Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review -- a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal
On the MDGs
Who's going to pay for the MDGs? (Guardian Blog 23.01.2012)
OECD Development Centre publication 'Revisiting MDG Cost Estimates' estimates achieving the first six MDGs globally will require $120bn more to be spent every year on health, education and poverty reduction.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on the Millennium Development Goals
On gender equality
UN web portal launched: Girls in ICT (UN 24.01.2012)
The UN launched a web portal this week aimed at helping women access jobs, training and career advice in the information communication technology (ICT) sector. The Girls In ICT Portal aims to not only inspire young women to pursue careers in ICT but to develop a network of women working in a male-dominated industry.
See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on gender equality and ICTs
On WEF
Davos 2012 starts with worries about the Eurozone crisis (25.01.2012)
The Eurozone crisis is set to dominate the 42nd World Economic Forum, with over 40 heads of government and 19 of the world’s 20 most influential central bankers. Other issues on the agenda include the rise of China, the Arab Spring aftermath and financial regulation
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on economic growth
In the Spotlight:
Egypt, one year on
The uprising on January 25th 2011 in Cairo’s Tahrir Square began a wave of protest that spread throughout Egypt and lead to the fall of the Mubarak regime. In honour of the one year anniversary, the Thomson Reuters Foundation has released a documentary on the Egyptian revolution.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on progress and the Arab Spring in Egypt
We hope you will tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page
Yours in Progress,
Philippa Lysaght
Friday, 27 January 2012
Thursday, 26 January 2012
January Editor's Choice from Wellbeing Wales
By Danielle Klentzeris from Wikiprogress Correspondent, Lles Cymru Wellbeing Wales.
It is often said that childhood is the best time of our lives. However, according to new figures released by the Children’s Society, almost ‘one in ten children over the age of eight are unhappy’. Issues surrounding family life were found to have the greatest impact on children’s wellbeing and happiness, with relationships ‘within a household rather than the family "structure"’ being the main cause for children’s low sense of wellbeing. Speaking to The Guardian, Elaine Hindell, director of the Campaign for Childhood at the Children's Society, said ‘we want our country to be the best place for our children to grow up. Yet unless we act now we risk becoming one of the worst and creating a lost future generation’.
In light of the report, Cameron’s call to concentrate ‘not just on GDP but on GWB – general wellbeing’ has great resonance not just for adults, but for the wellbeing of modern children also.
From the state of children’s wellbeing to the state of the planet. The Guardian’s Dean Baker argues for the need to prevent cuts in areas concerning environmental preservation. Defending the need to ensure progress in the technological, environmental and educational fields, Barker argues that spending cuts that ‘that affect our progress in these areas… will be making our children worse-off, not better-off’. The crux of Barker’s argument appears to situate around the simple fact that financial debt will eventually decrease and drop off whereas environmental debt may not be so easily repayable. Quick fixes may appear a tempting option to already struggling governments but if we lose sight of the long-term goals of environmental sustainability then efforts to protect future generations become fruitless given there may well be no planet left to protect.
Unhappy children, planetary decay- there certainly doesn’t feel like there’s much to smile about these days. However, according to The Independent, laughter may hold the key to lifting societies' woes. From a social tool to a means of curing illness, laughter allows human’s to ‘convey meaning more effectively than words and is a language in itself’. But far from being a sacred tool of human communication it appears that laughter has the power to transcended species. Whilst observing rats, Dr Jaak Panksepp, found that our rodent friends ‘produce ultrasonic chirps, particularly when they appeared to be playfully interacting with each other’. A marvel in itself but even more extraordinary when he later found that, upon tickling the rat’s stomach, these noises became ‘louder and more consistent with [the] familiar, dynamic rhythm’ of laughter.
As tempting as it is to try this experiment for myself, I don’t think the rats of Wales are quite ready for a quick rib tickle but the findings do raise an interesting point. Perhaps we are not so distanced from the creatures we share our planet with and recognising these supposedly ‘human’ traits in other animals may make us realise the importance of preserving the planet for the benefit of all future generations. Now that’s got to be something worth smiling about. :)
It is often said that childhood is the best time of our lives. However, according to new figures released by the Children’s Society, almost ‘one in ten children over the age of eight are unhappy’. Issues surrounding family life were found to have the greatest impact on children’s wellbeing and happiness, with relationships ‘within a household rather than the family "structure"’ being the main cause for children’s low sense of wellbeing. Speaking to The Guardian, Elaine Hindell, director of the Campaign for Childhood at the Children's Society, said ‘we want our country to be the best place for our children to grow up. Yet unless we act now we risk becoming one of the worst and creating a lost future generation’.
In light of the report, Cameron’s call to concentrate ‘not just on GDP but on GWB – general wellbeing’ has great resonance not just for adults, but for the wellbeing of modern children also.
From the state of children’s wellbeing to the state of the planet. The Guardian’s Dean Baker argues for the need to prevent cuts in areas concerning environmental preservation. Defending the need to ensure progress in the technological, environmental and educational fields, Barker argues that spending cuts that ‘that affect our progress in these areas… will be making our children worse-off, not better-off’. The crux of Barker’s argument appears to situate around the simple fact that financial debt will eventually decrease and drop off whereas environmental debt may not be so easily repayable. Quick fixes may appear a tempting option to already struggling governments but if we lose sight of the long-term goals of environmental sustainability then efforts to protect future generations become fruitless given there may well be no planet left to protect.
Unhappy children, planetary decay- there certainly doesn’t feel like there’s much to smile about these days. However, according to The Independent, laughter may hold the key to lifting societies' woes. From a social tool to a means of curing illness, laughter allows human’s to ‘convey meaning more effectively than words and is a language in itself’. But far from being a sacred tool of human communication it appears that laughter has the power to transcended species. Whilst observing rats, Dr Jaak Panksepp, found that our rodent friends ‘produce ultrasonic chirps, particularly when they appeared to be playfully interacting with each other’. A marvel in itself but even more extraordinary when he later found that, upon tickling the rat’s stomach, these noises became ‘louder and more consistent with [the] familiar, dynamic rhythm’ of laughter.
As tempting as it is to try this experiment for myself, I don’t think the rats of Wales are quite ready for a quick rib tickle but the findings do raise an interesting point. Perhaps we are not so distanced from the creatures we share our planet with and recognising these supposedly ‘human’ traits in other animals may make us realise the importance of preserving the planet for the benefit of all future generations. Now that’s got to be something worth smiling about. :)
Friday, 20 January 2012
Week in review
Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review -- a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal
Yours in Progress,
Philippa Lysaght
The Internet goes on strike
The Sopa blackout protest makes history (Guardian 18.01.2012)
This Wednesday marked the largest online protest in the history of the Internet. Already nicknamed by some ‘Occupy the Internet’, websites from around the world “went dark” in protest against two bills, Pipa and Sopa, directed at stopping piracy of copyrighted material. Internet giants such as Google, Wikipedia, Tublr, Facebook and Twitter have all given their support to the protest to varying degrees.
Are you participating in the Sopa Strike? Tweet us your thoughts @Wikiprogress
On gender equality
This blog post by the World Bank explores the linkage between women who are employed in Ethiopia’s flower industry, increased rates of household income and the subsequent increase in domestic violence suffered by these women. Women who work in the flower industry are 13% more likely to experience physical abuse and 34% more likely to experience emotional abuse.
See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on domestic violence
On Rio +20
Scientists scrutinize first draft of Rio+20 agreement (Reuters 16.01.2012)
The draft document released last week in preparation for Rio+20 attempts to form the basis for negotiations between governments; the section on science and technology highlights the role innovation plays in promoting sustainable development and calls for greater international cooperation in investment and development of technologies. See a range of responses from scientists in this article.
See more and add information to the Wikiprogress Rio+20 event page
On child well-being
Schools strive for pupils’ happiness (Guardian 16.01.2012)
While governments and international institutions have made significant progress in developing measures of well-being, a little school in Norfolk has also been busy ensuring the happiness of the students is the number one priority and leading a new approach to child well-being and happiness.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on child well-being measurement
On money and happiness
We have included several articles in The Week in Review on the importance of measuring subjective well-being and the correlation between money and happiness. Dominic Lawson gives a critical analysis of David Cameron’s happiness agenda and the correlation is between income and happiness.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on happiness
In the Spotlight: Hightlights from the World Future Energy Summit
We hope you will tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
The pros and cons of the Canadian Superindex
This post by Donato Speroni originally appeared in Italian in the Numerus section Corriere Della Sera and was also published on the Istat BES blog.
Canadians are the only ones, along with the small and far away country of Bhutan, to have developed an all-encompassing "happiness index" to be compared with GDP (gross domestic product). This work took several years and finally came to a tentative conclusion: Roy Romanow, Chair of the advisory board of the University of Waterloo who created the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), has announced that from 1994 to 2008, GDP in Canada has increased in real terms by 31%, while well-being has grown only 11%.
"There are some very, very troubling signs," Romanow said in an interview.
"I think if we continue on this trajectory we're going to have bigger and bigger disparities. You can never build a solid political, social and economic community with wide disparities."
The final report of the first conclusions of the CIW was released on October 20, 2011 and had a lot of attention in the local press, including the Huffington Post Canada. The methodology has been described previously on Numerus, and in fuller detail on Wikiprogress.
At a time when Italy is developing its BES (Benessere equo e sostenibile: fair and sustainable new measures of well-being), one wonders if the road to a single encompassing index which brings together the different sectors (in the Canadian case eight indicators, each based on eight different data, for a total of 64 series) is a useful and viable way. Without presuming to give a definitive answer, we can see the pros and cons.
Going against the Superindex is the fact that it is snubbed by many methodologists because its construction is clearly questionable. We have already seen how difficult it is to determine the weights of the different domains of well-being: is health more important, for example, or are social relations? The Canadians have solved the problem by giving all of the domains the same weight, while the OECD has instead allowed users to attach the weights they prefer. But it is clear that it does not arrive at a unique indicator.
In favour of Superindex is that it obviously has the most media impact, i.e. the possibility of building a truly alternative number or at least one that’s complementary to GDP. Proponents point out that construction of a composite index for each sector, encompassing for example all aspects of health or safety, is equally questionable, so you might as well go one step further and get to a single number.
A composite superindex undoubtedly involves a great loss of information compared to the so-called "dashboards" that present several important data simultaneously. But, as has been done in Canada, having the indices for each sector presented to the public as they become available, concentrating for example on the environment one month, then the relationship between citizens and institutions or education the month after, can attract continuous attention from the media about the different components of human well-being. At that point the Superindex would be a synthesis of all this work: an additional information, to complement the GDP, without hiding the wealth of information which was used to build it.
A composite superindex undoubtedly involves a great loss of information compared to the so-called "dashboards" that present several important data simultaneously. But, as has been done in Canada, having the indices for each sector presented to the public as they become available, concentrating for example on the environment one month, then the relationship between citizens and institutions or education the month after, can attract continuous attention from the media about the different components of human well-being. At that point the Superindex would be a synthesis of all this work: an additional information, to complement the GDP, without hiding the wealth of information which was used to build it.
We repeat, however, that the path to get to Superindex is very questionable. It is no coincidence that in Canada this process has been developed by an independent university and not by Statistics Canada. The CIW data come largely from official statistics, but the production was left to a private body. On the other hand, (on this controversial topic, there is always a pro and a con) can we imagine building consensus on a Superindex in Italy without the blessing of official statistics?
Friday, 13 January 2012
Week in review
The Week in Review 13.01.2012
Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review -- a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal
On information and the Internet
In a networked world, why is the geography of information uneven? (Guardian Poverty Matters 09.01.2012)
The rise of user-generated content on the Internet has had a phenomenal impact on the way information and knowledge is developed and understood. While optimists like Jimmy Wales believe that the Internet will become ‘the sum of all human knowledge’ it is ever more important that the uneven geographies of online information are addressed by rebalancing digital labour and focusing on the South.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on wikis
On progress in Haiti
Haiti: two years after quake tangible signs of progress (World Bank Blog 10.01.2012)
This week saw the second anniversary of Haiti’s earthquake that killed 220,000 people; currently, it is estimated that 520,000 people live in tents and almost 1 million Haitians are displaced. But there has been significant progress made. Since the earthquake in 2010, Education for All has provided free schooling to 405,000 children, with numbers growing.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Haiti
Gender Equality – report release on gender equality in the Pacific
Human Development Report on Pacific: Gender, Culture and the Pacific (UNDP 11.01.2012)
A UNDP report released this week provides a deep understanding into how the culture in the Pacific impacts gender equality and human development. The paper analyses two key issues in the region: that gender is biologically determined and that culture is sacred and should not be adapted.
See a selection of article in the Wikigender Society and Culture category
On child well-being
UNESCO chief stresses the need for innovation to ensure equitable education (UN News 10.01.2012)
With 67 million children out of primary school and an estimated 793 million adults around the world illiterate, the United Nations has called for new and innovative approaches to education. While technology plays an important role in education, it must be integrated into learning and teaching styles.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on education
On data and prediction
The future of prediction (The Boston Globe 01.12.2012)
On Friday the 13th it seems inappropriate to say that tarot cards and tea-leaf readings are dubious in predicting future events; but this article says that the systematic use of data in prediction isn’t much better!
Do you know of any interesting projects to predict the future using data? Share them with us on Twitter @Wikiprogress
In the Spotlight: 2011 Democracy Index
We hope you will tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.
Yours in progress,
Philippa Lysaght.
Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review -- a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal
On information and the Internet
In a networked world, why is the geography of information uneven? (Guardian Poverty Matters 09.01.2012)
The rise of user-generated content on the Internet has had a phenomenal impact on the way information and knowledge is developed and understood. While optimists like Jimmy Wales believe that the Internet will become ‘the sum of all human knowledge’ it is ever more important that the uneven geographies of online information are addressed by rebalancing digital labour and focusing on the South.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on wikis
On progress in Haiti
Haiti: two years after quake tangible signs of progress (World Bank Blog 10.01.2012)
This week saw the second anniversary of Haiti’s earthquake that killed 220,000 people; currently, it is estimated that 520,000 people live in tents and almost 1 million Haitians are displaced. But there has been significant progress made. Since the earthquake in 2010, Education for All has provided free schooling to 405,000 children, with numbers growing.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on Haiti
Gender Equality – report release on gender equality in the Pacific
Human Development Report on Pacific: Gender, Culture and the Pacific (UNDP 11.01.2012)
A UNDP report released this week provides a deep understanding into how the culture in the Pacific impacts gender equality and human development. The paper analyses two key issues in the region: that gender is biologically determined and that culture is sacred and should not be adapted.
See a selection of article in the Wikigender Society and Culture category
On child well-being
UNESCO chief stresses the need for innovation to ensure equitable education (UN News 10.01.2012)
With 67 million children out of primary school and an estimated 793 million adults around the world illiterate, the United Nations has called for new and innovative approaches to education. While technology plays an important role in education, it must be integrated into learning and teaching styles.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on education
On data and prediction
The future of prediction (The Boston Globe 01.12.2012)
On Friday the 13th it seems inappropriate to say that tarot cards and tea-leaf readings are dubious in predicting future events; but this article says that the systematic use of data in prediction isn’t much better!
Do you know of any interesting projects to predict the future using data? Share them with us on Twitter @Wikiprogress
In the Spotlight: 2011 Democracy Index
We hope you will tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Friday, 6 January 2012
The week in review
Happy New Year to all our Prog Blog readers! We have an exciting year of blogging planned for you in 2012, and as always, your weekly update of highlights will be posted every Friday. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal
On growth in 2012
Growth in 2012 (The Economist 04.01.2012)
The Economist Intelligence Unit are forecasting that Libya’s economy will grow the fastest in 2012 as a result of national reconstructing following the fall Qaddafi’s regime. By contrast, Sudan’s economy will shrink the most in 2012 after losing three quarters of its oil reserves to South Sudan.
On happiness
UK Economy: bleak forecast but are we really unhappy? (Huffington Post 02.01.2012)
In the UK, 2.6 million people are unemployed, 1 million of them between the ages of 16 and 25; with the threat of the Eurozone collapsing the Huffington Post explores whether or not this dim economic outlook to the year ahead will effect people’s happiness.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on happiness in the UK
On the crisis in Europe
GDP Needs Help: Let's Build a Second Measure of Economic Strength (The Atlantic 03.01.2012)
If the greatest economic achievement of the 20th century was constructing a national income statement then this Atlantic article calls for the 21-century’s greatest achievement to be the creation of national balance sheets.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on GDP
On development
Rethinking the Growth Imperative (Project Syndicate 02.01.2012)
Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, goes beyond the beyond GDP argument for more comprehensive indicators of human development and questions the modern growth theory’s emphasis on humans as fundamentally social creatures.
See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on development
On gender equality
Women set to make their mark in politics (IPS Gender Wire 04.01.2012)
The 2012 Kenyan presidential elections will open doors to political participation from women for the first time ever. A new constitution that took effect in August last year contains a provision that not more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender."
See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on gender equality in Kenya
In the Spotlight: 2011- The Year in Data
That's all from us this week, we hope you tune in the same time next week for another week in review. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
The OECD Inights Quiz: The year from AAA to ZZZ
This post first appeared on the OECD Insights Blog
We’re glad you read the Insights blog, but if you’re a true follower you learn it off by heart, so this is your chance to win a blogtastic prize in our 2011 annual quiz(1)
1st prize: A year’s supply of punctuation marks. Imagine how much more interesting your prose will be!!! Want to add a note of incredulity to your questions??? Or prepare your reader to die… laughing???!!!
2nd prize: Paid internship(2)
Here goes!!! Good… luck!!!
A is for A. Triple A is to debt what the triple Axel is to ice-skating. Who was worried about the euro area falling on it’s A (Add your own Anatomical Allegory) due to sovereign default?
A. China’s finance minister.
B. Former Lehman’s boss Richard S. Fuld.
C. The OECD’s Chief Economist.
D. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.
B is for Bullets. Magic ones or silver ones, we’re obsessed by them at the OECD and are afraid people think they really exist. This can give a plaintively murderous tone to our teachings, for instance, when we say there’s no magic bullet to solve unemployment, it sounds like we wish governments would shoot the jobless. But we’re not the only ones in denial. Who else says there’s no magic (or silver) bullet?
A. The Lone Ranger
B. The Economist
C. The IMF
D. The National Rifle Association
C is for conflict. No conflict-affected fragile state has achieved any of the UN’s Millennium Development goals, nor is any of them likely to do so by the 2015 target date. What should their priorities be instead according to the g7+ group of developing countries and their partners?
A. Roadbuilding and telecommunications.
B. Trade and foreign investment.
C. Peacebuilding and statebuilding.
D. Fair elections and a free press.
D is for Diarrhoea. Outbreaks are usually due to various well-known causes, but certain practices can make the problem worse, including:
A. Skinning snakes.
B. Killing leopards
C. Riding elephants.
D. Photographing monkeys.
E is for Epistemology. Knowledge is power, as Francis Bacon never actually said, although Thomas Hobbes did. Whoever said it, becoming an epistemic influence is obviously a smart move, but who managed this recently?
A. The KGB.
B. The BBC.
C. The OECD.
D. Wikipedia.
F is for Forecasts. “With the underlying conditions sound, we believe that the recession in general business will be checked shortly and that improvement will set in during the spring.” This forecast in the Harvard Economic Society’s January 18 weekly letter was referring to:
A. The 1930s Depression.
B. The subprime crisis.
C. The 1997 Asian financial crisis
D. The end of the dot.com boom.
G is for Twenty. The OECD is closely involved in shaping the G20 agenda and in carrying out its work. One of our lesser-known proposals to tackle a global challenge (as we call problems) is AMIS, or to give it its full name:
A. Agreement on Multilateral Investment Statistics.
B. Agricultural Market Information System.
C. Analogue Mobile Information Sequencing.
D. Ammunition Mainly Including Silver.
H is for Happiness. Some people claim that childhood was the happiest time of their life, making you wonder what the rest of it was like if potty training and going to school was as good as it got. The happiest time is happier in some places than others though, and a report on 21 developed countries suggested that the most miserable kids are to be found in:
A. Japan.
B. France.
C. The UK.
D. The US.
I is for Investment. It’s also for indoors and inefficient. Indoor air pollution from inefficient biofuel-burning stoves will soon cause more premature deaths in developing countries than HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria. What percentage of global energy investments would eradicate the problem?
A. 9%
B. 1%
C. 3%
D. 13%
J is for Joybubbles. Joe Engressia, who later changed his name to Joybubbles for obvious reasons, was the world’s first:
A. Blind photographer.
B. Hacker.
C. Radar operator.
D. Professional baseball umpire.
K is for kissing. Most of us have tried it, and many people enjoy it, but according to one best-selling guide, unless it can’t be avoided, you should never kiss:
A. Your boss.
B. Your cat.
C. Your children.
D. Yourself.
L is for Luddites. The machine-wrecking Luddites were not the ignorant technophobes the name has come to be associated with, and they even aroused the sympathy of one the 19th century’s best-known authors. Who? (Bonus point for giving the name of the book)
A. Emile Zola.
B. Herman Melville.
C. Charlotte Brontë.
D. Charles Dickens.
M is for Melancholy. According to our data, one in five workers in OECD countries suffers from depression or another mental illness, possibly linked to work-related stress. According to an earlier study, which of these does not provoke melancholy?
A. Exercise.
B. Study.
C. Poverty.
D. Cabbage.
N is for Nobel. Did you know that Winston Churchill got the Nobel Prize for literature and that they gave the 2011 prize for medicine to a dead man? OK smartypants, what did economist Elinor Ostrom get it for?
A. Her work on resources management.
B. Her work on financial market volatility.
C. Her work on game theory.
D. Her work on asymmetric information.
O is for the OECD. Of course. We are famous for many things (aren’t we?) but some of our greatest contributions to human progress are unknown to the general public. Which of these do we set standards for?
A. Tax treaties.
B. Cucumbers.
C. Nuclear safety.
D. Testing cosmetics.
P is for Protection. Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone wasn’t protected by a Swedish patent, so Ericsson reverse engineered it and started the phone business we know today. Philips did something similar with the incandescent light bulb in the Netherlands before going on to invent and invest in cassette tapes and CDs. Examples like this fuel the debate about much intellectual property protection there should be, but quality is just as important as quantity when it comes to patents. Over the past 20 years, patent quality has:
A. Declined by 20%.
B. Increased by 20%.
C. Remained stable.
D. Stopped being measured.
Q is for Quality. The OECD has developed a Better Life Index to allow citizens to create their own definition of quality of life. It combines a number of different topics, but does not include:
A. Safety.
B. Mobility.
C. Health.
D Housing.
R is for Ricardo. The 19th century economist David Ricardo was responsible for developing the theory of comparative advantage. This has been described as a concept that is:
A. Calculable and counterintuitive.
B. True and non-trivial.
C. False but practical.
D. Objective though indefinable.
S is for Sex. We share our 50th anniversary with Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The jury in the court case for obscenity against the book decided that it was, all things considered:
A. A fair representation of social relations at the time of writing.
B. A useful if unorthodox introduction to gardening.
C. Suitable reading for your wife and servants.
D. Written by a man with a soul so black he would obscure even the darkness of hell.
T is for Titles. Thanks to sophisticated spying software we got cheap when the News of the World closed, we can track how you actually use this site and adjust content to meet your (pleasingly low) expectations. That’s why we’re thinking of just writing titles next year. Do you know which of these ones we didn’t use in 2011?
A. Rats rejoice as India goes mad.
B. More power to your grannies.
C. Dracula, Prince of shopping.
D. Bugs, drugs and death.
U is for Unfair. The drive for alternative energies is accelerating, but not everybody is pleased. A prominent economist publicised the case of one group complaining about unfair competition from solar energy. Which group?
A. Candlemakers.
B. Shale gas operators.
C. Windfarmers.
D. Biofuel crop growers.
V is for Violence. Over 100 million people died in wars during the 20th century. In the 21st century, even more could be killed by something else according to the WHO. What is it?
A. Famine.
B. Road traffic.
C. HIV/AIDS.
D. Antibiotic resistance.
W is for the Weekend. According to scientists (as they say in the papers) analysis of 500 million tweets shows that people are happier at the weekend. The study also claims that people:
A. Tend to get up later at the weekend.
B. Often stay out late on Friday night.
C. Go shopping more at the weekend.
D. Wish the weekend was longer.
X is for the Higgs boson field, better known by its nickname, h(x). Makes a change from the xylophone, doesn’t it? But that’s not the question. The question is: the photo of a simulated Higgs event that illustrates the article about the Higgs boson has a caption quoting James Joyce’s Finnegans Wakebecause:
A. Joyce invented the word “quark”.
B. The Finnegan-Joyce manifold describes the topology of the Higgs boson.
C. We didn’t know it was Joyce and just liked the sound of it.
D. Joyce’s literary executor worked at the OECD.
Y is for Youth. Globally, things are getting better for children across a whole range of indicators according to Unicef but once they get a bit older, the benefits may be wiped out. In Brazil for instance, various programmes saved the lives of 26,000 babies aged 1 year or less. Over the same period, 81,000 15-19 year-olds:
A. Died of drug overdoses.
B. Were murdered.
C. Were kidnapped.
D. Suffered fatal injuries at work.
Z is for ZZZ. We’re trying to avoid zebras as well as xylophones, so this one’s about sleep. Or sleep-deprivation to be more exact. Who complains about this, as well as being “isolated” and “troubled”?
A. European central bankers.
B. Chinese exchange students.
C. African peacekeepers.
D. American truckers.
Tiebreaker In case more than one person enters the competition we may need a tiebreaker, so here it is: Which of the above questions does not refer to a post published in 2011?
A. A
B. B
C. C.
D. D
E. Etc
(1) You love phone contracts, don’t you?
(2) You pay.
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