Dubai has enlisted Rem Koolhaus for their masterpiece.

It will have the density of Manhattan, on an artificial island. Minaret-inspired towers will stretch eighty stories into the air. Mosques will dot the landscape, abutting a gigantic 44-story sphere. The whole thing would be ringed by a boardwalk, except in the northeast: there, the grid system would dissolve, into a traditional souk, filled with back alleys and shortcuts.

If anyone can do it, it’s Dubai. In recent years, Dubai has exploded, in seemingly every architectural direction possible. They already built the world’s largest artificial island, in the shape of the palm tree. The estimate that they are using one of every three of the world’s cranes, however, seems to be a slight exaggeration: it’s maybe only one out of five.

No one can predict who would actually live there. If current trends continue, Waterfront City’s future residents will probably turn out to be some of the richest people on the planet. Ever.

They are wooden robots. They are, obviously, from Japan.

They are called ‘Karakuri Ningyo:’ ‘karakuri,’ to mean a mechanical object which takes a person by surprise, and ‘ningyo,’ to mean a puppet, doll, or even effigy. Their mechanisms are a brilliant interplay of gears, sand, and even mercury - a combination that allowed some of the world’s first robots, without a single screw.

In 18th century Japan, they could serve tea. Two tea-drinkers would set down a cup of tea on a karakuri’s tray, and the weight of the cup would trigger the doll’s internal clockwork. It would turn around, and deliver the tea straight to the seated guest. Some dolls would also fire tiny, tiny arrows from tiny, tiny bows. They would often score a bullseye.

These puppets, in no small part, underlie Japan’s love of robots. They help to explain why some Japanese treat even the machines in an auto shop with tenderness, sometimes giving them names. It also helps to make sense of Astroboy.

The Serpent Mother is apocalyptic, and beautiful.

Her metal skeleton stretches 168′ long, and she breathes fire. Her entire being is shot through with propane, which erupts into flame at forty-one distinct spots along her spine. The flames are controlled by audience participants. So is the hydraulic head, and jaws.

It was first seen at Burning Man. This is not at all surprising, for an art-fueled festival of bohemian debauchery held annually in the middle of the desert. A shared love of fire, too, made it a match made in heaven. But the Serpent Mother has bigger plans: a world tour.

The Flaming Lotus Girls - the creators of the Serpent Mother - are raising funds. One of their methods is to sell calendars, displaying both the men and women metalworkers posing sexily, while wielding arc welders and sledgehammers.

Germans will be honest even if it kills them.

The Stasi were the secret police of East Germany, and they were everywhere. They were ‘The Sword and Shield of the Party,’ the eyes and ears of totalitarianism. But they had help: hundreds of thousands of everyday East German citizens doubled as informers - ‘Inoffizielle Mitarbeiteren’ - for the Stasi. Estimates suggest that as many as one of every seven citizens was a spy.

When the wall fell, the Stasi destroyed every file they could find. Their obsession, however, was their downfall: a billion pieces of paper can’t just be erased, and the Stasi only managed to shred 5% of their lot, much of it by hand. In 1992, the remaining files were opened to the public. Anyone can go and look up their name, and find out exactly who was spying on them, and when.

A lot of people are scared to look. Family and friends have been uncovered as former spies. The names of rising politicians would crop up as Stasi-era informers, and in the resulting media furor they would quickly fade into the background. Spouses would discover that their marriage was a sham - that their husband of wife had been a Stasi spy, sent deep undercover.

Only Germany decided to take the risk. Nearly every other former communist country had their files completely sealed.

The Republic of Molossia has a population of four.

It is presently in a state of perpetual martial law, courtesy of the ‘foreign menace over the border.’ This border encompasses all of fourteen and a half acres, most of which can be found just outside Dayton, Nevada. There resides President Kevin Baugh, his wife, two children, three dogs, one cat, and a bunny.

The Republic of Molossia celebrates Norton Day on January 8th, in honor of the famous San Franciscan, Emperor Norton. Emperor Norton declared himself ‘Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico’ in 1859, issued proclamations and his own currency, and examined city sidewalks while dressed in an old Army uniform and a beaver hat. He was embraced by the city and its citizens, and his funeral was attended by 30,000 people.

A role model for micronations everywhere, the Republic of Molossia is presently eight and a half years old. It created its first colony in 2003, and won its first war in June 2006. And if you were to stop by, you could probably have lunch with the President.

It was founded by a psychiatric nurse, on the site of a former whiskey factory.

The Visionary Art Museum now stands as a testament to the self-taught. Exhibited here are the creations of street people, farmers, scientists, and the occasional eccentric loner in a mountaintop cabin. Who else, really, would take the time to forge a scale replica of the Lusitania out of toothpicks, or film a claymation epic in their basement.

A healthy percentage of these pieces were made by the insane. One carving, of a emaciated and lonely man with a caved-in chest, was etched out of a single tree, by a catatonic tuberculosis patient - catatonic, that is, until he found that fallen apple tree on the hospital grounds. It was his only work, ever. He later committed suicide.

The ‘art world’ didn’t care for it, at first. Successful ‘art’ is often more about who you know than any troublesome measure of ‘talent.’ Said one art dealer: ‘It gave people immediate bad vibes… The museum did things its own way, without coming to anyone else.” This was, apparently, a bad thing.

It’s called a ‘rocketbelt.’ Not a ‘jet pack.’

This is not a misnomer, really. Your average rocketbelt consists of two tanks of ‘rocket-grade’ hydrogen peroxide, which you attach to your back. Add nitrogen, and the fuel suddenly expands in volume by a factor of 5,000. The whole mixture then gets converted to steam, which reaches about 1300 degrees Fahrenheit as it erupts forth as barely-contained propulsion. If you’re very, very good, you might fly for about thirty seconds.

To some people, this is incredibly appealing.

Hence, the Rocketbelt Convention, in Niagara Falls. Although only four fully-functional rocketbelts are known to exist, it seems that countless others are ‘95% complete.’ The first ever rocketbelt pilot, Harold Graham, made a debut flight in 1961. Only ten men have free-flown a rocketbelt since.

Rocketbelt engineers are a somewhat unique bunch. They tend to have large garages, and perhaps a patient spouse. They also seem to have a well-developed sense of the absurd: during his speech at the convention, Harold Graham played a ukulele.

It might be the best Indian food you’ll ever have.

The langar is a staple of Sikh worship - and is absolutely free, to everyone. No creed, color, nationality, or even religion is turned away. You sit on the floor, in rows that may stretch as long as a football field, as volunteers dish out ample amounts of lentils, rice, and later even deserts. The langar is supposed to remind you that everyone is equal before God.

At one temple in Delhi, they serve 10,000 people in a single day. By necessity, the place is a factory of human hands: the pots are as large as oil drums and are stirred with shovels, and the dishwashing sinks look like deluxe bathtubs. And despite the scale, hygiene and cleanliness are actually strictly maintained.

Serving everybody equally was, and is, a revolutionary concept in caste-ridden India. But langars have long since expanded beyond India’s borders: most Sikh students in London don’t know how they’d live without them.

It’s like the world’s largest jungle gym.

The City Museum in St. Louis has been pieced together with scraps of the past, all culled from within city limits. Fire engines, school buses, and aircraft fuselages are fused to the outside of an old shoe factory. Wrought iron slinkies, four feet wide, stretch from castle turret to ball pit three-stories about ground. There are, obviously, slides.

Grown adults and children alike play to their heart’s content. The inside is laden with old bank vaults, circus performances, and rope swings. There is at least one gigantic set of underwear pinned to the wall, and an exhibit about the corn dog’s role throughout history. There are pinball machines, and a statue from Big Boy Burgers.

You will get lost. The basement consists of an epic labyrinth, a faux cave system where children escape their parents with ease: some passages are barely a foot wide. Adults squeeze through with effort and the occasional strain on old, aging knees. They’re usually too busy laughing to notice.

Over twenty million people live in Mexico City.

Only four of them live in a gigantic nautilus shell. A Mexico City couple, and two small children, have moved into their new home - one inspired by the humble cephalopod. Its walls are held together with steel-reinforced chicken wire, and coated with a cement composite that makes the place not only flexible, but just about earthquake-proof.

The result is absolutely stunning. Spiral staircases, A stained glass wall. A view of the mountains to the west. Greenery and comfy cushions. The architects meant for the family to feel like they were mollusks themselves, traveling inside from one chamber to the other. And they provided just that, for only 160,000 euros - as much as 100 average Mexicans make in a year.

There is no word on whether this family will ever outgrow it.