stuck)

Even if you finally manage to fish the tool out, it takes special equipment and the drilling can be postponed for 2 to 3 days before that equipment gets there and sometimes up to 2 weeks before they manage to get it out, which drilling contractors and oil companies do not like ;-)

Back to "my tool", it was attached to a wire and dropped into the drill pipes. So even if the wire broke or if got stuck in the pipes, we would not have to fish it out because it wasn't dropped directly into the hole. The tool couldn't go through the drill bit so it was always kept inside the drill string. Pull the drill string out in the worst case scenario ;-)

Anyway, dropping tools down the hole could easily get you fired back then ;-)

Oh, and other horror stories included dropped drill bits, dropped drill strings, hitting underground rivers and losing your drilling mud and also tight holes where the Earth squeezes your drill string.

I remember working on a tight hole and getting stuck for a few days until Schlumberger got to the well and injected special liquid into it. A guy gave me a Schlumberger hard hat and I kept wearing it afterward while working ;-)
http://www.slb.com/

Re:More than tallest building

[BJH]

Guy I used to work with basejumped off the Burj Dubai while it was under construction - the video's on Youtube.

Re:More than tallest building

[nomadic]

You're correct about it being a half-wavelength, but that has less to do with 'range' and more to do with matching the impedance of the antenna with that of the transmitter. An antenna that is a half wavelength and fed in the center is called a dipole [wikipedia.org], and typically presents an impedance of 50-80 ohms [radio-electronics.com] to the transmitter (with most of being purely resistive, one hopes). This arrangement would allow the station to omit a matching circuit, which would be enormous and costly for 2 MW of power.

No no no. You are completely and utterly wrong. You obviously don't know the first thing about engineering, radio technology, or even basic physics.

Nah I'm just messing with you...All I know about radios is you press the on button and suddenly voices come from the magic box. I assume it's some sort of sorcery.

Re:More than tallest building

[Anonymous Coward]

> You know that hanging preposition thing isn't a real rule of grammar right?

Whenever anyone 'corrects' me on a hanging preposition, I say: "Fuck you, and the horse on which in you rode!"

Re:More than tallest building

[Gordonjcp]

You'd still need a matching circuit, because a half-wave end-fed aerial must be fed with a high-impedance source. The wikipedia page says that there was 120kV across the two metre high insulator at the base.

Normally if you used a quarter-wave aerial you can feed that directly at about 50 ohms, with a massive current.

Re:More than tallest building

[Muad'Dave]

It doesn't say it's an end-fed mast radiator, although that's probably the most likely since there's a wacky pipe leading up the side to DC ground the center of it.

I'd bet the final amps are tube-based, so the high feed impedance isn't as big a deal as if they were solid state.

I agree that there's likely a matching network - I'd like to see the tube that can handle 120kV!

Re:More than tallest building

[ElSupreme]

The WTC also was designed to take a hit of a SMALER plane that actually hit them. They were designed to take a 737 (maybe 717) and they had 767s hit them. The planes that hit them were WAY bigger than design.

Re:More than tallest building

[MaWeiTao]

Last year a couple of guys a couple of guys BASE jumped off the Burj Dubai. They managed to get away with it. If I remember correctly, one of the guys went back for a second attempt and I think he was arrested. The video of the jump was available online.

Re:More than tallest building

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the type of english up with which I will not put.

Re:More than tallest building

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, you are comparing apples and tires.

1. buildings are *ANCHORED* at their foundations. (bottom)
2. oil rigs, are mostly anchored on top. Actually, they are floated over the wellhead when the drilling rig is removed. Basically, they are anchored at both top and bottom with calm seas between them (ocean currents don't travel at 50 knots shifting directions 250m below the surface)

Saying that, having a giant eyesore like that, not sure, but whatever floats Dubai's boat I guess.

Re:More than tallest building

[Gordonjcp]

I'd bet the final amps are tube-based, so the high feed impedance isn't as big a deal as if they were solid state.

They will be. Transistor PAs are mostly only used in flea-power broadcast transmitters, up to about 10-20kW.

Re:More than tallest building

[jc42]

... he words you are so ignorant of.

That would be:
... the words of which you are so ignorant.

That may deserve a "funny" mod, but not "insightful". It's based on a bogus rule of English grammar that derives from attempts to impose Latin grammar on a Germanic language.

The "prepositions" at the ends of phrases are more properly called adverbial particles. They're a distant relative of prepositions, but they don't act at all like prepositions. They don't take noun phrases as objects; they're grammatically part of the verb. They're part of a grammatical construct that is found in all the Germanic languages. If you've studied German, you've heard them called "separable prefixes", because in German they sometimes appear immediately before the main verb, but usually at the end of the clause. We don't use them as prefixes in English, so we don't call them that. In English, their regular position has always been at the end of the clause, the same place that German (and Swedish and Dutch and ...) put them for simple verbs.

The reason we have so much trouble in English with pseudo-rules like the ban on final prepositions is that we had a long history in which only Latin grammar was taught in schools, because the grammar of the local vernacular was beneath the dignity of scholars to waste their time teaching (or even learning). So "grammar" meant the way things were phrased in Latin, and anything in the vernacular that wasn't similar to Latin was wrong. Latin put adverbs next to the verb, so the Germanic languages were wrong in putting adverbs at the end of the clause. Linguistically speaking, neither word order is right or wrong; they are just different ways that different languages work. What's really wrong is applying a grammatical rule from a different language.

Probably the best commentary on this sort of pseudo-grammar is the famous comment attributed to Winston Churchill, who, when an editor revised his text to eliminate a final preposition, supposedly commented "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put" (which isn't the correct word order in any Germanic language). Actually, forms of this retort have been reported from earlier than any documented comment by Churchill. But he apparently did make such comments on several occasions, though he may not have been the originator. Of course, he was well known for his sarcastic wit. Another good one, when told by an officious woman that he was drunk, reportedly replied "Madame, you're ugly, and in the morning I'll be sober."

Re:More than tallest building

[ari_j]

I'm very familiar with Schlumberger - I even know how to pronounce it. =) And good point - losing the hole was even more of a problem at the time than now because horizontal drilling makes hole placement a lot more arbitrary, but it's still a big deal now since it's not cheap to drill, and even the time waiting for the fishing crew to get there is a huge opportunity cost when that drilling rig should be sitting a few miles away working on the next well.

Right now we seem to be in the "lease and drill every acre" mode (most of the new wells here are on 2-section spacing), then hold the leases by production to go back in and drill the other formations, although there have been a few wells completed in multiple horizontal formations from what I've heard. It's kind of fun to watch even if it's slowed down slightly over the past year or so, since I was too young to really see the fun part of the last boom - I grew up in its bust era!

Re:More than tallest building

[ckaminski]

More importantly, they were traveling MUCH faster than predicted, and the fires are what ultimately doomed the buildings.

Although I think the South Tower still would have gone down from a stiff wind sooner or later if the fires had miraculously extinguished themselves.

Re:More than tallest building

[Anonymous Coward]

No way are oil rigs nearly a kilometer tall.

Re:More than tallest building

[petermgreen]

so they built 200m of unoccupied structure just to show off?!

Re:More than tallest building

[Trepidity]

Basically. The trend started in 1998, when Malaysia's Petronas Twin Towers were topped with 75m of unoccupied structure so they could claim to be taller than the US's Sears Tower. That set off a controversy that led to the current multiple categories.

Re:More than tallest building

[Anonymous Coward]

The deapeast holes are well above 5 miles !

Your mom's hole is deeper than 5 miles!

Re:More than tallest building

[ari_j]

Thank you for the historical note, which I can add to the store of things I throw at people who try to tell me that a preposition is the wrong thing to end a sentence with. Another famous retort is the classic example of a Harvard student who lacked the standard prep school upbringing:

Q: Excuse me, where is the library at?
A: At Harvard, we do not end sentences with prepositions.
Q: I'm so sorry. Where is the library at, asshole?

My favorite, though, is Fowler, who thought of that rule as a "superstition." While he's not the only authority on prescriptive English usage, I have yet to be told by someone more of an authority than he that it's not okay to end a sentence with a preposition.

Re:More than tallest building

[HeadlessNotAHorseman]

As Churchill said, "This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."

Re:More than tallest building

[mjwx]

Monday - Worried a Jew or American Capitalist pig might fly a plane into it or something?

Muslims, and UAE in particular are quite capitalist. They specialise in keeping the lower classes down and making the upper classes richer.

So they dont care about American Capitalist Pigs, they only have to worry about American Pigs.

Re:More than tallest building

[Splintax]

Uh, why exactly was the GP's English incorrect? I'd say your wording is easier to read, but the original wasn't wrong IMO.

Re:More than tallest building

[Muad'Dave]

It wasn't wrong, per se, but there is (or at least was) a supposed 'rule' that eschews so-called 'dangling prepositions'. The rule forbids ending a sentence with a preposition, but that rule has fallen into desuetude over the years.

For the record, I was going for 'funny', not 'pedant'.

And this changes what?

[tnk1]

Presumably, finishing the building is a good thing, but it doesn't make much of a dent in the fundamentals of the place that it is built in. Even a building this monumental is only going to get so much attention and translating that into revenue will be that much more difficult.

If their model really is "borrow and build", it definitely is a dangerous basis to start with. Hopefully, they can get their house in order, but that surprise moratorium on payments coupled with the extreme ambitiousness of the projects makes me wonder if they are overreaching.

On a much darker note, I also wonder whether this new building has a big bullseye painted on it for some of the region's less industrious, and more violent, inhabitants.

Re:And this changes what?

[Anonymous Coward]

And this changes what?

It advances the state of the art of structural engineering?

Re:And this changes what?

[amRadioHed]

Why would this building be a target for terrorism? As far as I can tell there's never been a case where a building was targeted by terrorists because of its height.

Re:And this changes what?

[Xest]

Yeah, I've always wondered what sort of people are happy to work at the top of buildings like this.

I'm not scared of heights in the slightest, but I have to say I'd feel a bit nervous purely because of a lack in the faith of the stability of a building like this with the strong winds and earthquakes the area is prone to coupled with the fact it was built using nigh-on slave labour which isn't exactly going to give you the type of worker that particularly cares about being thorough or doing a good job. Not to mention this is quite a symbol of modern capitalism in a region known to have many people with a severe distaste of capitalism.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine it'd be easy convincing people to rent or buy the upper floors of this thing.

Re:And this changes what?

[jonbryce]

The World Trade Centre in New York was targeted twice, and didn't survive the second attempt.

One Canada Square in London has been targeted by the IRA.

It isn't the height per se that makes them a target, but the fact that they are landmark buildings, however they are landmark buildings because of their height.

Re:And this changes what?

[vlm]

Not to mention this is quite a symbol of modern capitalism in a region known to have many people with a severe distaste of capitalism.

So, put one of their mosques at the top?

Re:And this changes what?

[Anonymous Coward]

On a much darker note, I also wonder whether this new building has a big bullseye painted on it for some of the region's less industrious, and more violent, inhabitants.

No, they generally won't shit where they eat. Muslims can build buildings as tall as they fucking want; it's only Westerners who have to worry about it.

Re:And this changes what?

[MiniMike]

Yeah, because terrorists will never blow up a mosque... I don't think I even need to put a link, just go to your favorite news site for a list of examples.

Re:And this changes what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he meant the yid's.

Re:And this changes what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the area _around_ the building is a complete and utter shit-hole, where only the ultra rich do not live in abject poverty. Like many Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain etc), they have the wrong priorities. I could care less how tall a building is, when there isn't nearly enough clean water to drink.

Re:And this changes what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is probably why they are empty.

The way to go is up

[l2718]

This particular building is an extreme example; it's more of a publicity stunt than an approach to urban planning. The principle of building up is right, however. Higher population density makes for better public transportation, more services available within walking distance, and nicer, more pristine outdoors spaces. It also makes more efficient use of land, hence reducing its price.

Re:The way to go is up

[Anonymous Coward]

You can also accomplish those same goals by killing every first born.

Re:The way to go is up

[Anonymous Coward]

tell that to my backyard.....

Re:The way to go is up

[TubeSteak]

The principle of building up is right, however. Higher population density makes for better public transportation, more services available within walking distance, and nicer, more pristine outdoors spaces.

50 years ago, Dubai (and Abu Dhabi) was nothing more than a small mud brick & stone town in the desert.
Once oil was discovered, the revenues were used to fund explosive development...
BUT the emirates did a terrible job of planning.

There are highrise apartment buildings everywhere, but no parking.
They have incredible population density, but no sewage system to speak of.
Anything you see that is green must be watered constantly or it'll die.
Dubai is a rather good example of how not to build a city.

Re:The way to go is up

[MichaelSmith]

Higher population density makes for better public transportation

And because the public transportation is vertical it can be totally free without offending the free marketers.

Re:The way to go is up

[MichaelSmith]

They have incredible population density, but no sewage system to speak of

Gee thats interesting. So how...

Never mind.

Re:The way to go is up

[DNS-and-BIND]

Wait a minute, building high-rises REDUCES the price of land? Sorry buddy, I'm not sure which alternate dimension you came from, but that doesn't happen in our shard of reality. Are you one of those "new urbanists" who think creating traffic jams is a great idea?

Re:The way to go is up

[ls671]

I though that some analysts expressed concerns about building extremely high buildings after the twin towers incident. I do not see this point mentioned in the comments yet.

Back then, I took for granted that USA would not try to hold that record again for obvious reasons.

 

Re:The way to go is up

[StrategicIrony]

Given a constant population, say 1000 people, if 900 live in a highrise, that leaves the other 100 to share the entirety of the land (minus the 1% taken by the building), increasing supply and/or decreasing demand.

If those 1000 people were to vie for the land, each expecting their own plot, the land price would be substantially higher due to a constrained supply, causing a spike in demand and consequently a higher price.

It's basic Econ 101.

Now, if you mean "when xxx city built a fancy highrise, the places around it got mor expensive", that has absolutely nothing to do with the highrise, but instead is more reflecting the effect of "urban redevelopment" which may or may not involve highrise apartments, but definitely does not COME from high-rises.

Have any better way of explaining it?

Re:The way to go is up

[StrategicIrony]

This is a primarily muslim country. At this exact moment in history, I don't know of an organized terrorist group that would be both capable and interested in knocking it over.

Re:The way to go is up

[jcr]

I don't know of an organized terrorist group that would be both capable and interested in knocking it over.

Are you kidding? Haven't you heard about the various muslim factions that consider each other heretics?

-jcr

Re:The way to go is up

[l2718]

I'm well aware of the artificial life that is a Gulf city. As I said, building up Dubai is mostly an extravaganza. Yes, building skyscrapers in Dubai is a bad idea -- but that's because building anything there is inefficient -- not because of a particular problem with skyscrapers.

The principle still holds: building up is a good approach to urban planning. Yes, you need appropriate infrastructure: a skyscraper needs a lot of public transport around it (potentially a deep parking facility), as well as massive supplies of water, gas, electricity, steam and so on. My point is that a suburban sprawling neighbourhood of 100 houses also needs these utilities, and it needs 100 versions of each.

Re:The way to go is up

[amRadioHed]

The US hasn't held the record for highest building since 1998, and the World Trade Center was still attacked in '93 despite the Sears Tower having been taller than it for two decades. The WTC was not targeted because of it's significant height, more likely it was targeted for being the most significant landmark in America's financial center.

Re:The way to go is up

[Anonymous Coward]

Every night, the stuff is pumped out of municipal septic tanks by a half-mile long convoy of trucks, which then dump it in nearby storm drains. It all ends up on the beach.

Re:The way to go is up

[MichaelSmith]

I told you not to tell me that...

Re:The way to go is up

[mspohr]

Since you asked...

They have hundreds of tanker trucks which haul the sewage out of town. Of course, since this is all 'free enterprise', many of the drivers take a short cut and just dump the sewage in town where it flows to the ocean and ends up on the beaches. You have these luxury hotels with 'beachfront' which is actually more of a cesspool. Yes, you do not want to go there.

Re:The way to go is up

[ls671]

> was not targeted because of it's significant height

It made more victims than in Washington because of its significant height although...

That was my point and I remember listening to similar concerns. Very high buildings are more vulnerable in almost any event.

Could you imagine a government holding its daily meetings or a military command housed at the 150th floor of a building ?

Re:The way to go is up

[vadim_t]

In case you haven't noticed, The Onion only publishes fictional news as a form of satire. Nothing in it should be taken seriously.

Re:The way to go is up

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a primarily muslim country. At this exact moment in history, I don't know of an organized terrorist group that would be both capable and interested in knocking it over.

The USA?

Re:The way to go is up

[Anonymous Coward]

Given a constant population

Could you give me the name of the textbook of urban development that starts with the phrase, "Assume constant population"?

Re:The way to go is up

[Anonymous Coward]

Supply and demand, ever heard of that? Building higher reduces demand for land, which reduces its price.

Of course, it might increase right next to the high-rises, but that's another issue.

Re:The way to go is up

[DNS-and-BIND]

Never worked in real estate, I see. It doesn't work like you were taught in Econ 101. No wonder cities are so screwed up these days...they've got morons planning them.

Re:The way to go is up

[tsa]

Just as Phoenix, Arizona is. Building cities in deserts is just not a good idea, and exploiting the environment to the absolute maximum it can take is bound to fail in the long run.

Re:The way to go is up

[MrNaz]

You'll find it in the section with all the physics text books.

Re:The way to go is up

[tsa]

THE WTC WAS TARGETED BECAUSE it was the ultimate icon that represented all that is wrong with the Western world, according to the muslims. Its height didn't have anything to do with that. Hadn't there been an attempt to blow the towers up before the plane attacks?

Re:The way to go is up

[jonbryce]

It isn't free. There will be a line in the service charge account for elevator maintenance.

Re:The way to go is up

[ls671]

I never talked about the reasons for which it has been targeted. I just said its height contributed to make more damage compared to a similar action against a much lower building.

I also said that in general, extremely high buildings are more vulnerable in almost any catastrophe you can think of, man made or not.

Re:The way to go is up

[benjamindees]

You're confusing cause and effect. Building the high-rise reduces the price of land. Filling it with productive people creates a resource that attracts other people to the area, and increases the price of surrounding land.

You could just as easily fill a high rise with crack heads and welfare queens and reduce the price of the surrounding area.

And I suppose you meant "no wonder real estate is so screwed up these days". Since it was realtors and lenders who manipulated the financial system to hand out loans and sell houses to people who couldn't afford them, not city planners. All those extraneous houses aren't being paid for, but they do have functional sewer systems.

Re:The way to go is up

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah and my taxes subsidise trams, trains and buses. But I still have to buy a ticket for them.

Re:The way to go is up

[machine321]

Huh, no shit.

Re:The way to go is up

[DrXym]

Well to be fair, they are supposed to dump it at the treatment works and face very severe fines if they don't. But it does demonstrate a very fundamental issue with the place that trucks are even required to do this.

Re:The way to go is up

[Anonymous Coward]

The Empty State Building made $2 million from the observation deck which was the same amount as they made from rent.

Re:The way to go is up

[tsa]

Then I replied to the wrong post. Sorry about that.

Re:The way to go is up

[c6gunner]

Building cities in deserts is just not a good idea, and exploiting the environment to the absolute maximum it can take is bound to fail in the long run.

Tell that to the Israelis. Either they really DO have Yahweh on their side, or it's not as hard as you're implying. I'm gonna go with the latter.

Re:The way to go is up

[AbRASiON]

Would it be cynical of me to say "I KNEW IT!" - I've been pondering /theorising over the past few months when I think of Dubai of how quickly the place has boomed, everything is an incredible, ridiculous rush to try and convert their economy from oil to tourism.
Surely correct planning is being simply thrown to the wayside. I mean I have no facts at all to back me up here, however - I have to at least ask the question, how well built is the Burj Dubai?
Is it safe? Are the facilities reliable? - for example my work building is 38 stories and has 2 'service' lifts for cleaners / staff to move between floor besides the regular lifts. I firmly believe they should've built 3 service lifts, most cleaners are waiting 2 to 5 minutes each time they change a floor.

Now that's only a small basic example but has these kind of finer details been thought of in the Burj Dubai? I have to wonder, how's the water pressure? Sewerage system, network cabling, security, heating, energy efficiency in this building? (etc etc etc, you get the idea)

The entire place really is just an insane example of how to spend cash, it's totally not self sufficient (They have an indoor ski slope, how much energy does it take? Seriously.... is it on sustainable energy?)
I don't mean to throw chip here, because western culture is pretty stupid and wasteful often but I see some real tacky shit over there, it seems like 'we have money, let's do the biggest!!!!!!!!!' (exclamation marks required)

I'm curious to see the place but mroe from sideshow freak kind of angle and I'm terrified if I ever went there, I'd say or do something taboo which would land me in jail for 4 goddamn years - frankly I think their tourism industry is doomed with such dopey laws.

Re:The way to go is up

[TheLink]

> They have incredible population density, but no sewage system to speak of.
> Anything you see that is green must be watered constantly or it'll die.

The sewage might help turn some stuff green...

Like that MichaelSmith guy ;).

Re:The way to go is up

[DNS-and-BIND]

Maybe a few examples would clear the air. Where are some places where they built high-rises, and property values decreased? Or is this just theoretical navel-gazing?

Re:The way to go is up

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... any of a number of right-wing, antisemitic fuckwits in Europe and Russia? It doesn't take much to topple a skyscraper, mostly patience, time, diesel and fertilizer.

Re:The way to go is up

[benjamindees]

Oh, I see. Prices being dependent upon supply and demand is just a "theory". I can tell already that this is going to be a fun discussion.

Las Vegas is a good example. High density condos were built on the strip (overbuilt actually), driving down values of the surrounding suburban homes.

High density housing projects are notorious examples. They are no longer built for exactly this reason, so that there is no obvious dead zone of crime and poverty surrounding them, for working citizens to turn into a political issue. It still exists, of course. It just isn't as noticeable.

I can point directly to a neighborhood I used to live in. It evolved as a mixed development of single-family homes and small apartments due to lack of zoning. Landlords who owned a few houses next to each other could tear them all down and build a small apartment complex, making lots of money in the process. The apartments attracted crime and poverty, immigrants and drug dealers. As a result, rents for the surrounding single-family homes were the lowest in the city. A guy I went to college with actually purchased a two bedroom house in the neighborhood, while still in school.

Re:The way to go is up

[phaggood]

I guess they hired their urban planner away from Phoenix or Las Vegas.

Re:The way to go is up

[Anonymous Coward]

They shit out of the window, then they wipe their butts with their hands.

Re:The way to go is up

[StrategicIrony]

Sure, any one of "the projects" might qualify, most of those are 20+ story high-rise buildings.

But again, planting it in the middle of other development is totally and completely off topic for what the OP said.

He was talking about long-term, macro population planning. If all 3 million people in a city lived in a series of 1000 high rise buildings, the surrounding land would be very cheap indeed. We're talking about theoretical models and macro scale functions not the stupid short-term micro scale that you're talking about.

I'm starting to find it ironic that you're calling others "moron".

We're talking representative and variable controlled models here, not some sort of urban chic property development movement. You've clearly never been a scientist or had to study a cause-effect relationship in a variable controlled way, beceause you're obviously not capable (or willing) to understand how that might work. :-)

Keep in mind, even if you want to focus on this example, the burj dubai is built on a large complex. The ability to stick 700 residents in the tower (rather than disbursing them around the complex) makes it more plausible to use the land for other things and/or more residents, at a comparable price to what it would be if those 700 tower residents simply weren't present.

Re:The way to go is up

[icegreentea]

For all its worth, the tower was designed by an American firm... the same firm that designed the Freedom Tower that you'll get around to building sometime. They've designed a lot of buildings (seriously, a crap load of them) in the States. The primary builder is Samsung. They also built Petronas and Taipei 101. Two other very big, very tall, and well put together buildings. The people charged with designing and building this thing have their entire reputation riding on it. If there's any amount of non-trivial problems, they're pretty much screwed.

Re:The way to go is up

[jbengt]

Building up is a good approach only up to a point. I've seen the plans for the tower formerly known as Sears (It's been renamed the Willis Tower by its' owner) Between the dozens of elevators, multiple exit stairways, ductwork, piping, and electrical shafts, and the massive structural columns, there's a very low percentage of usable floor area, especially on the lower floors. Very inefficient. The real issue driving building height up (other than the desire for a big phallic symbol) is the ridiculous cost of land in city centers.

Re:The way to go is up

[drsquare]

Actually medium-density is best. Cycling or walking half a mile is better than travelling half a mile in an electric elevator. Residents of Dubai have no interest in public transport; that's for poor people. Pristine outdoor spaces? Ha. The outdoor spaces are basically sand and sewage, and the Western ex-pats and emiratis won't be seen dead in anything other than an expensive car.

Re:The way to go is up

[jbengt]

You're confusing cause and effect. Building the high-rise reduces the price of land.

You may be the one confusing cause and effect. Building high-rises is much more costly than low- or mid-rises. No rational investor is going to build a high-rise anywhere except where the cost of land is already high, where they can expect high rents or sales prices. (unless they have some notion to create something like a tourist atttraction)

Re:The way to go is up

[Darinbob]

When I first heard about Dubai, I too wondered how it was going to make a luxury playground in the barren desert. I incorrectly thought that this was like the rest of the United Arab Emirates and was full of oil, and was building some big luxury hotels and conference centers to flaunt its wealth. Only later did I learn that it had relatively little oil, and that it was a full city and not just a strip of hotels. When I saw all the large artificial islands and peninsulas from Goggle Earth maps, that clinched it as a place that was seriously messed up.

Re:The way to go is up

[zx-15]

Trucks carrying around sewage from septic tanks really baffle me.
I tried googling it, but haven't found a single reason why centralized sewage system was never built, are there specific regional/geographic factors, like the lack of water, or it's all due to stupidity of the local government?

Re:The way to go is up

[benjamindees]

No rational investor is going to build a high-rise anywhere except where the cost of land is already high, where they can expect high rents or sales prices.

This proves my point, you know. Investors only build high-rises where the land is too expensive otherwise. Instead of buying a large amount of land, he buys a small amount of land and builds a high-rise to put on it. The high rise reduces the cost of the land he has to buy.

The land is not expensive because the high-rise exists. The high-rise exists because the land is expensive.

Re:The way to go is up

[z0idberg]

The entire place really is just an insane example of how to spend cash, it's totally not self sufficient (They have an indoor ski slope, how much energy does it take? Seriously.... is it on sustainable energy?) I don't mean to throw chip here, because western culture is pretty stupid and wasteful often but I see some real tacky shit over there, it seems like 'we have money, let's do the biggest!!!!!!!!!' (exclamation marks required)

You could just as easily be describing this place.

Re:The way to go is up

[Jorophose]

Not quite. They've been draining the water from their neighbours (what do you think they did, the moment they invaded Lebanon? They brought them commerce and in return piped out all of their water) and even that's not enough. (perhaps the biggest reason why there's no peace with Israel and Palestine)

No, the Israelis are just as screwed as everyone else.

Re:The way to go is up

[sznupi]

Unfortunately very few societies are mature enough to flourish in high population density. In most places throughout the world the end result, after few decades, is more or less slums/ghetto.

Re:The way to go is up

[sznupi]

Public transport works and enjoys widespread acceptance only in the richest countries of the world.

You must understand that your phobia from it, "it's only for poor people", stems from you living in a very atypical place.

Re:The way to go is up

[sznupi]

And your taxes subsidize car companies (they don't pay for road infrastructure). Also aircraft manufacturers and airlines (airports can't survive without subsidies, most airlines were bankrupt and bailed out at one point or another)

Re:The way to go is up

[sznupi]

I take it you've never heard about central heating? (in this vein: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogeneration ). Or potential energy associated with pumping anything at great heights?

Re:The way to go is up

[c6gunner]

That doesn't really deserve an answer. The tradition of blaming Jews for stealing all of your money/gold/land/oil/water/whatever is a long but not very distinguished one. Unless you've got some actual stats, we have nothing to discuss.

Impressive..

[Entropy98]

Too bad it was built with slavery...

Re:Impressive..

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that that was largely seen as a bonus. Dubai is like the Disney World of unbridled global neoliberalism(the "warts and all" version, not the idealists' version).

Having a bunch of not-quite-slaves-because-we-said-we-would-pay-them to build the scenery and fill drinks for the people who matter is just part of the "charm".

Re:Impressive..

[ajay_walia]

I guess this is the same with the region , everybody is doing it

http://tinyurl.com/yfp83dp

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA:
I ask the Filipino girl behind the counter if she likes it here. "It's OK," she says cautiously. Really? I say. I can't stand it. She sighs with relief and says: "This is the most terrible place! I hate it! I was here for months before I realised – everything in Dubai is fake. Everything you see. The trees are fake, the workers' contracts are fake, the islands are fake, the smiles are fake – even the water is fake!"

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

In your rush to comment, you failed to read past the first section. Try again, you will find real descriptions of government-supported slavery.

Re:Impressive..

[the_womble]

You are missing the point. The construction workers, maids etc. are often enslaved. This guy was a CEO, or fairly senior.

The Saudis, Emiratis, Kuwaitis etc. are almost racists, and the countries are tyrannies far worse than the West's enemies like Iran, Libya, Syria Saddam Hussain etc: Syria, Iran and Iraq allow minorities freedom of worship, and religious minorities where much better off under Saddam Hussein than they are in Iraq now.

Re:Impressive..

[7-Vodka]

No shit, that is really sad. Shame on anyone who even mentions dubai while being ignorant of this.

Re:Impressive..

[LingNoi]

This is no different from the slaves that made your nike shoes, computer equipment, etc in china or the indian outsourcers you give impossible deadlines to in your company. The only difference is that in Dubai it's right next to you rather then thousands of miles away where you can just shrug it off.

Re:Impressive..

[Pugwash69]

That's one of the most shocking news items I've read in a while! Thanks for posting.

Re:Impressive..

[blind biker]

Iran very much does NOT allow Baha'is freedom of worship. Not only are they forbidden free spiritual activities or roganization of any kind, but members of the Baha'i faith are systematically oppressed: forbidden from higher education, fired and shut-out of jobs, especially at universities, dislodged from their homes and imprisoned. Many have been executed after mock trials or even without any trials. Same with the Zoroastrians/Zarathustrians. The Baha'is are a substantial community, with about 300.000 followers.

Re:Impressive..

[TubeSteak]

I suspect that that was largely seen as a bonus. Dubai is like the Disney World of unbridled global neoliberalism(the "warts and all" version, not the idealists' version).

I'm not sure what you mean about neoliberalism.

Dubai is like the USA before the early 1900s:
Lots of Capitalism, minimal regulation, and active government support for shitty corporate behavior.
It took sustained public outrage, unions, and eventually government regulation to reform the worst
excesses of laissez faire capitalism in the USA. Unlike the USA, Dubai has none of those interal pressures.

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad you are too dumb to realize you are a slave to the IRS too!

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhhh, these guys have oil and are happy to trade it so they're the good guys.

They bad guys are the ones without oil, or who are unwilling to trade it cheaply to the US.

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not slavery.... they pay them...
skilled carpenters at the site earned UK£4.34 a day, and labourers earned UK£2.8 a day.

Sadly, It would cost them far more if they where slaves as they would have to feed and house them. As paid labour they can turn around a charge them for food and housing.

Re:Impressive..

[Abcd1234]

Actually, the GP is right. Neoliberalism, the driving force behind modern conservative economics that has swept the United States and Canada (and probably other nations), includes, among its components, tax reform, trade liberalization, privatization, and deregulation.

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't insightful, this guy does not know what he is talking about. /.'s sure seem gullible these days.

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey - you read the last paragraph (and then regurgitated it). You get a biscuit!

Re:Impressive..

[Foolicious]

Syria, Iran and Iraq allow minorities freedom of worship

Sure - as long as your worship doesn't involve what Christians would call evangelism and other religions would call proselytism.

Basically, you've got a pretty loose definition of "freedom of worship". If freedom of worship means sitting alone in your room thinking about your religion, then there's freedom of worship everywhere.

Re:Impressive..

[clarkkent09]

So, tricking workers into slavery by promising them high pay then taking their passports away and forcing them to work for low pay with the collusion of a corrupt autocratic government is an example of what happens when you have TOO MUCH economic liberty? I think you are crazy.

Take a look at how UAE ranks in the Index of Economic Fredom: http://www.heritage.org/Index/Ranking.aspx

While you are there take a moment to notice the strong correlation between economic liberty and political liberty as well as prosperity.

Re:Impressive..

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That is why I included the (the "warts and all" version, not the idealists' version) proviso.

In the idealists' take on neoliberalism, free men and free markets, transparency and prosperity, march hand in hand. Unfortunately, all too often, you get real world implementations were capital may move freely, enjoying security and privacy; but men are lucky to escape being denied the paltry rights that the law allows. Where, as long as the returns on investment last, nobody bothers to ask irksome questions about rights or representation.

Frankly, the source you cite seems to be cast in much the same mold: It gives the UAE a 76.2 for "Labor Freedom".

"The UAE's relatively flexible employment regulations facilitate overall employment and productivity growth. The non-salary cost of employing a worker is moderate, but dismissing a redundant employee is relatively costly. Regulations related to the number of work hours are not rigid. There is no minimum wage."

Yup. Any list where "widespread presence of slave-camps by any other name" doesn't detract from your "Labor Freedom" score is written by concern for capital, not concern for freedom.

Re:Impressive..

[BCGlorfindel]

The Saudis, Emiratis, Kuwaitis etc. are almost racists, and the countries are tyrannies far worse than the West's enemies like Iran, Libya, Syria Saddam Hussain

Your completely ignorant if you want to include Saddam there. There have been few tyrants to match Saddam, if anything he not only ran from the playbooks of those that came before him, but improved upon it. When he seized power and had eliminated all opposition leaders, he immediately went on to purge the leaders within his own party as well. He orchestrated a man he'd tortured to single out 60 members of his own party at a convention and insisted on televising the event. What was not televised was the event immediately after where he went one better than Stalin and didn't simply have them executed, but gave those lucky enough not to have been singled out guns and made them perform the executions, sealing them to himself as part of the crime.

The rest of his rule was equally if not even more brutal. It was characterized by collective punishment, concentration camps, rape rooms, mass murder, chemical gassing, and genocide.

You probably aught to leave Saddam off your list of people that are 'just as bad' as any other dictator.

religious minorities where much better off under Saddam Hussein than they are in Iraq now.

The only part you may even possibly have correct in that is to say specifically the Sunni minority was better off under Saddam. The 60% Shia majority however were the victims of systematic slaughter under Saddam, as were every one of Iraq's millions of Kurds. It would seem you don't know the first thing of conditions in Iraq under Saddam. You really should take the time to read up on what Saddam was actually like. The occupation of Iraq has been terrible, Saddam was worse, at least now there is a light at the end of the tunnel for Iraqi's, even if it is still fraught with violence and hatred at least it now exists.

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless, of course, those religious minorities are Bahá'í.

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for that link. I could weep for humanity.

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the Kurds. I'm sure they were much happier being gased/exterminated by Saddam's regime.

Re:Impressive..

[FragHARD]

Oh and don't forget.... they just had to rename it, must have been one of the stipulations the new (bailout) owners wanted, ;)

Re:Impressive..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's so well said, these guys are racist egoists who'd not produce anything themselves and rather have someone wipe it for them and get paid, I was born there and lived there but I don't feel like I belong there, I am from an Arabian country too and being discriminated against too, but we are more tolerant and welcoming of others than any of these nationalities you mentioned.. You just can't have something built for you by a company that's overseas, by workers who came from overseas and exploited and screwed and abused and built for the purpose of void-national-pride-in-nothing, and then just go out brag about it as if you were the one who sweat your ass out and calloused your hands building it or as if it were gonna help the humanity a mighty deal showing them a glittery building, duhhh.... I just can't wrap my head around this concept, but to invent an HIV medicine would be a just reason to take absolute pride and joy and not a prick building built for bravadoes...

Wow

[DemonBeaver]

They sure put a lot of effort in the Citadel and City 17 sets for the upcoming Half-Life movie...

Re:Wow

[SoupGuru]

Oops, I was trying to mod you funny but accidentally hit "Overrated".

Commenting to undo.

824m tall, not 818 or 808m.

[Anonymous Coward]

The three sides of the building have different heights due to the differing ground levels.

For a long time, the unofficial height was 808m. However this then switched to 818m, and now finally 824m as different entrances were chosen as "ground level".

The problem is that the building is part of a massive development that includes quite a bit of landscaping. Thus the definition of ground level is somewhat fuzzy. The real base of the building is an enormous concrete slab a few stories underground.

Re:824m tall, not 818 or 808m.

[Anonymous Coward]

The three sides of the building have different heights due to the differing ground levels

Often times when quoting the length of my penis, people ask me where I am measuring from: the base of my pelvis or my asshole.

It seems that this tower has the same problem.

Re:824m tall, not 818 or 808m.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but, the tower is huge no matter how you measure it. So it's really more like my penis.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Dubai is going to be one hell of a wasteland in the next 10 or so years. Hell, most of their coastline is already toxic due to the fact they just dump all the city's waste straight into the ocean about 50 miles outa town. Yeah, congratulations, you have the tallest building in the world. Your beaches still smell like shit.

dirty money

[astar]

more real estate bubble

dubui is the british replacement for hong kong for dirty money transfers. hah, every government agency has a worthless prince at the top and the second in command, who actually runs things, is always a brit. when the drug lords disneyland resorts started going under, it tended to set off a wave of soverign defaults, of which greece is the leading example. so this building is not anything to admire, but something to condemn

My hopes

[nicc777]

That the building is more stable than their web server... Damn request time out every time.

Impressive

[Animats]

It's an impressive achievement. I'm glad they got it finished before the economy tanked. Dubai is overbuilt, and many of the sillier projects there will never be completed, but Burj Dubai is a prestige location and will probably be rented out successfully. It's partly a hotel and residential building, not just an office tower.

The Empire State Building was built during the Great Depression and wasn't fully rented for years.

Re:Impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

The correlation between skyscrapers and the business cycle is not just a coincidence:

Completed    Building            Location    Height        Stories    Economic Crisis
1908        Singer                New York    612 ft.        48    Panic of 1907
1909        Metropolitan Life    New York    700 ft.        50    Panic of 1907
1912        Woolworth            New York    792 ft.        57    ----
1929        40 Wall Street        New York    927 ft.        71    Great Depression
1930        Chrysler            New York    1,046 ft.    77    Great Depression
1931        Empire State        New York    1,250 ft.    102    Great Depression
1972/73    World Trade Center    New York    1,368 ft.    110    1970s stagflation
1974        Sears Tower        Chicago        1,450 ft.    110    1970s stagflation
1997        Petronas Tower        Kuala Lumpur    1,483 ft.    88    East Asian
2012        Shanghai            Shanghai        1,509 ft.    94    China?

Here's the source of that table, and a very interesting article overall:

http://mises.org/story/3038

The people who built it were paid a pittance

[jsimon12]

Don't forget that the average worker on this were paid 5-10 dollars a DAY. Pratically slavery

Re:The people who built it were paid a pittance

[Anonymous Coward]

Wages do not define slavery. The freedom to choose to work or not defines slavery; given a choice it's impossible for a wage to be "too low" because people would simply choose not to take such work.

Re:The people who built it were paid a pittance

[TheSync]

Yes, but those workers are from countries where there are still many people making less than $1 per day.

Perhaps you'd prefer they remained as poor as they were?

Re:The people who built it were paid a pittance

[TheRaven64]

$5-10 dollars a day is a meaningless statistic without factoring in cost of living. In parts of India, you can eat a couple of three course meals for under $1, while in the middle of London $10 just about gets you a cup of coffee. If the cost of living in reasonable comfort is $2-3 dollars a day, then $5-10 dollars is not a bad salary and lets you save most of your income. It also doesn't say what else is included; do they get food and lodging as part of that? If so, then after a year then they can have saved up a lot more than a lot of workers in the USA. If, on the other hand, $10 just about buys you cheap food and forces you to sleep rough, then it's a problem.

Re:The people who built it were paid a pittance

[TheLink]

I think their main grievance was not that they were paid so little, it was that they weren't paid at all or not paid what they were promised. And living/working conditions were crap.

Re:The people who built it were paid a pittance

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The practice of recruiting people in their country of origin with promises of wage X, bringing them to your country, "losing" their passports and then paying them "X minus a lot", is where the "almost-slavery" bit really comes in....

Re:The people who built it were paid a pittance

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this where the embassies of their home countries should step in to replace the 'lost' passports?

claimed to be 824.55m (2,705.2 feet), but believed

[Anonymous Coward]

I LOL'd. Who gives a fuck?

Stupid

[sexconker]

When are they going to stop counting the radio antennae / spires / tethered helium balloons at the top?

dubai faq (misconceptions)

[majid_aldo]

- dubai doesn't have oil
- dubai is very western-oriented
- dubai is not a country
- dubai has been largely isolated from regional tensions

got that?

Re:dubai faq (misconceptions)

[Trepidity]

- dubai doesn't have oil

It does actually have oil, though you're correct that oil is no longer a major part of their economy, as the fields are mostly now depleted. However oil was very important to it being built up as the prosperous emirate it is now--- most of the current business was initially financed with oil money. At one point, Dubai's oil exports accounted for over 50% of GDP, though that number's now down under 10%.

Re:dubai faq (misconceptions)

[imakemusic]

It does actually have oil

Isn't that's why "dubai doesn't have oil" comes under the heading "misconceptions"?

Re:dubai faq (misconceptions)

[bazorg]

Can I add to the FAQ "Why is a wealthy western-oriented place like Dubai located in the Persian Gulf not a target for the people who want to see the West burn?"

Re:dubai faq (misconceptions)

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this crap make it through the moderators as interesting???

Dubai has oil. They do not have AS MUCH as abu dhabi. It is going to run out in 10-15 years or so. The city was still built on it and debt.

Dubai has also been used as an export middle man for iran and drug trafficing and has recently been pulled up on both.

So yeah.

Re:dubai faq (misconceptions)

[majid_aldo]

because
- they keep to themselves
- don't install/support dictators
- don't support israel

Believed to be 818m

[Mr_Plattz]

It's nice to know an Architect and Engineer can design a building and still not know how much above sea level it is.

Re:Believed to be 818m

[StrategicIrony]

I'm quite sure they know, but they have no incentive to tell that the building has shrunken substantially from initial designs.

There is prestige in big numbers. It's not simply a probably of unknown dimensions.

Re:Believed to be 818m

[Seraphim1982]

Two points:
1) Building heigth isn't measured from sea level.
2) The ground around the buldiing isn't flat, so picking 'the' spot to measure from is a subject for debate.

Re:Believed to be 818m

[nacturation]

It's nice to know an Architect and Engineer can design a building and still not know how much above sea level it is.

Which entrance is considered the "main" entrance has changed several times. As the landscaping around the building is not level, switching the main entrance from one side of the building to another, lower side of the building can add many meters to the "official" height.

Re:Believed to be 818m

[awol]

Plus there was a competing tower (Al Burj) and they were both very coy about their planned height so as not to let the other trump them (excuse the pun) http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/03/13/46879.html

How that affects traffic ?

[parallel_prankster]

Tall buildings, by that I mean more that 50 storeys of livable/workable space pose very different challenges. They can house lot more people/offices/homes. How many parking lots does it have ? What about hospitals ? playgrounds ? schools ? Designing elevators for them itself takes an entire fleet of engineers. Is designing taller buildings better in general ? What about security features ? Fire exits ? These are pretty interesting things to look at I am interested in finding out how the architects in Dubai dealt with those issues.

Re:claimed to be 824.55m (2,705.2 feet), but belie

[Anonymous Coward]

The lame ass architects and politicians who are compensating for their 2" dicks.

Its more than 4/5ths of a Kilometer too!

[Helldesk Hound]

More than 4/5ths of a Kilometer too!

4/5 sounds more than 1/2. And Kilometers are the new metric system that everyone (except the USA - funny that) is adopting.

Re:Its more than 4/5ths of a Kilometer too!

[Anonymous Coward]

The US. And the UK. And a good bit of Canada. And a whole slew of industries in countries all around the world, regardless of the official governmental stance on units.

It's great to have standardized units and measures. I fully support good definitions, and SI is (mostly) very reasonable. But the conversion costs and hassles are enormous, which is why countries that already had standardized units and economic power were (and are) reluctant to change. And since both sides have good definitions for our units and measures, the systems are fully interoperable with a simple bit of arithmetic. 1 inch is exactly 2.54 centimeters. 1 pound is approximately 4.44 newtons. All it takes to convert (most units) is simple multiplication.

And don't pretend that the conversion arithmetic would go away if the US suddenly converted to the SI. Unless someone came along and converted all the real-world objects at the same time your door frame would still be 32" wide and would still support a door of up to 200 lbs. But if you went shopping for a new door you'd have to do the conversions to figure out that you need one that's 81.28 cm wide and less than 889.64 newtons. Except it's common in SI locales to mis-label weight as mass, so it would probably be marked 90.72 kg, even tough the "mass" was determined on a force meter that was not compensated for local variations in gravitation or buoyancy.

But hey, if the worst thing you can find to pick on in the US our reluctance to make a very expensive transition to a unit of measures with only marginal gains in utility I think I can let it slide.

All solved with parachutes

[Myrcutio]

What about security features ? Fire exits ?

Simple. They gave every man and male child a parachute in case of emergency, or just for plain fun. Airplane strikes the building, just open a window and glide away to safety. Assuming you don't have a burning airplane in your face of course.

Lame ad?

[Stratoukos]

Why on earth does the website of one of the grandest human accomplishments has an ad with the "1 tip of a tiny belly"?

BASE Jump

[Anonymous Coward]

The first person to (successfully) BASE jump from this building is going to have serious bragging rights.

Re:BASE Jump

[majid_aldo]

already happened http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pGp1LX8yZY

Re:BASE Jump

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, I personally won't respect him/her any more than the unsuccessful ones.

Truly sad

[mcrbids]

The USA once was dominant in metrics like this. Now, our leadership position, being pissed away for so many years by inept leadership and increasily divisive politics, has been compromised in many areas.

In education, we rival the 3rd world. There is actually serious discussion about teaching so-called "Intelligent-Design" as a part of our Science curriculum! Our math and science scores are near the bottom, and are actually beaten by 3rd world countries in many cases.

Our production and manufacturing idustries have been bleeding red ink for decades. Once the pinnacle of the 1st world, we now sardonically compliment our own quality. Our upper-middle and upper classes don't buy our American-made cars.

Our leadership in Science development is tanking fast. From our until-recent ban on stem cell research funding, and our generally soft support for "basic Science" research, to our cancelling funding for the SSC supercollider, we've sent the message to the scientific community - support is elsewhere!

Tallest building in the world is a pissing contest, that we led for a long time in the last century. We've not only lost it, but our vain attempt to regain it in the so-called "Freedom tower" is mired in controversy, bad design, and travesty, bungled so badly that it's the architectural equivalent of the "mission accomplished" poster of GWB notoriety.

I'm an American, and it's really, really sad to watch my nation slowly collapse in on itself.

Re:Truly sad

[Trepidity]

In a symbolic way this seems vaguely a symptom of decline, but the U.S.'s disinterest in this particular metric---building really tall office buildings---dates back a few decades. The U.S. was still unquestionably the world superpower through the 1990s at least, but the spurt of building tall buildings stopped by the mid-1970s, since they weren't particularly economical compared to just building two or three shorter (but still pretty tall) buildings.

If anything there's a minor tall-building resurgence in the U.S. recently: the Trump Tower in Chicago and Bank of America Tower in NYC, both completed 2009, are the tallest new buildings since the last major spurt of skyscraper construction in 1973-74.

Re:Truly sad

[germ!nation]

Jesus it's just a tall building dude. Now I'm crying too... I mean I've got something in my eye.

Re:Truly sad

[ThrowAwaySociety]

You're right, it is a pissing contest, and there's really no point in it. The US does not need to build that high. For that matter, western Europe does not have a single building in the top 100 for height. This is a huge white elephant for the UAE, and white elephants are something the US already has plenty of.

Building a building that goes to 11 is not a technological challenge. Heck, Burj Dubai was designed by a US firm. There are a dozen firms in the US and around the world that could build a building a hundreds of feet taller than the Burj Dubai if there was a need. There isn't. Pursuing a giant national phallic symbol is not what the US should be spending its resources on.

Re:Truly sad

[MichaelSmith]

The US should have responded to 9/11 by building a stupendous building on the WTC site. By that I mean they should build something which anybody else in the world considers utterly impossible. Five or 10 kilometres tall. The upper floors would of course belong to NORAD, with a big primary radar on the roof.

Re:Truly sad

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the intelligent design folks can get silly, but the reason we're discussing it has nothing to do with science or education -- it's a purely political/religious issue. It's framed in talk of science because if you frame it as religion or politics is a non-starter, and calling is science is a way around that. But saying that ID is about science is like saying that car headlights are intended to warn pedestrians of approaching vehicles -- it may be true, but it's not the reason your car has headlights.

So if you want to bring up ID in the context of how stupid our politics are I'm all for it, but then you only get to compare it to other countries stupid politics -- like in France where it's illegal to own anything Nazi-related, as if destroying historical artifacts will somehow erase the Nazi's from the timeline.

Or if you'd like to complain about the *actual* problems with the eduction system, I'd probably support you. But telling me that we need to improve education because there's popular support for ID is a great way to get dismissed as a fool.

Re:Truly sad

[tsa]

Maybe you can console yourself with the fact that you are not the only country in the Western world that does bad. The Netherlands has almost the worst education of the whole of Europe, our universities are chronically underfunded, and our gouverments are more interested in prestigious money-sucking useless projects than investing money in things that really matter, such as good healthcare, education, and innovation. I bet in ten years' time we can't even repair our own dykes and other waterworks anymore because no one knows how to do that.

Re:Truly sad

[Anonymous Coward]

The Freedom Tower (Now called 1 World Trade) is an extraordinary case. The bedrock of the site was compromised, there were all sorts of security concerns, not to mention other buildings and a park on the same site. The property rights and responsibility had to be hashed out, and the owner of the original site had to be compensated. Building billion dollar towers on land that is structurally unsound is not exactly an easy thing to do, so given the circumstances, I'd say everything is going pretty well. The Main tower is already some 10 stories above ground.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=123628&page=351

Re:Truly sad

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

Pharmaceuticals or software? Technology in general? Or most importantly, literally the most important thing in the world: the arts! We are not dead yet ;)

Re:Truly sad

[vlm]

The U.S. was still unquestionably the world superpower through the 1990s at least, but the spurt of building tall buildings stopped by the mid-1970s, since they weren't particularly economical

Its simpler than that. Virtually all American cities are dying due to gross government mismanagement. All the job growth is in the suburbs. "downtown" is where companies/people go to die/downsize. Virtually all people with education and skills want to live in the suburbs for VERY obvious reasons, primarily because of the other people whom live in the burbs and the other people whom live in the cities. So, why would the executives want a long horrible commute?

If all the job growth is in the suburbs, and all the downsizing is downtown, why build new skyscrapers downtown? It's hard to justify a new tower if the neighborhood is 25% unoccupied. That is why my "hometown" hasn't had anything over ten stories built in at least a decade, but the burbs are/were utterly swarming with construction crews. Anything to get away from city government, anything...

It doesn't matter if you can find an anecdote or an isolated counterexample, once a large enough fraction of the market moves to the burbs, the downtown market starts a permanent decline, and that is a bad time to build more excess capacity.

Re:Truly sad

[Anonymous Coward]

There are also a crapload of regulations in the United States that make building extremely tall buildings impractical.

For example, the FAA limits to 2000ft (609.6m).

Also, my understanding is that the United States (and most of western Europe) also have many more safety regulations and requirements that would greatly increase the cost

Re:Truly sad

[wdebruij]

> white elephants are something the US already has plenty of.

The Empire state building was not called Empty State Building for nothing: it has had a spotty history, financially speaking.

On the other hands, who would want to do without it? Sometimes economically unsound investments
have a bright future (think railroads). Here's to hoping the Burj Dubai will have a great future after
the debt has been written off.

Re:Truly sad

[zippthorne]

No, there is one place where the US does, in fact, desperately need a giant middle-finger. It won't get one, though. Instead it'll get a cheat-to-tall-with-decorative-structures building that really expresses to the world that we're "giving up to the terrorists."

Re:Truly sad

[molo]

The BofA building in NYC is really not that high compared to the surrounding buildings. It is only the "spire" at the top which puts it above them. Highest occupied floor is probably a more useful metric.

-molo

Re:Truly sad

[Tablizer]

But if it's high enough, then we don't need rockets to visit space. You just take a long elevator ride, step off, and wallah Space! "Hey, I can see Russia from here!"

Re:Truly sad

[nomadic]

Its simpler than that. Virtually all American cities are dying due to gross government mismanagement. All the job growth is in the suburbs. "downtown" is where companies/people go to die/downsize. Virtually all people with education and skills want to live in the suburbs for VERY obvious reasons, primarily because of the other people whom live in the burbs and the other people whom live in the cities. So, why would the executives want a long horrible commute?

Huhhhhh? Are you posting from the 70s??? The suburbs have been dying for the past 20 years, while the cities have been booming. Check out downtown Brooklyn someday, if you don't believe me. People with education and skills tend to want to live someplace interesting, not some soulless sterile whitebread suburb. I spend a single day in the suburbs and I get depressed.

Re:Truly sad

[nelsonal]

In Virginia they just build skyscrapers in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyson's_Corner>the burbs. The traffic sucks though.

Re:Truly sad

[sp3d2orbit]

The U.S. was still unquestionably the world superpower through the 1990s at least

No set of comments on Slashdot is complete without at least one pointing out how the article reflects America's decline.

Re:Truly sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that America rose to power back when stuff like teaching creationism in school was happening? It's only after all this attempt at being atheistic that it has started to crumble.

Not that there is any connection, but I don't think teaching creation in schools is anywhere near the worst of America's problems.

Also, the stem cell research issue is stupid. There are dozens of sources for stem cells without having to kill foetuses, it's just that that is the only source that has gotten any media attention.

Re:Truly sad

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Virtually all people with education and skills want to live in the suburbs

In most American metro areas, this hasn't been true since at least the early 90's. Pay attention.

Re:Truly sad

[drsquare]

On the contrary, I'd say that it shows America's maturity as a nation that they no longer have to get into these dick-length contests by pissing billions away on uneconomical projects. Building the fastest internet, the most efficient public transport, renewable power, these would be impressive projects for leading nations.

This tower is just a developing country saying 'look at me'. They're not building it because it will benefit them, it's not like the place is short of sand to build on, they're just desperate for attention.

Re:Truly sad

[2obvious4u]

Pursuing a giant national phallic symbol is not what the US should be spending its resources on.

I'm here to inform you that your geek card is being revoked. The US does need a giant national phallic symbol. We need to fully fund the space program to get off this rock before something catastrophic happens and destroys it. And is there really anything more phallic than a Saturn V rocket?

Re:Truly sad

[sznupi]

Railroads are very, very sound economically, they just have high upfront cost. Don't confuse the two issues.

Re:Truly sad

[sznupi]

Saturn V? Dr. Evil would like a word with you...

PropertyGuru

[propertyguru1]

interestin time to open the Burj Dubai especially with DUbai in a financial turmoil. There is a related article on the global economy which may be of interest to some: http://www.propertyguru.com.sg/news/2010/1/27066/2009-was-an-easy-year-for-investors-and-now-comes-

Building?

[Smashe01]

or World's Tallest Terrorist Target?!

Re:Building?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTTT? WTC? WTF?

Does anybody else.....?

[zerospeaks]

Does anyone else suddenly feel the urge to play SimTower? Is it just me?

I couldn't help but notice...

[Anonymous Coward]

... on the Taipei 101 site, the bottom left corner says "Pricavy Policy".

Have they contributed anything to science?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a 49 year old feminist grandmother color me unimpressed. Dubai hasn't contributed anything to society, they've literally just found oil in the ground and there's no shame in that, but did they use it to educate their people? No of course not, they just spent year after year paying foreign technicians to do what they don't have the knowledge to do... build gigantic structures. The dictator behaves like a 6 year old kid in a toy store with a credit card from santa... no time for education, just another toy built by foreigners... just pay them to build it, don't pay them to teach our own illiterate population who hasn't made any contributions to science. Dubai resembles all that's what's wrong with humanity, the sooner they run out of oil and have to educate themselves or perish the better, fuck em.

Re:Have they contributed anything to science?

[jcr]

did they use it to educate their people?

Actually, yes, they did. The UAE citizens don't pay for schooling at all, just like the Saudis. The problem is, the citizens don't have to earn a living, so their incentives for effort are rather limited.

-jcr

Re:Have they contributed anything to science?

[majid_aldo]

- dubai doesn't have oil, it relies on foreign investments for its projects. (hence, int'l markets went bezerk when it recently defaulted)
- dubai has better educational institutions compared to the region
- dubai as it is today, wouldn't have happened w/o foreign participation, at least within this timescale
- UAE citizen's education are subsidized. in fact, UAE human development index is #35 in the world; just a tad below developed countries
- dubai is too small for it to make regular major headlines in science (unless it imports scientists en masse. is that ok with you?). as dubai is part of the larger arab and islamic world, a better question would be: why are arabs and muslims behind? (ans. should be a sophisticated analysis please)

to give dubai's leader (yes, a dicator) credit, he had to spend spend spend to create infrastructure that would ALLOW and create an environment for further development.

please make more informed comments in the future. you can take a side, as being for dubai or against it, but make more informed arguments. ideally, you wouldn't need to take a side, but comment on dubai point by point.

Re:Have they contributed anything to science?

[SharpFang]

This particular building? Yes, it did. It tested in practice technologies of architecture and building engineering that existed only in theory before. It pushed the limits a good way further. The original record-keepers were TV towers, unlivable grider constructions. On top of huge ego show off, this project has financed many years of solid scientific research. New materials were developed, new construction principles invented, new methods of calculating old problems on scale not found before were found and programmed.

Not all science is particle physics, genetics and astrophysics. There is good science behind material durability, construction stability, some really good physics of compound materials, some quite clever chemistry for concrete that would normally explode under such pressures, and so on and so on.

Re:Have they contributed anything to science?

[Locke2005]

Plus, when it falls over, the failure analysis will yield valuable insights into exactly why one shouldn't build structures that tall!

Re:Yeah, but it isn't slavery by white people

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent +1 So True

Re:claimed to be 824.55m (2,705.2 feet), but belie

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, this is Dubai, not China. They're 3.5".

Re:Yeah, but it isn't slavery by white people

[StrategicIrony]

Mod -1 "Replying to yourself is lame"

Holes, not poles.

[Tolvor]

Nowdays I'd prefer my buildings to be as *low* as possible. Having a nice *deep* underground bunker would be best.

Tall buildings, as well as other major attractions like stadiums, are a status symbol. Every time the building is mentioned you name either the company, the city, or the country in question. Tall building are a brand image. In these times companies prefer a more conservative (and some may argue greener) profile. Tall buildings in this respect are not useful. It is easier to get the same name-recognition result through other channels - charity events, signage, marketing and teaming on major internet sites, and positive news-generation that involves your company name. Even viral marketing can be a major factor. Ever see the new Lady Gaga video "Bad Romance" and the brands displayed? All of these is far far FAR cheaper than a very tall building.

Now consider a nice *low* building, maybe even one underground. It is a lot more protected, it tends to be greener as can plant trees or solar panels on the top (lots of good press coverage). It tends to be a lot easier to insulate against weather. There's a lot more stability given when digging underground and the sides of the building are braced by the pressing of the surrounding earth. If a company wants the prestige factor they can put a large sign up near the highway/freeway with their company name on it.

Best of all it's good against bombs. Frankly, tall buildings are easy to hit. Underground bunkers are a lot harder.

So I say, build better deep buildings (holes), not tall towers of concrete (poles).

Re:Holes, not poles.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever watch Evangelion? All the damned buildings can go underground in case of emergencies ie, monster attacks.

Also they even had an episode where the enemy was unable to get into them for hours/a day because they were so deep underground.

Re:Holes, not poles.

[Anonymous Coward]

Digging holes is WAAAAYYYYY more expensive than building stories (with "normal sized buildings").

A 10 story building costs more than a 5 story building mainly because the taller building needs a deeper fundamentum in the ground.

Re:Holes, not poles.

[xaxa]

A tall building can be "green", for instance you can face it with solar panels (even in the north of England!) and you can use its height like a chimney to provide ventilation. An underground building is going to require even more ventilation, and lots more artificial light.

A small bomb detonated in an underground building would likely cause more damage/injuries, as the explosion is confined to the building rather than blowing out through windows.

Anyway, how tall is tall? 14 stories, or 40, or 80, or more?

Re:Holes, not poles.

[chrisG23]

Off topic but Evangelion was the shit!

Re:Holes, not poles.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot easier to park a semi (or 12) of fuel-air bombs on top of a bunker than on top of or under a skyscraper. And there are much more limited escape routes (not that escape from a skyscraper is easier, but it's at least plausible).

It's also not clear to me why it would be any harder to put solar panels or trees on top of a tall building than a short one. I mean, it's a little more work to move the dirt/etc. up to the roof, but it's not *that* complicated. And in an underground building you'd already be moving dirt up the same distance just to dig the hole. And you'll have to put all that dirt somewhere -- you'd end up with a 100-story tall pile of dirt, which is not a trivial thing to deal with.

Also the building is not braced by the pressing of the surrounding earth, it's *stressed* by the pressing of the surrounding earth and must rigidly resist those forces to avoid crushing the occupants or causing massive sinkholes in the surrounding area. Try digging a vertically-edged hole in your backyard and see how long it stands up to erosion and other forces without a significant amount of bracing.

Re:Holes, not poles.

[RMH101]

I'm sitting in adjoining building to that one now. It's a fairly magnificent project (the solar tiles on areas that don't catch the sun are fake, but the majority are real. Don't get the idea that The Co-op do sexy tech though: if I have to work with this sh1tty legacy code for another year I'm going to knaw my own arm off. Or someone elses'.

Re:Holes, not poles.

[dwye]

> So I say, build better deep buildings (holes), not tall towers of concrete (poles).

Thank you, Durin.

I keep telling the other players in my D&D group to build a delving, not a tower, but do they ever listen? NOOO!

        (just keeping this News For Nerds, and not CNBC) (alas, that means no Erin Burnett, as well)

Re:Holes, not poles.

[Nukenbar]

sounds like a great view.

Re:Holes, not poles.

[Tolvor]

Building foundations are not that expensive compared to construction costs. Building a foundation involves digging a hole according to engineering specs, laying the pipework channels according to blueprint, pre-stressing the sides of the foundation pit, laying in the re-bar, and then pour in a very strong expansive concrete mix - typically in multiple pours and sets. Then an engineer comes in and looks very closely at the sides, and for cracks. Sounds complicated but not really, nor really expensive compared to the building itself.

The taller a building gets it get more expensive due to material physics. Concrete is strong and concrete with re-bar is stronger, and concrete attached to heavy steel girders and beams in compressive mode is still stronger. But the higher you go the more support you need, and the stronger the *lower levels* have to be because they have all the upper levels pressing down on them. This is what causes both towers of the World Trade Center to fail - the structural supports were compromised (for different reasons in each tower) and the weight of the upper floors crushed the lower levels. As a rule of thumb each additional floor is 15% more expensive than the floor below it. This includes labor. Getting a construction worker licensed to work on the ground floor is way different than one licensed for high-rise construction work.

The foundations of buildings are not the expensive part - just generally the most time consuming (for the high-stress concrete to cure) and the most aggravating (all the inspections, documentation, and prep work).

Digging holes is still far cheaper. Underground buildings still win.

New Metric: Average building height per sq. mile.

[mdmkolbe]

they weren't particularly economical compared to just building two or three shorter (but still pretty tall) buildings

We need a new "tallest building" metric to account for this. Something along the lines of average-building-height per geographic-square-mile. Or better yet, to stop cheaters building a solitary building in a vacant square mile, maybe we should use total-habitable-square-feet per geographic-square-mile (taller buildings will naturally have more habitable square feet). Or maybe total-building-volume per geographic-square-mile (this avoids the trouble with variable floor heights).

Must offer a great view

[Snufu]

of the financial bust below.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/02/eveningnews/main4696300.shtml

Re:Yeah, but it isn't slavery by white people

[amRadioHed]

WTF are you on about? I hate to break it to you, but trolling is not your strong suite.

Heel Tastic Review

[zonika]

Every one of the great time comes in life when that time comes and the stars of his life are in circulation .. And this is what they think is great too ..... Heel Tastic Review

Space occupied by elevators

[sajjen]

Given a proper infrastructure in the surrounding area, tall buildings can certainly lead to a more efficient transportation system. When a building reaches a certain size however, the transportation system inside the building starts to become a problem. How tall can a building be built before all the space gets eaten up by elevator shafts?

Re:Space occupied by elevators

[Chrisq]

The proposed solution for this is in effect a vertical reailway; multiple fifts per shaft, express elivators (only stopping on every 20'th floor for you to change to a "local" elivator), etc.

Re:Space occupied by elevators

[Animats]

How tall can a building be built before all the space gets eaten up by elevator shafts?

That's the real problem. The World Trade Center towers had "sky lobbies", with big express elevators to intermediate floors, and local elevators from there. Local elevator shafts could then be above each other.

The World Trade Center was unique in that all the floors were the same size. Most other tall buildings are pointy, so the higher floors are smaller and traffic to the top is less. Burj Dubai is also residential on the higher floors, so the people density and traffic for the upper floors is low.

Elevator speeds are limited by the rate at which people can stand air pressure changes. Tapei 101 has pressurized elevators, so they can fine-tune the rate of pressure change. It's not clear if Burj Dubai does; if they don't, they'll probably have to slow down the higher elevators to reduce resident complaints.

How is this possible?

[selven]

How can the Burj Dubai be taller than Chuck Norris's own tower? I'm sure it'll get roundhouse kicked down eventually.

Re:How is this possible?

[selven]

Offtopic? CN Tower? Hello?

Kind of reflects Dubai; the higher you build..

[angrygretchen]

the greater the fall.

And it is needed because...?

[AlecC]

New York need skyscrapers because Manhattan Island is effectively full. Other tall buildings have been built in megacities where a small core is fed by a huge suburbia. How large is Dubai? How far is this building from flat desert where they could have built the equivalent office space in low/medium rise? I know it is a prestige project, but will it be a viable workspace in a few years?

Taipei 101 was a joke

[WindBourne]

The simple fact is, that it was smaller than the sears. They added an artificial roof to extend it above Sears to acquire the title. So much cheating that goes on over there. OTH, there is NO DOUBT that this one is for real. What a monster. I hope that AQ never decides to take it out. Hopefully, we help them equip it with ABM. I wonder how long before the next building tops this.

Re: Taipei 101 was a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahn'Qiraj has better things to do than knock down silly little buildings. C'thun and the Qiraji has the world in their grasp!!!

Want to rent a plane?

[jackspenn]

I'm just saying "It makes for one heck of a target".

!!Watch the link in the OP

[Anonymous Coward]

there is at least one trojan linking off the page.

Chuting

[feufeu]

There are special parachutes for this (which will probably open when jumping from a not-so-high-building), but i'd suspect that given the height of this tower any "normal" parachute will do. http://www.fallschirm.de/index-Dateien/Page932.htm (it's in german, i came across this one not so long ago)

Re:Chuting

[Zerth]

And remember, jump with the wind, if possible.

It isn't pleasant when you jump on the windward side and get blown into the side of the building.

Re:Chuting

[ari_j]

It isn't pleasant when you jump on the windward side and get blown into the side of the building.

Do you know this from personal experience? How many times did you repeat the experiment to ensure it was not an anomaly? Do we trust the advice of someone who jumped off the windward side of a building more than once? =)

Re:Chuting

[Zerth]

Do you know this from personal experience? How many times did you repeat the experiment to ensure it was not an anomaly? Do we trust the advice of someone who jumped off the windward side of a building more than once? =)

Heh, indeed. However, one can also learn from observation.

Re:Chuting

[ari_j]

This is one of those times I'm glad that removing the Flash player plugin was the only way to make my Mac browsers not crash when loading Gmail (no clue why), and therefore can only hope I forget to check the video out tomorrow at work.

Re:I LOVE DUNE COONS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the human race sure is funny. Bunch of hairless monkeys.

CN Tower is still #1

[spammeister]

For it's observation deck is still higher off the ground than the public observation deck of the Burj. Unless they were lying about that as well, but I don't think I'll be going back to Dubai any time soon to verfiy the vertigo.

World's Tallest Building To Open Monday

[PCWizardsinc]

Kaspersky AV when going to http://www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com/ shows the following: "detected: Trojan program Trojan-Downloader.JS.Agent.ewi" Be careful...

Re:World's Tallest Building To Open Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

Kaspersky AV when going to http://www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com/ shows the following:
"detected: Trojan program Trojan-Downloader.JS.Agent.ewi" Be careful...

Huh, that's funny, mine isn't giving me any warning. But I notice that NoScript blocked 11 scripts on that page, so maybe that's your problem.

On-topic: The article starts by saying:

"The Burj Dubai ('Dubai Tower' in Arabic)

That would be the "Burj Dubai" in Arabic, it's the "Dubai Tower" in English.

Re:World's Tallest Building To Open Monday

[RealGrouchy]

"The Burj Dubai ('Dubai Tower' in Arabic)

That would be the "Burj Dubai" in Arabic, it's the "Dubai Tower" in English.

No. It's saying "Burj Dubai = Arabic(Dubai Tower)"

- RG>

Re:World's Tallest Building To Open Monday

[alexo]

No. It's saying "Burj Dubai = Arabic(Dubai Tower)"

Burj_Dubai = reinterpret_cast(Dubai_Tower);

Re:World's Tallest Building To Open Monday

[alexo]

Burj_Dubai = reinterpret_cast<Arabic>(Dubai_Tower);

Look Out!

[Bearded Frog]

Look out guys it's the Combine Citadel from Half Life 2!

CHECK FOR VIRUS

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS ADDRESS HAS MALWARE-----++++++++1/4/2010 6:32:42 AM Deleted Trojan program Trojan-Downloader.JS.Agent.ewi C:\Users\Dennis\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5\IO58EOL8\infolinks_main[1].js

*****http://www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com/

Re:CHECK FOR VIRUS

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you Dennis.

Burj Dubai: 2700ft. CN Tower: 1800ft

[Bananatree3]

Burj Dubai is 2700ft
CN Tower: 1800ft

Burj is almost 1000 ft taller than the CN tower.

Re:Burj Dubai: 2700ft. CN Tower: 1800ft

[Hognoxious]

He was clearly talking about the height of the observation deck, presumably because that's the highest part an ordinary member of the public can get to.

In a way I see his point; what use is an extra 1000ft that you can't access?

Should have been a solar updraft tower

[Baldrson]

Too bad he didn't build a solar updraft tower instead. Dubai might be worth something.

Tallest free-standing structure is

[SlappyBastard]

Tallest free-standing structure is a sign standing next to the Burj Dubai saying, "Our mountain of debt is this high."

Re:I LOVE DUNE COONS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the human race sure is funny. Bunch of hairless monkeys.

Ball-less too, for the most part.

Another bubble pops

[Quiet_Desperation]

scheduled to open to the public on Monday.

And scheduled to enter receivership on Tuesday.

Yeah it's tall, but the observartion deck...

[Anonymous Coward]

The observation deck is still only 442m up the 824m building, with 25 levels of offices, 15 levels of communications and 42 levels of machinery towering above it.

That puts the observation deck below those of the Shanghai World Financial Center (474m) and the CN Tower (446m), and a mere 30m above the Willis/Sears Tower's deck.

And we all know there's no point in having the world's tallest building if it doesn't have balls to show its visitors.

Reminds me of a quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Shrek (upon first seeing the Burj Dubai): "Do you think maybe he's compensating for something?"

Really?

[ABasketOfPups]

What about flooding?

Its like Vegas...

[DarthVain]

Just without the sex and booze...oh wait...

Since when do Muslims hate capitalism?

[jotaeleemeese]

Some of them may hate Western values, but there is no Socialist regime left in the region.

Re:Since when do Muslims hate capitalism?

[XDirtypunkX]

Well, that's debatable, Syria is still run by what is at least notionally a Socialist regime.

Re:Since when do Muslims hate capitalism?

[Xest]

I assume you mean communist? Even most Western nations are quite socialist such as Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Norway etc. and some middle eastern ones are fairly socialist also like Israel and Syria.

Tallest?

[AP31R0N]

Is this the tallest in the same way the Ptronas(sp?) towers were "taller" than the Sears Tower? Eg. higher decorative spire as opposed to higher usable space.

Safe?

[Doctorer]

I wonder how long it'll take for someone to fly a plane into it?

Or is it "safe", in an Islamic/Arab country?

Re:I LOVE DUNE COONS!

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Profane MuthaFucka is most certainly profane. But he is better than Republicans in that he is not a racist. Therefore, I am qualified to point it out.

Republicans, for some reason, are not ashamed to be called racists. They don't mind it at all. They'll actually stand there and argue with you about how signs depicting black people as monkeys aren't racist. It's not cute.

Re:I LOVE DUNE COONS!

[pudge_confirmer]

Hey, muthaFucka, how do you do it? racism permeates our society, and much as I try, it isn't easy to keep it out.

i guess the answer is in trying.

See you out there. And don't get roped in by the ACs too much. They are amusing, but seldom important.

Ciao!