[ShortcutToMoncton]

When's the last time someone used "Buffalo" and "hope" in the same sentence?

[Laminar]

The last time the sentence started with "I was in Canada."

[ShortcutToMoncton]

I'd be insulted, except I can see where you're hailing from.

[- - e r i k - -]

I guess this isn't a joke after all

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

The Mile High Tower (Arabic: برج الميل‎) is a supertall skyscraper proposed for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom Holding company, which is owned by prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, has chosen Bechtel company as the project's developer. If completed, the building would rise to more than one mile (1.6 km) in height, which would make it the tallest building in the world, surpassing the Burj Dubai. The project has a budget of 165 billion Saudi riyals ($45 Billion USD). The latest information is that tenders for construction would be handed out by May of 2008 when Kingdom Holdings would make an official announcement. Actual floor count has not been finalized but calculated projections suggest a possible 375 floors. Obstacles include sway and building lifts. The latter was addressed in Elevator World website by the use of electromagnetic lifts. UK's Hyder corporation, a structural engineering firm has been chosen as the principal engineers for the project along with Arup, also from the U.K. The architectural firm is the U.S. company Pickard Chilton.

Official site:
Kingdom Holding Company

Interesting trivia: Kingdom Holding Company owns about 5% of Apple's stock.

[brassplayersrock²]

the apple iTower. ships in 10-20 years

[analogika]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

I guess this isn't a joke after all

Well, the story *was* dated March 31st.

[ctt1wbw]

What are we talking about here, $10,000USD per square foot or something?

[xi_hyperon]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Interesting trivia: Kingdom Holding Company owns about 5% of Apple's stock.

I believe that one of the nephews of King Fahd invested a huge sum in Apple back in '97, when Apple was seriously hurting. If he's kept his investment since then, well, it's paid off nicely.

[f1000]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Steel will melt under the compression needed to build such a building. Stone will disintegrate under the pressure. There are some modern concretes that can take the pressure, but they can't take the movement that the building would have.

Although I haven't studied its phase diagram, I doubt that steel will melt under isothermal compression at room temperature. Your notion of melting steel comes from observations of adiabatic compression, which is not likely to be an issue at the relatively glacial pace of skyscraper construction.

Materials will disintegrate under pressure, but this can be dealt with by tapering the skyscraper. As I already pointed out, mountains are much taller and more massive than our posulated mile-high skyscraper, but the surfaces of their bases are not continuously spalling earth and stone.

Current skyscrapers are already passing the half-mile mark, so it shouldn't be too hard for even laypeople to see that a full mile high skyscraper isn't that far off. Even our own illustrious Frank Lloyd Wright designed one back in the day, complete with atomic powered elevators.

[Judge_Fire]

There'd better be Starbucks in the elevators, for those really busy mornings.

[Atomic Rooster]

Wouldn't it just fall over in the sand? Do they have bedrock?

With their luck they'd be digging the foundation and hit some more of that black goop.

[Kerrigan]

I'm glad to see that the money that commoners spend on the overpriced gasoline they use to drive themselves to work are paying for this *********'s megalomaniacal building projects.

(I mean, I'd still like to see it if he's going to build it)

[analogika]

I like your sense of entitlement.

[Eug]

View from glass-floored CN Tower elevator.

[ctt1wbw]

How easy is vomit to mop up from that?

[- - e r i k - -]

It's glass, so I'd say pretty easy.




Oh …that was rhetorical was it?

[ctt1wbw]

Yep. I can me vomit on that.