Revolutionary Tower in Brazil 319
An anonymous reader writes "Have you ever thought about retiring in Brazil? If you have thought about doing so, this might be just the piece of real estate you were looking for. 'An unusual apartment building was inaugurated in Brazil, each of whose 11 storeys turns independently, giving lucky residents 360-degree views of the eco-friendly city of Curitiba.' Now, if they could only tilt it a little bit to look like Pisa's Tower..."
Re:Plumbing? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Think about the electric bill (Score:5, Informative)
Incredible city (Score:5, Informative)
Amazing architecture, excelent transportation, lot's of things to do, and see.
They are heavely influenced by Centro European inmigration, I was surprised finding typical ucranian foods, etc. They also have parks representing the cultural carachteristics of each community (poland park, ucranian park, german park, etc.).
They really are the "Ecological Capital of Brazil"... they have a saying:
"If you cut a tree, and the police catch you, you better kill the policeman... you will spend less years in prison".
The only bad part is that, being a city at 850-1000 meters of altitud, it's not uncommon to have 25 Celsius degrees at midday and 6 degrees at 10 p.m. It's not really cold, but the difference between night and day is excesive.
Anyway, it's a really nice city, full of nice people!
cheap (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I am shocked (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. They are not poor. They are a relatively wealthy country with the worst income distribution of latin america.
Just to give you an idea, their GDP per capita is around $7600 a year. Wealthier in comparison to China ($5000) and way beyond India ($2600). Compare that to Rwanda ($1300) or Haiti ($1600). The US is around $35.000 a year and France around $27.000.
My point is that even if you lump all those countries together under the label "third world", there are huge differences between them, bigger differences than between let's say, the US and France.
On the technology sector, I think that they have the best technology of Latin America. BR has its own Linux distro (Conectiva) and I know that many commercial systems are developed using their own programming languages. They also used to have their own compressed files formats and that sort of thing.
But software is not their stronger sector. In Civil and electrical engineering they are very good. They've built the biggest electric damn in the world, Itaipu, one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World (Time/Life selection).
Check out the website:
http://www.itaipu.gov.br/ [itaipu.gov.br]
Brazil is the eight economy of the world (2002). It used to be the first latin american economy after Mexico, only surpassed slightly, but very recently. The Mexican economy however, is much more dependent on foreign investment. i.e. 92% of Mexican banks is in the hands of foreign capitals.
Great music, beautiful gals, great beaches, what else do you want?
Just in case you were thinking about it . . . I am not Brazilian . . . and I am not dating a Brazilian.
Re:Great for the folks on the top few floors... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This isn't really all that practical though... (Score:2, Informative)
There could be a central room that everything opens into, and where the border between the apartment and hub is. There could also be radial walls, as long as they didn't go all the way to the center (this gruesome accident [snopes.com] comes to mind).
Re:revolutionary indeed... (Score:3, Informative)
RTFA:
So, you will be able to rotate counter so at least some of the rings.Regards, Ulli
Re:Think about the electric bill (Score:5, Informative)
And yes, US$300k is A HUGE LOT OF MONEY here in Brazil. It's almost 900k reais, when our minimum wage is around R$300.
Re:Exactly! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Plumbing? RTFA! (Score:3, Informative)
Bill
Re:Think about the electric bill (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, it's been a nice joke, everyone thought it was not for real. I've lived around there and I remember that it was under construction somewhere around 1992!
One word: Sunlight.
Yes, remember that some people, when the word Brazil comes up, think of sunshine. But... Curitiba is a place around 900 meters above sea, with a really bad climate, IMHO.
Well, see for yourself (don't forget it's almost summer here) Forecast [weather.com]