

'Walkie-Talkie' skyscraper melts Jaguar car - drucken
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23930675

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lutusp
Title of this submission: "'Walkie-Talkie' skyscraper melts Jaguar car"

Title of the actual article: "'Walkie-Talkie' skyscraper melts Jaguar car
_parts_ "

This is like saying, "Prime minister discusses end of world rumor" and leaving
off "rumor".

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joosters
The original seems fair enough to me. Are you insisting that the entire car is
melted into a puddle before the title can leave the ' _parts_ ' bit out?

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lutusp
That depends. What does the title say, if it's intended to convey facts?

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corysama
A friend of mine worked on one of the few "laser disc holographic" arcade game
machines. (ex: [http://www.oobject.com/revolutionary-arcade-
cabinets/1991-ho...](http://www.oobject.com/revolutionary-arcade-
cabinets/1991-hologram-time-traveler/6848/)) The "hologram" was a visual trick
involving a large, curved mirror. They had to do a recall after one arcade
establishment positioned the machine next to a window. The sunlight shining
through the window was focused to a point on the side of the wooden cabinet
causing the machine set itself on fire and burn down the arcade! A quick
redesign later and they had a variation on the "holographic" effect that used
a convex mirror instead of a concave one.

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sbarre
Didn't this happen with a Gehry building in Los Angeles too?

The concert hall was reflecting "hot spots" in various areas, etc..

[http://architecture.about.com/od/ideasapproaches/ss/Controve...](http://architecture.about.com/od/ideasapproaches/ss/Controversy-
DisneyHall.htm)

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fuser
This also happened with the Aria in Las Vegas,
[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39403349/ns/travel-news/t/death-
ra...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39403349/ns/travel-news/t/death-ray-vegas-
hotel-pool-heats-guests/)

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easytiger
I wonder if this is Jaguar specific or because it was an aluminium monocoque.
But I would hope that Jaguar would have something to say about this.
Especially since one carrying dick van dyke went up in flames. And especially
since i have one and am now a tad worried.

Also < £1k for those repairs sounds very very low.

~~~
rMBP
I'm sure it's a plastic part. The exterior looks fine apart from that small
panel. The car looks like an XJ which have small panels on either side of the
rear window. [http://carsfolia.com/photo/im/jaguar-
xj/03/](http://carsfolia.com/photo/im/jaguar-xj/03/)

~~~
easytiger
Ahh for some reason I just assumed XK. My bad. That makes sense then.

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leoedin
It seems that they've inadvertently built a giant parabolic reflector. Out of
glass...

I wonder what the solution to this will be, and to what extent the developers
will be held responsible. Is there any laws against focusing light intensely
onto the street? I'd imagine that the cost of either increasing the light
absorbed by each window or somehow adjusting the windows so they don't create
such a uniform reflector will be rather high.

~~~
nknighthb
> _Is there any laws against focusing light intensely onto the street?_

Laws tend to be passed for things that people think of. This will now be
something people think of, and will probably end up in building codes. In the
mean time, tort/delict laws may still serve to make the developers/owners
financially responsible.

~~~
mikeash
Is that really true? Seems to me that laws tend to focus more on outcomes than
mechanisms. If I invent a totally new way to kill people and then use it to
murder my neighbor, I'll still be convicted of murder even though the law
predates the invention of the weapon.

Similarly, this would fall under laws covering property damage. Since intent
plays a big part in the law, and this was almost certainly not intentional,
I'm sure they won't be found guilty of anything particularly bad, but it seems
certain that they would be liable for the cost of repairs.

~~~
nknighthb
The concept you're looking for is the one I mentioned in my comment: torts.
Not all law is criminal law.

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rexreed
One potential solution might be to coat the reflective glass windows with a
transparent layer that diffuses rather than reflects the light. Sounds like
that would be the simplest and least costly approach.

~~~
ris
That would be frosted glass. I don't think the people who've stumped up huge
amounts of money to get premium office space would be too happy to be
presented with a blurry view of nothing.

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mikeash
How, exactly, do you design a gigantic curved reflective surface without
considering things like this? I mean, the basic idea dates back to at least
Ancient Greece if not further.

~~~
code_chimp
Ha, my first thought was "Archimedes" when I read this.

