Neocolours

Don't know how many people have seen this, but a site has been flowing around recently, called Free Rice.

http://freerice.com/index.php

It seems legit. They don't require a sign up or anything. They basically give you words and four choices as to their definition. For each word you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program to help end world hunger. The sponsers at the bottom of the screen pay for the rice.

I think the totals page says a lot. It surprised me.

Aside from helping end a worldwide crisis, the game is quite addicting!

It is addicting! I said I would stop at 1000, but I got sucked into until I was almost at 1500. The outer fringe of my knowledge seems to be at about level 40, I got to 41 once, but 38 is where I flourish.

It's fun, I like it. Cool.

I can't seem to get above 48. There are so many words I don't know. I told Derek I was struggling, and he said, "It scares me that there are words you don't know." Some of them have been a bit on the "oh, you're trying too hard" side--like tabanid, for horsefly, because those are in the family Tabanidae. Does anyone who hasn't studied entomology know that?

However, they did give me "futhark," which tickles me in a way that, if Loretta tickled me in that way, I'd say, "Oh, yeah, that's nice, that's the spot."

You have to have been a member of Subeta for a while, and also a fan of Family Guy, in order to like my previous paragraph-sentence, but you know, I think it was worth it.

I'm struggling a bit as well. But this game is fascinating. I've never seen some of the words before, but that makes me even happier when a word that is clearly supposed to be difficult is one that I've used in a conversation.

EDIT: And many of the words simply amuse me. "Tintinnabulation," for example, which I was able to correctly guess, based on the available options. Maybe I just don't read enough? But I've never seen that word before.

I think this is my new favorite game.

I'm consistently topping out around level 49. Up there, most of the words I've never actually seen before; I just know a whole lot about how loanwords get into English, and at that level of obscurity almost anything that isn't from Greek, Latin or Arabic is some sort of obscure British slang or nautical term I'm never going to get.

Plus I'm feeding the poor in tiny increments! Awesome.

Edit: How Atlas Games saved the world: if not for Unknown Armies I probably would have missed 'dipsomania'. (In UA's Tim Powersian quasi-horrific setting, a dipsomancer is a mage who gains charges from boozing.) There have been a lot like that. If gaming has done nothing else for me, it has vastly expanded my vocabulary, mostly in totally weird directions.

Pretty much everything I know about medieval armor, I learned from a text game.

And it's actually surprisingly a lot of knowledge.

I love this game and if I didn't have to get up in the morning I'd keep playing. I'm definitely going to write it on the board in both of my classes tomorrow. Put that college activism to work... Or something like that.

I tried this a few days ago and got up to level 43, but mostly kept falling back to 40. I really should learn to take a couple seconds and actually try to figure out the ones I don't recognize instead of guessing; more than a few times, I just guessed, only to realize immediately that I knew the root word and could have figured it out.

Is it wrong that I guessed "womb" for "cockloft"? It apparently means "garret."

Erm... 39 and exactly 300 grains of rice. I think I'll try again later. Er, earlier. It's almost my bedtime.

Monkeyguy wrote:Is it wrong that I guessed "womb" for "cockloft"? It apparently means "garret."

You are a horrible person.

And so am I, for laughing so hard at that.

Hee, this has been circulating my various other haunts. I'm hoping it has enough momentum to last after the initial excitement wears off, it's a good idea for a good cause.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit I can only hover around levels 40-43 most of the time. I managed to reach 48 once though! Someday I will attain the fabled level 50, and angels will descend from on high to praise my name! Someday.

bonecrivain wrote:"Tintinnabulation," for example, which I was able to correctly guess, based on the available options. Maybe I just don't read enough? But I've never seen that word before.

I think I only know that word from Poe's poem "The Bells" - "the tintinnabulation that so musically wells, from the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells."

This site is way addicting. I'm at level 45 right now... Edit: ooh, up to 50!

Dictionary.com is my best friend right now*. I should do this for half an hour every day just to expand my vocabulary....




(*But at least I'm cheating for a good cause!)

I've made it up to 42 so far(43 now), and with that I am content. I keep getting a lot of words from seemingly African origins, of which my knowledge is quite scant. I also tend to know how to use words properly in a sentence, with the correct meaning, without knowing what the hell the word actually means. I'll say, think, or write something and then have to look up the word I just used.