Filed under: Fun, Internet, Productivity
Free Rice - all in one timewaster, vocab builder and feeder of the poor
As you take advantage of your four hour work week (ok, that's your New Year's resolution) you've got to love efficiency. Free Rice is a site that lets you build your English vocabulary, and while doing so, it donates grains of rice to the United Nations to help stop world hunger. The donation of rice is made possible by the unobtrusive ads that line the bottom of the screen.
We like to think of this as a three-fer - you help end world hunger, build your vocabulary all the while, and waste time in an efficient and productive manner since you are using some brain cells to advance to the next vocabulary word. According to Free Rice, there are 50 levels of difficulty, however, it is rare for people to advance past level 48.
Since launching on October 7, Free Rice has donated 2,098,280,280 grains of rice. All proceeds from the advertising revenue goes directly to the UN's World Food Program.
FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com. The founder is John Breen, a computer programmer, with a keen interest in global poverty issues.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Andrew Velis said 5:07PM on 11-16-2007
already been on digg. catch up download squad.
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Joel Verhagen said 5:53PM on 11-16-2007
not really a "time waster" if it's feeding the needy...
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steven said 3:37AM on 11-18-2007
I hope all that rice doesn’t end up in the hands of some warlord somewhere.
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mr said 10:06PM on 12-13-2007
Can "Free Rice" set up words for children so that they can participate in this good will endeavor?
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Dolores Parker said 10:24PM on 12-13-2007
That's a great idea. I'll check with them and see what they say. Thanks!
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