Monday, November 10, 2008

It moved

In the picture behind Ellie is one of the huge dampers used to
stabilize the tallest building in the world, and the world's only
publicly displayed damper. Taipei 101 is in an extremely earthquake
and typhoon prone area so it was built with several of these huge
steel spheres which hang from gigantic cables. As the building moves,
the damper swings to counterbalance the movement... At least I think
that's how it works. Polk reports that he thinks the building has a
much stiffer feeling than the Sears Tower in Chicago. To make the
dampers even more exciting, they have created characters called
"Damper Babies" and Ellie is posing with one.