These internet-linked programs let the refrigerator's owners read news, make to-do and shopping lists, get recipes from Epicurious and post to Twitter.

CNN: When refrigerators tweet and washing machines text

But it included long 'to do' lists to make sure old platforms, operating in very challenging corrosive conditions, are not putting offshore workers or the environment at risk.

BBC: Statoil platforms

Outsiders such as Abkhazia, Kosovo, Northern Cyprus and Western Sahara have to make do with a place on lesser lists, such as those compiled for less political purposes by the UN Statistics Division.

ECONOMIST: How to start a nation: Trappings of state | The