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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)."
Right in time for the Dubai economy to start tanking.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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.
Too bad it was built with slavery...
They sure put a lot of effort in the Citadel and City 17 sets for the upcoming Half-Life movie...
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That the building is more stable than their web server... Damn request time out every time.
Need an ISP in South Africa?
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.
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.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
- 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?
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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.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
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.
I told you not to tell me that...
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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.
Huh, no shit.
Kaspersky AV when going to http://www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com/ shows the following: "detected: Trojan program Trojan-Downloader.JS.Agent.ewi" Be careful...