Free Rice, You know, to cease world hunger. Options

[Izzy]

www.freerice.com is an awesome website, especially when your bored.
It's really simple, and kinda fun. All you do is match a word with another word, and for every question you get right, 10 grains of rice are donated to hungry people.

And that adds up. So yeah, next time you're bored, remember that you can be feeding people that can't afford food and learn things at the same time.

(Psst, if you use a dictionary, you're cheating. The vocabulary level automatically adjusts to your level.)

[elphaba2]

That is a cool thing! I just did some Special Math Thinking and figured out that they've donated around 25,000 pounds of rice, which is a lot of rice.

(Or at least I thought it was a lot of rice, until I did some more math and figured out that 25,000 pounds of rice equals about 1/580,000th of Japan's annual rice consumption!!!)

Right now I am at about 1/100 of a pound of rice. That is not a lot of rice at all. I should probably step this up.

Ha ha, I thought antipodal meant "fishy"--like anti-feet. It actually means "opposite".

[Mata]

[I fixed the link for you]

What an absolutely brilliant idea! That is superb! I'm going to be playing a lot of that I think...

I got to 500 grains donated today, and up to word level 42. 39 I find quite easy, but 40 and 41 are tricky, and I stumbled straight away at 42. Can anyone get any higher?

[Moosh]

I was bored last night so got up to about 1400 grains. My vocab level seems to be similar to Mata's, I stay between 39 and 42.

[Mata]

Some of the equivalent words are a bit obscure. There have been ones that I know but the suggested equivalents have been extremely tangential!

[elphaba2]

I got up to 44--woo for latinate languages and bits of greek. I actually found 37/38/39 a bit harder to infer, especially when the words were ones I know well, because then I spent all my time trying to decide which was the most appropriate equivalent.

[Moosh]

Yeah, I quite often find myself thinking "well yeah, it sorta means that, ish. in a way."

Does anyone know how exactly this works? Like how it raises money for rice? I assume it's from advertising, but I'm not sure.

[Izzy]

Yeah, from what I've heard from teachers at school and stuff, the advertisments at the bottom pay to be up there, and then that money's used to get rice.

I stay around 25-30...

[Daria]

You know what? It needs a Facebook app. I know that sounds ridiculous, but apps such as Pirates/ Lick My Frog/ Magic 8Ball Toaster must make SO much revenue from the amount of page refreshing that happens- one of the programmers should make one for a charity.

[Mata]

From the FAQ:

Who pays for the donated rice?

The rice is paid for by the advertisers whose names you see on the bottom of your vocabulary screen. This is regular advertising for these companies, but it is also something more. Through their advertising at FreeRice, these companies support both learning (free vocabulary for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry). We commend these companies for their participation at FreeRice.

If FreeRice has the rice to give, why not give it all away right now?

FreeRice is not sitting on a pile of rice―you are earning it 10 grains at a time. Here is how it works. When you play the game, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.

Yes, a Facebook version would be superb, although I'm not sure where the rules stand on advertising through apps on there. Hell, I could code the site myself in an afternoon, it's really pretty easy stuff, but getting the advertising on there would be more tricky I think.

EDIT: Woohoo! I got up to level 45 today! (And promptly went back down again!)

[gothictheysay]

Stumbled on it through A Softer World link. I don't think I've gotten past 39. I will keep trying, though...


edit: just now made it to 42!

[Daria]

I got to about 43/44 today by pure chance (and by shouting "what does [word] mean?" to Wytu now and again >_>
I find I stick around 38/39/40 ish. Today I have donated 5260 grains of rice.
Edit- tee hee. A goober is a peanut.

[Izzy]

I got to 40 today! And then went down.. and down.. and down... And when I was finally really mad at the game for giving me really hard words, I went down to level one and started to get them right again.

It was on CNN btw.

[Phyllis]

This thing is addictive.

So far I am on level 42. Thank you, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for causing me to look up the word "stevedore" ages ago. I would have never guessed that one correctly otherwise!

Edit: and gnah, down I go to 40.

Edit again: WOO! Up to 45. I don't want to touch it now. I just know I'm going to go down a bunch of levels again.

[Mr Fuzzy]

Beware level 47. It'll leave you a twitching heap, whimpering feebly.

[Mata]

47? Cripes. 45 is still my top.

[michael1384]

I'm cheating using wiktionary for the hungry.

[Hyperion]

I'm at 42 steady but ... every time it gets higher I LOSE miserably.

[Izzy]

Oh, and for those people that haven't noticed yet, they donate 20 grains for each right answer now!

[Mata]

I swear this game has got harder in the last month. I'm now struggling to get past level 43. 20 grains per answer is good though. I try to get to 500 every time I play, so that makes it a lot quicker to achieve.

[michael1384]

My friend and I play this during our computer lessons. He's donated 28,000 grains!

He's really smart.

[Izzy]

This has pretty much become an option of what to do in class on Fridays. (This, reading, or Think Like A King).

If we donate 10,000 + in a single seating we take a screen shot and it goes up on the Arete Wall of Fame. Together, everyone in a certain class from my school (about 60 people if you add up all the periods) has donated over 700,000 grains. Once we reach 1,000,000, Mr. Cohen said he's contacting the news.

[michael1384]

This has pretty much become an option of what to do in class on Fridays. (This, reading, or Think Like A King).

If we donate 10,000 + in a single seating we take a screen shot and it goes up on the Arete Wall of Fame. Together, everyone in a certain class from my school (about 60 people if you add up all the periods) has donated over 700,000 grains. Once we reach 1,000,000, Mr. Cohen said he's contacting the news.

Hey, Michael's friend here. I read this post and several FreeRice related blogs and would just like to say I got addicted to it and hit 10,000 and school and 50,000 at home. Is this good? Can anyone tell me how many meals that might equate to...?

[elphaba2]

Ah-ha! One pound of rice contains about 29,000 grains. You donated just about two pounds. Good job!

(No, I have no idea how many meals that is. Maybe around 7?)

[Mata]

One cup of rice is a full meal and weighs around seven ounces, so two pounds of rice is a little over four and a half full meals; however, in starvation conditions people can survive on a great deal less than that. It could easily be seven meals or more, but around four and a half is ideal. Well done!