Toothpick City of Dubai and the World

Imagine a world made out of toothpicks. A world that could collapse at any minute. Well, Stan Munro is creating a toothpick city of the world with all the famous building and is planning to finish and complete the city in December just as the REAL Burj Dubai catches up to Stan's 5 meter (16 foot) re-creation of the tower. This is the second exhibition from the artist/creator. Toothpick City 1 was all about the History of Skyscrapers and the Burj Al Arab featured prominently. Toothpick City 2 features temples and towers and the Burj Dubai is the pinacle.






It's a truly amazing feat with hours of concentration and patience, and get this - the towers are only made from toothpicks and glue. The FAQs are interesting and funny. Here are a selection:

What kind of toothpicks do you use?
Round, square-centered toothpicks, found in most grocery stores.

What kind of glue do you use?
Elmer’s glue, regular. (not the "school glue").

What is your "real" job?
This IS my real job. I believe that if you put your heart and soul into an idea you truly believe in, you will succeed. I already did succeed with Toothpick City I, but I also believe… the first one was too small.

How long did it take you to make Toothpick City I?
Almost 2 years, full-time, limited potty breaks.

How long did it take you to make Toothpick City II?
Well, I’m still working on it. But by the time it’s finished in the Summer of 2009, it will be 4 years, full-time, overtime, and Depend undergarments.

How long does it take to make a toothpick structure?
It all depends. I did the Washington Monument in a day. Yankee Stadium took a month. The Vatican took two months. The Chrysler Building, since it was my first, took 6 months… thanks honey, I love you.

Where do you get the toothpicks?
I buy from the wholesaler. The truck driver is a good guy. He used to work at a brewery, but he likes this job much better. He gets to be his own boss and he brings that same level of customer service to the masses.

Is there anything you wanted to build, but you couldn?t?
I never thought I could build the Burj al Arab Hotel in Dubai. I was giving a presentation to a grade school class in Honeoye Falls, NY, and a student asked the question: "Why don’t you build the Burj Hotel?" I said it was way to complicated. The child responded: "Didn’t you just say that you love a challenge?" That little annoying kid was right. Now I have to ask myself that question every time.



Check out all the toothpicks

Many Muslims

Pew have just released a report: Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population. It's an interesting study from a pure numbers perspective. From its numbers nearly a quarter of the world are now Muslim. And, as you can see from the diagram, Indonesia is the most Muslim country from a scale perspective at 202 million, but that only represents 88% of the total population. Places like Iran and Iraq have 99% Muslim penetration, if that's a phrase! The UAE with all its non Muslim expats comes in at 76% Muslim.



The total numbers are crazy - there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages in the world today, about 23 percent of the global population of 6.8 billion. This is second only to Christianity which is estimated to be about 2 billion. The other interesting fact is that more than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of their global population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. Muslims are a minority in India but it has the third-largest Muslim population (161 million).

Ten to 13 percent of Muslims are estimated to be Shias and most Shias live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq. Sunnis account for 87 to 90 percent of the Muslim population.

It's all interesting stats in this day and age, and if anything, the executive summary is worth 30 seconds of your time, whatever your religion!


A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Muslim Population
Pew maps the Muslim world

The Road to Masdar..

..should be paved with solar panels. Who knows whether Masdar will become the greenest futurehub of the world? With the amount being pumped into this quasi real life experiment, you'd bet that Masdar will be successful. And with all the solar panels in place on every Masdar building plan, I think there may be room for a few more.

According to AskMen: Solar roads is a concept developed by an inventor in the US called Scott Brusaw. His idea is to replace all that asphalt with solar panels laid under a high-strength plastic layer. The planned system also uses LEDs for digital striping. Right now, the tech costs about $7,000 for a 12’ x 12’ slab, so replacing America’s highways will be a costly process. That being said, replacing the 25,000 square miles of roadways across the lower 48 with solar panels would create more energy than the U.S. consumes.




Scott says:

Instead of trying to spend our way out of our economic crisis, and leaving a huge debt for our children and our grandchildren to pay, implementing the Solar Roadways would allow us to produce our way out - creating millions of “green tech” jobs while simultaneously swapping out our archaic highway system for a modern intelligent system that just happens to collect all the energy we need and pays for itself!

He certainly believes this is the future. Whether the solar panels could handle the heat for all that time is another question. But as Thomas Edison said: "I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait 'til oil and coal run out before we tackle that." Abu Dhabi are tackling the sun before the oil runs out and hopefully they will succeed in the leading the the world to a whole new way of life.

Solar Roadways
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