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San Francisco's 58-Story Millennium Tower Seen Sinking From Space (sfgate.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGate: Engineers in San Francisco have tunneled underground to try and understand the sinking of the 58-story Millennium Tower. Now comes an analysis from space. The European Space Agency has released detailed data from satellite imagery that shows the skyscraper in San Francisco's financial district is continuing to sink at a steady rate -- and perhaps faster than previously known. The luxury high-rise that opened its doors in 2009 has been dubbed the Leaning Tower of San Francisco. It has sunk about 16 inches into landfill and is tilting several inches to the northwest. Engineers have estimated the building is sinking at a rate of about 1-inch per year. The Sentinel-1 twin satellites show almost double that rate based on data collected from April 2015 to September 2016. The satellite data shows the Millennium Tower sunk 40 to 45 millimeters -- or 1.6 to 1.8 inches -- over a recent one-year period and almost double that amount -- 70 to 75 mm (2.6 to 2.9 inches) -- over its 17-month observation period, said Petar Marinkovic, founder and chief scientist of PPO Labs which analyzed the satellite's radar imagery for the ESA along with Norway-based research institute Norut. The Sentinel-1 study is not focused on the Millennium Tower but is part of a larger mission by the European Space Agency tracking urban ground movement around the world, and particularly subsidence "hotspots" in Europe, said Pierre Potin, Sentinel-1 mission manager for the ESA. The ESA decided to conduct regular observations of the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Hayward Fault, since it is prone to tectonic movement and earthquakes, said Potin, who is based in Italy. Data from the satellite, which is orbiting about 400 miles (700 kilometers) from the earth's surface, was recorded every 24 days. The building's developer, Millennium Partners, insists the building is safe for occupancy and could withstand an earthquake.
It's mortgaged up to the hilt, if Trump Tower did collapse he'd happily take the insurance and run.
Most of his businesses are mortgaged up to the hilt and beyond. It's all dodgy as f*** in there, Bernie Madoff numbers.
http://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/the-8-billion-dollar-man/
Trump tower had another $100 million mortgage taken out in 2012.
40 Wall street has $160 million mortgage against it at 5.71 percent interest, those most recent numbers show it generates $6.49 million in profits, to pay a $9.1 million in mortgage payment. i.e. he's not covering his mortgages.
It's a big mess in there, on the one hand he declared £3.3million from his Scottish golf resort in his election filing papers, but Companies house says he made a £1.1million *loss*.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3832893/Donald-Trump-s-Scottish-golf-courses-lost-9million-year.html
He borrowed $18 million last year against his Miami golf resort "Trump National Doral", bringing the disclosed borrowing (it might be more) to $125 million (to Deutsch Bank), yet his lawyer says its only worth $75.
http://therealdeal.com/miami/2016/08/22/trumps-doral-and-jupiter-resorts-tax-bills-under-scrutiny/
The building's developer, Millennium Partners, insists the building is safe for occupancy and could withstand an earthquake.
In this context, I would guess "developer" is used similarly to "business development" which means sales. Personally, I would prefer an engineer to make a safety assessment rather than a developer in the assumed context, but I could be wrong about context. I didn't see Millennium Partners engineering firms on the first page of a Google search, though.
Maybe they mean safe in a context similar to "perfectly safe" from Zaphod Plays It Safe.
After the 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch, NZ, 22 February 2011, we can tell you that what you thought was safe, isnt... We had buildings that should have survived the quake, but didnt...
And then we had a 7.8 in Kaikoura, on November 25 2016...I wouldn't want to be within a mile of this building in an earthquake
The building's developer, Millennium Partners, insists the building is safe for occupancy and could withstand an earthquake.
In this context, I would guess "developer" is used similarly to "business development" which means sales. Personally, I would prefer an engineer to make a safety assessment rather than a developer in the assumed context, but I could be wrong about context. I didn't see Millennium Partners engineering firms on the first page of a Google search, though.
Maybe they mean safe in a context similar to "perfectly safe" from Zaphod Plays It Safe.
Look, it's safe until it's not okay, now shut up and get in there.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
The imagery looks like the actual measurements are LiDAR derived.
Similar levels of accuracy are available from the GPS system when differential GPS is used. More information about GPS here:
Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) http://geodesy.noaa.gov/CORS/
It is rocket science, however today not surprising. The really hard part of this is that the data is available in near real time. See the Sentinel mission website
https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/missions.
Any time a building incurs settlement like this I wounder if the foundation layer - likely some sort of clay - is a thixotropic material potentially subject to liquefaction when shaken. Reference Jan. 17, 1995 Hyogo-Ken Nanbu Earthquake:Technical Paper on Liquifaction and,Earthquake Impact on Kobe
And already delivered on promise to stop Carrier from moving 1000 jobs to Mexico, he isn't even president yet.
So, I'm going to have to go with concrete results over name calling and hate speech from you.
If it was unrelated, why did Carrier management credit talks with Trump as the reason for the change?
Keep up the bitterness, it helps ensure a 2nd term.
the name suits the millennial generation quite well: ambition, arrogance, but wilfully ignorant and/or unaccepting of reality/logic/math.
If you have a problem with millennials, look to the people who raised them like that.
And, as a millennial, I do not get this characterization at all. We have so much less than previous generations, and I'd be surprised if we complain more than they did. In addition, it's the older generations' lack of critical thinking that got us into so many messes like the drug war, a bunch of real wars, consolidation of media, and on and on.
This is false: "That does not make sense. Businesses are kept separate for a whole slew of legal and tax related reasons."
No that's not true. He doesn't have money in any of these organizations to lend.
Berkshire Hathaway is all internal loans. Each company within the group lends spare cash to other companies in the group at market rates, and thus earns the interest charged as profits, instead of that profit going to banks. Warren Buffet buys specifically insurance companies, because they're cash rich and can lend that cash to other companies in the group. Insurance premiums are paid up front, but liabilities on the premiums arrive later. Interest earned is kept within the group, simply returning to the Insurance company as profit. Rather than being paid out to a bank. That's what cash rich companies do.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/08/how-warren-buffett-borrows-77-billion-for-free.aspx
Currently Trump's companies shift revenue around. So investment money for one place, travels through the books as revenue in his other companies. Hence the 160% sudden increase in Miami National Doral revenue, without the corresponding increase in room rate or occupancy on that resort. That property is valued at $96 million, his lawyer says its only worth $75 million, yet it's borrowing is $125 million from Deutsch bank alone. A black hole of $50 million just comparing two different Trump company numbers and noticing the mismatch.
Same with the loss making Scottish golf resort, which he claims is profitable in the US figures he gave for that UK business, and yet makes a loss in the UK figures filed at companies house. Again two different numbers for the same thing files in two different places.
All of his businesses are like that. The mature New York buildings which should be debt free by now, are basically bankrupt. e.g. 40 Wall Street has $160 million mortgage, at 5.71 percent, i.e. $9.1 million mortgage and yet makes only $6.49 million profit. It doesn't make enough to service its debt.