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Building Melts Car
eionmac writes "A new London skyscraper dubbed the 'Walkie Talkie' has been blamed for reflecting light which melted parts of a car parked on a nearby street."
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What a world... what a world...
The Disney Concert Hall actually had to be "brushed". It was originally too shiny, and focused the sunlight in places. They had to give it a brushed finish after the fact to avoid this.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-02-24-concert-hall_x.htm
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
If you say "Building melts car," I expect to see a photo of an entire car melted. Seriously.
The car isn't made of plastic, it was sail trim and not the entire car. Not the first building to do this and even residential homes have been accused of doing the same to neighbors siding when low E windows are installed...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
that it's not uncommon for plastic bottles of water to cause fires when the sun's rays are focussed through them. Don't leave your bottles in the sun.
work in progress
Is this some new super villain with heat vision, the ability to morph into giant skyscrapers, and telepathy?
From TFA: "...they looked into the matter...".
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Dammit, I told them to angle the mirrored glass like I said! Parliament should be in flames and now the authorities have been alerted. They've failed me for the last time!
This has been a problem with other big convex glass buildings. A hotel in Vegas had this problem.
Another no-no is building tall buildings where the ground floor level is mostly columns with a small enclosed lobby. Some of the air hitting the building face is forced through the columned area. In a windy area this can produce high wind speeds. MIT's Green Building had this problem until more buildings were built around it.
Worst headline ever.
Better known as 318230.
This is what happens when someone takes the concept of an Ice Cream Truck too literally.
Reminded me of this article a couple years back:
http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/09/29/1622250/las-vegas-hotel-vdara-an-accidental-death-ray
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1316444/Las-Vegas-death-ray-hotel-leaves-guests-badly-burnt.html
What kinds of idiots are designing these things? What other idiots are approving the plans and issuing permits? Quality is going downhill in everything.
Rosie O'Donnell told me that steel doesn't melt!
Are we sure this wasn't just an elaborate advert for Hot Wheels?
"Hot Wheels leadin' the waaay!"
This building looks exactly like the facetted mirrors for solar power plants. Some idiot probably considered it cute to evoke that image. What's next? Evoking the toppling tower of Pisa in Kyoto?
How can one be an architect and not recognize the cases where optical similarities imply physical ones?
Can't be. This is supposed to have happened in the UK, where there are only vague rumours that there's such an entity as the sun.
In the UK, the Sun is flat, made of paper and ink, and would definitely melt people's character if it gets a chance.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
That's pretty funny, hey did you know that there was an entire line of cars and vans made using poly-composite plastic body panels? Funny enough, switching from steel to plastic or even fiberglass can cut the weight of a vehicle by 30% and give you massive savings on fuel. The downside is, 20 years later as long as you take care of the car it still looks new.
Om, nomnomnom...
Hmm, the Trabant was made of plastic composite and used a two stroke engine. It was far ahead of its time...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Obviously the engineers failed to factor in the 2 days of sunshine in London every year.
Stop making masturbation jokes, and stay focused.
Yep. That hotel in Vegas, The Vdara, was designed by Rafael Vinoly. The London building was designed by..... Yep. Rafael Vinoly. No joke.
I have no
We have had incidents in which parts melted in summer in Florida from time to time. I recall a ford Pinto steering wheel having melted and slumped off of the wheel. We also see windows burst in cars with good door and window seals every now and then.
For severe bodywork damage on a modern Jag? In London? Bullshit!
Remember kids: What's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
I actually stayed at this place and happened to be sitting in the wrong spot on the pool deck soon after it opened. I quickly found another spot. Hard to believe the same guy would screw up the SAME WAY again.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
Worst headline ever.
It's OK to use it sometimes. Parabole on the other hand...
Set your phasers on "funky"!
They should re-aim the building to a no parking spot.
Or focus it on a spot that can handle it. Perhaps a salt container. Use the molten salt to make steam and use that to make power (as has been done before).
Practical execution of re-aiming a building is left as an exercise to the reader because I have no idea how to do that.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
I am the architect of that building. Sorry, but I really hated that car.
Maybe that guy should lose his license. The first time is understandable - but the second?
You have to admire the owner's restraint on finding his car's been melted.
"'I am the owner. Crikey, that's awful."
As many corners that had to be cut, thank Tata for such a lower-quality car. At least Ford kept it British.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
There is a pool under that Vegas hotel with a focus hotspot, it gives you the fiery experience of an ant under the magnifying glass
Maybe he secretly thinks it's a feature? Lots of kids enjoy focusing sunlight on stuff.
Seriously? Oh my.
This guy just wants to watch the world burn. Literally.
He must have thought it wouldn't be a problem in London, what with all the pea soupers and drizzle.
It was not the building that did the melting and it was not the actual car that melted
Pea Soupers??? Welcome back from the 1950s bro. You and HG Wells must have just missed each other. :)
Don't look at building with remaining eye!
Kids these days. No respect for your elders. Now, get the hell off his lawn.
Just another day in Paradise
(London) Shards with frickin lazors
(London) Shards with frickin lazors
Still really annoying but somewhat less impressive than if it actually buckled the car, or the heat set the thing on fire.
I have the feeling Death Star was badly constructed, should have been a concave sphere.
Missed opportunity for solar power collection, if you ask me. Instead of not building curved structures, curve away but do so in a manner that's actually useful and shows some foresight. It's not like we haven't given you ray-tracing technology to make pretty print outs of the damn designs anyway; Use it to map the paths of the sun too you damn dirty apes.
...on the masturbation?
Good thing the note did not catch fire!
(AC cuz the password db remembers my password at home, I do not.. attribute this comment to Pentalive)
You could not get a better human detecting captcha "crisis" !!
The first time I saw this effect, a local homeowner installed the reflective windows (ordinary flat windows) and their car's plastic driver's side mirror assembly melted over several days of double-sun for a brief period during the day.
Maybe he's the world's most sophisticated and patient pyromaniac?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Amazing how just twice as much sun as normal will melt our world. This third rock is an uniquely hospitable, thank Dog.
I come here for the love
*golf clap*
I drank what? -- Socrates
The frigging Sun melted to car, not the building.
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
At the time the problem was found at Vdara the Walkie Talkie was already under construction. It was originally meant to open in 2011.
The guy's car could have been smashed by a large chunk of rotting whale carcass.
Link to the video in case you don't get the reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBgThvB_IDQ
perhaps it's actually your fault for failing to pay attention to these kinds of things.
OK, and how do you explain the burned carpet and damaged tile on the stores across the street? Is it their fault for using carpet and tile, and not anticipating the design of a building that had not yet been built?
I actually stayed at this place and happened to be sitting in the wrong spot on the pool deck soon after it opened. I quickly found another spot. Hard to believe the same guy would screw up the SAME WAY again.
By this point I think he's doing it on purpose.
As a Londoner myself, I think I'm allowed to take the piss out of Americans who habitually bring up that stereotype, even though it's blatantly not true. As somebody who's lived in a few places around the world, my chief complaints about the weather are that it doesn't get hot enough in summer and the winters are pretty mild and boring too! It doesn't stop the locals whinging like a bunch of babies.
The first time is NOT understandable. This isn't exactly a new phenomenon. Does the "Archimedes death ray" ring a bell?
Construction on the Vdara began in 2007 and completed in 2009.
Major news coverage of the Vdara death ray appears to begin summer 2010.
Construction on the Walkie Talkie began in 2010. They'd reached the basement level by January 2011 according to Wikipedia.
It seems to me that implies plenty of time to alter the design of the rest of the tower.
On the Vdara:
"Designers foresaw the issue, and thought they had solved it by installing a high-tech film on the south-facing glass panes"
(didn't work, looks like they were excessively optimistic or didn't count on the parabolic effect, just reflection)
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I actually stayed at this place and happened to be sitting in the wrong spot on the pool deck soon after it opened. I quickly found another spot. Hard to believe the same guy would screw up the SAME WAY again.
Hey, if you can't be right, you can at least be consistent.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
The first time is NOT understandable. This isn't exactly a new phenomenon. Does the "Archimedes death ray" ring a bell?
No, it was designed to burn ships. Sheesh, rays ringing a bell, how ridiculous.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Someone should dress up in an ant costume and walk into the beam.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Holy crap, reflective sunlight did that? Sheesh, their putting way too deflective windows into these new office towers or cars are being made out way to crappy material.
I bet a pulsed laser could do it, although you might need a new bell after not too many shots. Or a replaceable ablative plate, which your laser system won't miss.
Maybe they could put a big sculpture of an ant at the focal point.
I recall a friend telling me years ago that when he went to work at Raytheon, he asked why there was a big triangle of the employee parking lot that was unused. It turned out that there was a microwave transmitter pointed that way that was still strong enough in that area that car upholstery and such would break down in just a couple of months of exposure. Hmmm. Not exactly "melting" the cars, but I would want to give that a good wide berth.
This was a Jaguar not a cheap Ford Fiesta.
This is the third story in 10 years I've seen on building reflecting enough light to heat things up way past what people are happy with, why aren't we designing new buildings to leverage the thermal energy they reflect ?
Reflected light means less absorbed heat on the structure.
Reflected and directed light can be utilized for positive application.
When it's happening by accident, and nobody's figured out how to do it on purpose for a positive application, THAT tells me people are getting dumber and dumber.