World Development Data on Google

You can now get instant numbers and graphs on development data from countries round the world through Google Search. Here’s a screen shot showing some CO2 emissions data:

Here’s what Google’s own blog said on 11th November:

When we first launched public data on Google.com, we wanted to make statistics easier to find and to encourage debate based on facts rather than intuition. The day after we launched, a friend who worked at the World Bank called me, her voice filled with enthusiasm, "Did you know that the World Bank also just released an API for their data?" Excited, I checked it out, and found an amazing treasure trove of statistics for most economies in the world. After some hard work and analysis, today we’re happy to announce that 17 World Development Indicators (list below*) are now conveniently available to you in Google search.
With today’s update, you can quickly access more data with a broad range of queries. Search should be intuitive, so we’ve done the work to think through queries where public data will be most relevant to you. To see the new data, try queries like [gdp of indonesia], [life expectancy brazil], [rwanda's population growth], [energy use of iceland], [co2 emissions of iceland] and [gdp growth rate argentina]. For example, if you search for [internet users in the united states], you will see the following chart at the top of the results page:

Clicking on the result will bring you to an interactive chart where you can compare the United States with other regions around the world. We’ve also added a new feature to enable you to embed these charts in your own website or blog by clicking on the "Link" button in the upper right-hand corner of the chart page. You have the option to either embed the chart with static data, or you can also set the chart to update dynamically when new data becomes available. To give you a sense of what these charts look like, we’ve embedded the chart below comparing Internet users in the United States and South Korea:
We hope this new data and our new embedding feature will help facilitate quick and easy access to public statistics. There are still many other data sets and sources out there, and we’re excited about the possibilities for the future. If you’re a data publisher interested in making your data more easily discoverable in Google, please contact us.
* Complete list of World Bank indicators currently available: CO2 emissions per capita, Electricity consumption per capita, Energy use per capita, Exports as percentage of GDP, Fertility rate, GDP deflator change, GDP growth rate, GNI per capita in PPP dollars, Gross Domestic Product, Gross National Income in PPP dollars, Imports as percentage of GDP, Internet users as percentage of population, Life expectancy, Military expenditure as percentage of GDP, Mortality rate, under 5, Population, and Population growth rate.

Filed under: Environment, Resources, Technology

Does the church have to sell land at ‘best price’ or can it go lower for affordable housing?

Faith in Affordable Housing is a free web-based resource, giving practical and technical information to assist churches in providing affordable housing. The guide presents nine case studies from different denominations and from urban and rural areas. It’s an important issue, and the guide is a good one.

A perennial sticking point has been the thesis that charities are required to sell their land at the top price they can get. The resource includes firm advice from the Charity Commission that if a church’s doctrine is that helping the poor and needy is a religious duty, then selling at a lower price is justifiable as within the purposes of the charity as long as the sale clearly relieves poverty and need. Read on to see the text of the advice and the guide’s own commentary.

Filed under: Christianity, Church of England, Resources, community , Housing, social need

Ferrar House at Little Gidding

I was over at Ferrar House at Little Gidding this week, speaking at a Quiet Day for the clergy and readers of our Bourn Deanery.

It’s a great setting, and they are making great plans for the future at the moment. They see their ‘USP’ as silence, and are also looking to offer fully supported private retreats for clergy, writers and others needing private space. They are looking for parish group bookings for Saturdays too, especially in the quiet January/February time.

Here’s what they say about themselves:

Ferrar House offers quiet days and accommodation in Little Gidding, Cambridgeshire, and is adjacent to the original site where Nicholas Ferrar and his household came in 1625 and next to Little Gidding church, which they restored to daily use.

Little Gidding is also famous for the visit, in 1936, of the poet T. S. Eliot, who published "Little Gidding" as the conclusion of his "Four Quartets" in 1942. Other historical figures associated with Little Gidding include King Charles I and the poet George Herbert, a contemporary of Nicholas Ferrar.

We offer

• Hospitality to visitors
• A peaceful space for personal retreats
• Facilities for group meeting
• Overnight accommodation

For booking and general enquiries contact the wardens at: info@ferrarhouse.co.uk

Telephone Enquiries
Tel: +44 (0)1832 293383

Postal Enquiries
Ferrar House, Little Gidding, Huntingdon, Cambs PE28 5RJ UK

Temporary Warden
The Revd Allan Bell

Filed under: Resources

More Cambridge Journals On-Line

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History  60th volume, final part, is now available online, and to mark this occasion CJ are offering free access . Leading articles from the issue include Avihu Zakai’s work on The Theological Origin of Jonathan Edward’s Philosophy of Nature and Kathleen Thompson’s paper The Other Saint Bernard: The ‘Troubled and Varied Career’ of Bernard of Abbeville, Abbot of Tiron.

The editor, Iain Torrance, of the Scottish Journal of Theology (SJT) has chosen some of the best articles to appear over the last 60 years from the newly digitized archive, including:
What Happens in the Eucharist?
David F. Ford
Understanding Romans in the Light of 2 Corinthians
Frances M. Young
Kant’s View of Immortality
A. C. Ewing
The Lamb of God
G. Florovsky

To access all 20 articles in this selection, click here.

Filed under: Resources, theology

Bible A-Glo-Glo

The media are full of reports of the world-wide launch of the digital Glo bible, which will retail in Britain for £59,99, amidst its developers’ claim that it will bring religion to a whole new generation of Christians.

The Glo bible, which will be launched worldwide on Friday, features more than 7500 encyclopaedia articles, 7, 700 pieces of artwork, 2,400 high-resolution photos, nearly 150 maps and 3.5 hours of video. “Instead of reading the bible, see it, feel it, you get it.”

it’s seriously cool, and I’m glad it’s out. But you also need a staggering 18GB free on your hard drive to install it, and it doesn’t run on Macs, so this is old-style new-style. An internet link is required to keep the product updated: why not have much more of the content on the internet, and copyright free to boot? Including the text of the NIV.

Filed under: Bible, Resources

Local teams and their leadership in mission

The Foundation for Church Leadership held a conference in London today to launch the report that it has published on how we have developed our ALMs and local ministry teams in Ely Diocese. FCL write:

Revd Christine Worsley, Revd Jeremy Caddick and Revd Canon Les Oglesby from Ely Diocese and Jean Reed and Colin Quine from the Grubb Institute shared their experiences of grappling with the challenge of taking forward the Diocesan mission strategy and engaging clergy and laity throughout the Diocese.

The morning session provided an overview of the Ely programme and then invited the delegates to experience part of the process through a guided reflection.

In the afternoon, the focus moved to experiences of mission, offering an opportunity to explore this through an exercise based on the learning from Ely. Throughout the day, the team looked at the implications for leadership through the day’s discoveries.

I was chuffed to bits at both what our team have achieved and at how well it was put across, and the attendance for the day exceeded all FCL’s expectations, so that we took over the Great Hall at BMA House!

What next? Now we need to find ways of supporting and developing both our LMTs and the leadership skills of their incumbents on an ongoing basis. Watch this space.

Developing Leadership for Mission: Narratives merging from local ministry teams in the Diocese of Ely. (Leadership Review No. 3 ISBN 978-0-9559978-1-5; £7.50)

Filed under: Resources, ministry , Diocese of Ely

Online lists

Online Colleges in the person of Amber Johnson have just been in touch to flog their blog as it were – and it caught my eye because of the rather good lists it runs. Such as:

 

100 Open Lectures All About Africa

 

100 Great Web Sites for Poetry Lovers

 

Free Academic Journals Around the Internet

 

50 Terrific Twitter Tutorials for Teachers

Filed under: Resources

Think!

Cambridge University Press are offering free access to the Editor’s pick of top articles from Think: philosophy for everyone

Think is the home of accessible philosophy. Written by leading philosophers in a lively, engaging and jargon-free style, Think is a superb introduction to a fascinating and varied subject.

In this selection, the Editor has chosen some of the best articles from the first 8 volumes of Think, including:

Pleasure is all that matters
Roger Crisp
The Golden Rule
Brad Hooker
Richard Swinburne’s Is there a God?
Richard Dawkins

To read the Editor’s pick of top articles, please click here.

I found I could also access the other articles on subjects such as

Could a Machine Think?

Thinking tools

Ethics and the Bible

The seven warning signs of voodoo science

The Matrix

Why is there anything at all?

Is atheism a faith position?

WHAT IS CONSEQUENTIALISM?

There should be enough for everyone there!

Filed under: Resources

Church Urban Fund News

More news from the Church Urban Fund.

Harvesting Hope: free resources to help you plant a Seed of Hope this Harvest

CUF want to spread twice as much hope by raising enough money to double the number of projects that they support in England’s poorest communities. You can help them and become a hope giver this Harvest by taking part in a range of prayer and fundraising activities using their free resources.

Pray for Hope using our postcard-sized prayer cards, get children involved in your family or church with our range of children’s resources based on the parable of the Mustard Seed or host a Big Munch event and share food with friends in return for a donation. Our Seeds of Hope DVD, Gift Aid envelopes, leaflets, posters and prayer resources are available to support your Harvest activities. Order your resources online now, call 0207 898 1667 or email emma.bennett@cuf.org.uk

September podcast: Game for Life at Greenbelt

CUF were out and about at events including New Wine and Greenbelt. They wanted to share some of the experiences of the people they met, so this month’s podcast features comments from some of the people who came to their Game of Life exhibition at Greenbelt, where Church Urban Fund was an associate partner.

“A sense of marginalisation, feeling outside of mainstream society… ignored and also physically isolated from the kinds of areas that are very healthy and vibrant…” These were the first thoughts that came to mind for Andy from Nottingham when he thought of people living in deprived areas.

With our exhibition illustrating how the odds are stacked against people in the poorest communities, Lisa from Swansea said, “Some of the statistics, the numbers, are a lot higher than I thought in some cases…in a way it’s depressing but it’s also good that there are people out there to give hope as well.”

Project of the Month: Superkidz, the Ferrier estate, Greenwich

The Ferrier Estate is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in London. High levels of violent crime, teenage pregnancies, as well as growing a drugs problem combine to leave a pervading sense of hopelessness. For many young people, such an atmosphere dominates and moulds their life expectations.

Helen Russell and her husband Mick started Superkidz over ten years ago, as a way of building friendships and self-esteem, and offering young people an alternative to crime and anti-social behaviour. Over the last seven years, Superkidz has worked with more than 1,000 under-15s through weekly youth clubs, residential courses and home visits, and also works to support families on the estate through befriending and mentoring schemes.

As an outreach of the Holy Spirit Church, Superkidz works to share God’s love for people on the estate. “God loves them more than they could imagine,” Mick explains, “and we’re helping them to understand that for themselves.” Superkidz has now become the Superkidz Trust, working across the estate to build a strong, safe community.

Superkidz is our featured Project of the Month – you can read more at www.cuf.org.uk/projectofthemonth.aspx

Filed under: Current affairs, Resources, community

New Fresh Expressions website

http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/news/new-website-launched

A new Fresh Expressions website has been launched

This new site has been launched after a series of consultations and a major survey and we hope it will continue to be the first stop for anyone wanting to find out about the Fresh Expressions initiative and how they might be involved.

The new site is focussed around telling stories of fresh expressions which will give good examples of new forms of church and provide inspiration and share good practice. You can search the stories by location or by keyword or you can simply browse.

We’ve also updated the back end of the site to allow us to integrate more audio and video material and improve the layout and navigation. We’ve got a new media section and an area with ways you can get involved.

You’ll also still find lots of information about us as an organistion, about our training and events and our resources – purchasable from our improved shop.

Filed under: Church of England, Resources, mission , Fresh Expressions