Smith, Greg dot com

Five years ago today, on October 17, 2003, the pinnacle was added to this skyscraper, making it the world's tallest building -- sort of -- for a while. Depends on what the meaning of the word "tall" is.

That's "Taipei 101" in Taipei, the Republic of China (Taiwan). As a tower, it well, just towers over the city -- click to enlarge, it's a pretty cool picture of the skyline:

Where does Taipei rank in the order of Really Tall Buildings? Well, see, there's always this argument about how to measure a skyscraper: should you include the antennas on the top or just the architectural part of the building (that people can walk in, etc.)?

Actually, the actual building part of Taipei 101 is shorter than the Shanghai World Financial Center (that I went to the top of last week -- the elevator in it goes 100 stories in 16 seconds, I kid you not), but Taipei has the tower on the top that is taller than Shanghai's "bottle opener" top (that's what we kept calling it last week every time we looked up at the skyline).

This is kind of an older chart (doesn't include the Shanghai World Financial Center) but it illustrates the whole where-do-you-measure-from? the-structure-or-the-tower-on-top? conflict pretty well:

Here are some numbers I found about Taipei 101, boasting the records it held on completion, but I think a couple of these were broken when Shanghai opened last year:

• Ground to highest architectural structure (spire): 509.2 metres (1,670.60 ft). Previously held by the Petronas Towers 452 m (1,483 ft).

• Ground to roof: 449.2 m (1,473.75 ft). Formerly held by the Sears Tower 442 m (1,450 ft).
  Ground to highest occupied floor: 439.2 m (1,440.94 ft). Formerly held by the Sears Tower 412.4 m (1,353 ft).

• Fastest ascending elevator speed: 16.83 m/s (55.22 ft/s) (60.6 km/h, 37.7 mi/h).

The record for greatest height from ground to pinnacle (antenna tower on top) remains with the Sears Tower in Chicago (USA): 527 m (1,729 ft).

Pretty cool, huh? Well, when it comes to erecting giant towers, there is always someone who'll put up a bigger one. The Burj Dubai, located in Dubai, UAE, overtook Taipei 101 and the Shanghai World Financial Center in height upon completion of its 141st floor on July 7, 2007. However, it's not done yet: no one can occupy those floors. So as these things are considered Dubai is currently the tallest structure but not the tallest building yet. When it's finished sometime in 2009 the Burj Dubai is expected to hold one or more world records. Check it out how it will stack up against Taipei 101, another super tall one being built in Saudi Arabia, the Shanghai financial center and the Freedom Tower in NYC on the former site of the World Trade Center (which I doubt will ever be built, but that's a rant for another day) -- click to enlarge:

Oh, and just for some Friday fun, here's some jackass base jumping off the Taipei 101 with typical a typical jackassery YouTube soundtrack and a NSFW comment or two. I want to see him sprain an ankle or something just for subjecting me to that music: