Free Rice

[pecunium]

The idea behind Free Rice is to convince people to donate a little time, and some clicks, to feeding people.

I'm all for it. The GDP of the world last year was enough to give everyone on the planet 10,000 USD (hat-tip to willshetterly for the info, y'all might want to read his blog). Most of that ended up in a very small number of pockets.

But Free Rice convinced some of those pockets to kick in a penny or two, for every correctly answered question on vocabulary. They start at level "40" and adjust based on the answers. The more people who answer a word correctly, the lower the level of that word gets.

I'm hovering around 49, with the intermittent rise to 50. It's not trivially easy, but if one has a good vocabulary, and is able to tease out the way the words are built, it's possible to see words; absent context, which one has never seen before, and get them right.

So you learn something, and you help someone.

So far, I've been correct often enough to send 5,000 grains of rice.

Go thou and do likewise.

Comments

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, this is absolutely fantastic. On the other hand, I can't seem to stop... :)

Hats off to your score. I can't seem to get above 43, myself.

[zoje-george.livejournal.com]

Oh this is fun. I could do this all day!

[ourika.livejournal.com]

This is awesome! Thank you so much for the link!

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

It is terribly addictive. The Answers extension for Firefox helps (and may be cheating but it is also educational AND gets more rice sent). Without it I hover between 43 and 46.

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

What I love best about it (other than using words to feed people) is that I can just leave the window open, write for a bit, then when I need a break I can go back and play some more. It's the perfect relaxation game for writers. :)

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

How cool :D

I'm very impressed at your level - I've only got as far as 43 (but I've learned a few new words in the process!).

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

It gets very frustrating for me, after a while. I'm good at picking meanings for words I've seen before even if I've only seen them in-context a couple times ever, but if I transition to using techniques that work on words I've never seen before, I start not noticing that I've seen one before and therefore sometimes getting them wrong, leading eventually to staring at perfectly ordinary words and being unable to accurately pronounce or describe them. So, I'm around 44, crashing to about 37 with excessive playing.

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

This is so much fun but I have things that must be done today.

Can't....stop....playing....

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

Damn you. i have other things to do today.

Yeah, so I click on more words.

[ctahmase.livejournal.com]

I can't seem to stop either. I'm also not surprised about your level 49 either.

[cmdrsuzdal.livejournal.com]

Fun! Hovering between 45-47 for now... it's great that it doesn't time out. And I like the variety of words it's pulling from.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I tell myself, having gotten 1,000 words aright, that all I need is to clear 51.

Now, if I could keep from making the same mistake about something which isn't a kettle...

TK

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I tumble to 46, when I stop figuring what role of speech the word is, so that the noun form escapes me, because I am seeing a verb.

But I just got ispience, because I could see how a completely different word (concuspience) is derived from the meaning of the lesser portion.

51, however, still eludes me.

TK

[vicious-wench.livejournal.com]

from the FAQ: There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48.

also, thanks -- a good thing to do while I'm one-handed; point-n-click is much easier than typing, and this is an addictive form of entertainment.

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

I'm hovering around 46-47. Sigh.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

I once got up to 47, but mostly I'm in the 43-44 range. This is hard. But fun!

[prophet-marcus.livejournal.com]

Very cool thing. I topped at 48 and then slid back to 46 before stopping (for now). Total guesses on maybe a third of the words, semi-informed guesses on another third and actual knowledge on the last third. Rough estimates.

[yuripup.livejournal.com]

Meh getting hammered. Dropped as low 38. But I did contribute 500 grains from work.

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

Hey! I got to 10000 grains!

I better go pretend to have gotten something done today before d_84 gets home.

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

I have been doing this for about a week now. I've probably donated over 10,000 grains at this point. Even though there are a lot of words I don't know, I manage to suss them out on a fairly regular basis. I average between 48 and 50, and I think 3 in a row is the most I've gotten wrong at a time. It is rather addictive.

I think 50 is as high as it goes, btw.

[yuripup.livejournal.com]

To expand: 3 correct answers in a row and you go up a level. 1 wrong and you go down.