Newsletter #00055

Ok everyone, another guest writer for you today! I was gonna also contribute but what I think I'm gonna write about in my next newsletter doesn't go along w/ what is gonna be in here today so I'm just gonna save it for next Friday I think.

Anyways, the guest writer today is Nick Mag! His topic is actually really interesting. So here it is!

Seeing as other people have managed to sneak guest appearances in these newsletters, I figured, “Hey why can’t I?” Well, yes, there are plenty of reasons, but without further ado, let’s jump right into the topic I want to breach.

The World.

No, not the gaseous ball of atmosphere where hate, love, and confusion come from (not to mention ourselves), but a project off of the coast of Dubai. Yes Dubai, the place where a giant palm tree island was built. A rich developer, who, if I recall correctly was Middle Eastern, had a spark of an idea, which grew into the most exclusive real estate project on the planet Earth.

The dream was this; construct a set of islands, which are clustered together in the shape of the world. Don’t thinks its possible? Just check it out—

The goal of this project, which was completed January 10, 2008, was to create a piece of land, which is bare aside form the sand, and can be sold as real estate. However, buying islands is always tricky business, due to their exclusivity and difficulty to manage. What The World offers is an island free of these things. The Islands can be bought, then shaped into any desired form, and they are all set up on a central waterway, which makes transportation a breeze. There, manmade islands were created similar to how you might imagine, with lots and lots of dirt and sand being thrown into the ocean.

Their location is also close enough to land, and they boast year-round sunshine. Seems like a pretty enticing deal, does it not? Well, the organization that made The World chooses 50 buyers every year and then shows them around. To be selected, I imagine that your bank account needs to be in a gold-sealed vault. Still, 94% of the islands are already sold! They are split up into sections including residential and commercial, so that only so many private or company buyers can be involved.

Ok, so after all this I pose a question that has been in the back of my mind ever since I saw this project unfold years ago: “Where is this taking us, and is it too far?” I mean, the project is exciting, and I will not pretend that it didn’t peak my curiosity, but still. We are creating land, which is the opposite of a canal I suppose, and making more for us. Fundamentally, we are changing our planet more, as if unsatisfied with the beauty it has presented naturally. Does this mean we will start creating continents, or removing them? Are we going to go too far, and like global warming, only stop when it’s really too late?

Well anyways, I want to thank Kasey for giving me some space in this newsletter. It was a lot of fun!

Thanks to Nick too for the cool topic. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it had some more info on this so anyone who is curious should go look it up. Also, this being mostly for Nick's information, I had to retype this entire thing because your new link didn't do anything different. That's also why this took me so long to post, since I had to retype the entire thing and find that stupid last picture cuz I couldn't copy and paste it.

Anyways, that's enough of my rambling. Comment and show Nick some love!