In Time OutDubai’s how do I love thee countdown to the city, the Global Village Pavilion gets a mention. Dubai loves having measurable successes that mainly include being in the Guinness World Records. In Dubai’s Global Village, the world’s first (of course) world record pavilion, invites visitors to break records. Some of the records were so strangely geek specific they’re worth mentioning. Most CDs flipped in one minute: 56! Fastest time taken to send a set text message: 41.05 seconds! The CD flipping is admirable because who does that anymore when a simple scroll will do the trick for mp3s? But we find fault with the record keeping of fastest time to send a text message is almost a minute. I’ve seen kids under 8 send messages faster. No word whether the message was the Gettysburg Address or the texty version of it: 4 scr & 7 yrs ago…

SMS GETTYSBURG ADDRESS BY MER-CHAN
4 scr & 7 years ago r fathers brought 4th on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, & dedic8d 2 the proposition tht all men r created =.

Now we r engaged in a gr8 civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived & so dedic8d, can long endure. We r met on a gr8 btlfield of that war. We have come 2 dedic8 a portion of that field, as a final resting place 4 those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is al2gether fitting & proper that we shld do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cnnt dedic8—we cnnt consecrate—we cnnt hallow—this ground. The brave men, living & dead, who struggled here, have consecr8d it, far above r poor power 2 + or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never 4get what they did here. It is 4 us the living, rather, 2 be dedic8d here 2 the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather 4 us 2 be here dedic8d 2 the gr8 task remaining b4 us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion 2 that cause 4 which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under G, shall have a new birth of freedom— & that gvnmnt of the ppl, by the ppl, 4 the ppl, shall not perish from the earth.