Freerice.com: Slacktivism at its finest

[Zom B]

Free Rice (http://www.freerice.com) is a website that, for those not familiar with it, works in conjunction with the United Nations' World Food Program(me). The default challenge on the website is vocabulary, although topics such as Foreign Languages, Science, Math, and Grammar are also available. For every correct answer you give, ten grains of rice are donated (I'm sure they mean equivalent weight).

On the vocabulary challenge, I typically hover around level 43.

[Eldan]

Ah, yes. That one. I just tried it again, I still can't get over 39.

[zyphyr]

A very worthy way to kill a little time.

[Tirian]

Yeah, when it first came out I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation on how many grains of rice there are in a serving. Don't click on the spoiler unless you want to be depressed.

3500

I'll also confess that I don't like the vocabulary test ever since I realized that once you get up to that 44-46 level it starts actively trying to thwart your advance with reasonable answers that are wrong. Just to give an easy example of that:

plantar means:
1. elongated flower pot
2. dirt farmer
3. on the foot sole
4. plantation owner

Basically punishing anyone who thought that "plant" was a useful prefix, which is exactly the sort of instinct that you should use to approach words you don't know. Grrr.

On the other hand, I did love it for learning the nations of the world and their capitals for a few weeks back some time ago.

[Tengu_temp]

Wasn't it twenty grains of rice some time ago? Ah well, at least they're still up at running.

Thanks for reminding me of this. Spent a short while on math equations and donated 1000 grains of rice.


Yeah, when it first came out I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation on how many grains of rice there are in a serving. Don't click on the spoiler unless you want to be depressed.

3500


Truth to be told, starving people would probably be satisfied with less. And even if your efforts on Freerice make less help than you thought, they still save some people, so it's worthwhile effort.

[EnderChant]

I love obscure words, though, so the vocabulary test only gets interesting when you hit level forty or so.

@Tirian: Maybe (I'm just guessin' here) the root for plantar is the same as the root for platigrade, which means "walking on the soles of one's feet".

As for the amount donated, I agree with Tengu; some rice is better than the alternative.

EDIT: Perhaps a High Scores thread would be appropriate to encourage posters to play and donate.

[Fiery Diamond]

And sometimes it's actually wrong. I decided to start at the easiest level and work my way up (you get them to donate more that way), and at level 23, it had the word spree.

I don't recall the other two choices, but it had these two as choices:

Spell
Fling

It claims the answer is fling. Well, if I head on over to dictionary.reference.com....

3. a period, spell, or bout of indulgence

Nowhere does it mention fling.

[EnderChant]

That's interesting. I checked ninjawords, and got "merry frolic" or something to that effect.

But there have been a few times when I've noticed it's wrong as well, though I can't remember any examples right now.

[Tavar]

It looks to me that it's less wrong and more that it had a synonym of the correct answer in the choices: I believe Fling and spell fall into that category. Still depressing.

[Irenaeus]

Yeah, when it first came out I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation on how many grains of rice there are in a serving. Don't click on the spoiler unless you want to be depressed.

3500That isn't really depressing. I just donated a meal while being mildly entertained and I learned a new word which I liked.

[Zom B]

Wasn't it twenty grains of rice some time ago? Ah well, at least they're still up at running.

It was indeed. I guess the FUBAR'd economy is affecting everyone.

I just found it again today in my bookmarks folder. I'd forgotten it was there.

They have a browser search toolbar thing but it is

A) Terrible, in that it returns almost no usable results and
B) It doesn't donate search-by-search as would be great. It donates 2500 grains after 5 searches and another 2500 after another 5 and that is your limit for the day.

If it let you specify the search engine that would be better. Call me a fanboy, but I find that Google really does seem to be the best at finding relevant results.

[Solaris]

Meh. I prefer the more direct approach.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Fun thing to do when I'm otherwise thing-less.

[Lord Seth]

This isn't really slacktivism, by lieu of the fact that something is actually getting done. Slacktivism is doing stuff like signing Internet petitions; it doesn't do anything at all to further the goal(s), it just makes you feel better about yourself. This, on the other hand, actually does something.

[Joran]

I like it, but it repeats questions too frequently. I get repeats within 10 questions.

[Tirian]

I like it, but it repeats questions too frequently. I get repeats within 10 questions.

If it was a word that you originally got wrong, then that's a feature.

Unfortuantely, that also happens with the smaller tests, like the atomic table or geography. It will just cycle through all the "hardest" questions and never mix in easier questions, which would be mildly sensible if you've totally cracked the game.

[Joran]

If it was a word that you originally got wrong, then that's a feature.

Unfortuantely, that also happens with the smaller tests, like the atomic table or geography. It will just cycle through all the "hardest" questions and never mix in easier questions, which would be mildly sensible if you've totally cracked the game.

Working as intended! I'm saddened by my lack of knowledge about the Periodic Table.

[Mauve Shirt]

Got up to level 30 in the German vocab version.

[Myshlaevsky]

Can operate at ~50 on the vocabulary one. Anything significant after that becomes charmingly infuriating.

[Athaniar]

So they have food, but won't give it to the poor and starving until we on the Internet answer questions correctly? Just give them the food already, you vile creatures. Then again, I'm probably just misunderstanding.

[Tengu_temp]

So they have food, but won't give it to the poor and starving until we on the Internet answer questions correctly? Just give them the food already, you vile creatures. Then again, I'm probably just misunderstanding.

Yeah, that's not how it works. Each time you answer correctly, the site reloads and new banners appear. The people who the banners belong to pay Freerice for you having seen the banners, and Freerice uses that money to buy rice for the poor. They don't have the food until you start answering.