5014 Seasons, hearing, free rice.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Don't taunt the alligator until after you've crossed the creek.

------------------------------------------------------------

You know how in old-timey stage shows, when there's a change of scenery, the painted backdrop falls with a thud?  Well, that's how seasons have been changing lately.  THUD, spring arrived.  THUD, summer's here.  THUD, it's autumn.  One day it was in the high 80s and steamy, and the next day it was low 70s and windy.  Thud.  I swear I heard the backdrop fall.

--------------------------------------

Ever since I entered my 50s I've been getting mail offers for hearing tests from hearing aid companies, at the rate of at least one a week.  It's annoying.

I watched some videos recently about what people in foreign countries find most annoying about American tourists, and the thing that comes up over and over is that they are so loud.  Americans seem to talk too loudly, laugh too loudly, shout at each other, on the streets, on buses, on trains, in pubs, in B&Bs, disturbing the peace of everyone around them and they don't even notice.

That's something I noticed here, and it does bother me.  At the old house, a rural area, even in town people are much quieter.  It's difficult to hear conversations in the next booth at the village diner.  Here I can hear the complete conversation between two neighbors five houses up the street.  The house across the street doesn't have good cell reception, so the woman who lived there would sit on her front steps to talk on the phone, and not only could I clearly hear every word she said, I could clearly hear the other person on the other end of the call.

So, I doubt I need those hearing tests, but I wonder if most Americans DO.

---------------------------------------

Please check out freerice.com.  It's run by some part of the U.N.  You can take tests in various disciplines, and every correct answer earns 10 grains of rice for starving folks somewhere.  I think they start you out with English vocabulary.  It starts out very simple, but then gets harder.  If you get one wrong, pay attention to the correct answer, because you will see it again.  So you learn some stuff, and send rice where it's needed.  Supposedly it's paid for by the advertisers, but I didn't see any ads....

My previous post on freerice, with more detail:  http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2009/06/2423-free-rice.html
.

2423 Free Rice

Thursday, June 4, 2009

I have rediscovered the free rice site, at http://www.freerice.com/. You take a vocabulary or math or grammar or geography or artist/painting or whatever test, and every correct answer puts 10 grains of rice in a bowl, to be donated to somewhere in the world. You can read the details at the site. It's a challenge, and they tell you what the correct answer is, and then if you got it wrong they retest you on it later, so you really can learn a lot about whatever topic you choose. (I finally know where several tiny central European countries are.)

Ten grains of rice doesn't sound like much, but ten times a hundred thousand adds up.

I first discovered this site about a year and a half ago. I told some Mensans about it back then, and, naturally, some of them had to go home and count and weigh rice, and then grouse about how piddling small a dent in world hunger it was making, so they didn't go to the site. Stupid. Illogical. One bowl of rice is one meal for a child, which is a lot more than none.

Eighteen months ago the only test was vocabulary. I made it to level 55 of 60 in vocabulary this evening, and donated 1450 grains.

Now there are several categories (click on "Change subjects" on the right of the question block).

In grammar, the only ones I got wrong involved semi-colons, and I donated about 3,000 grains. Pre-algebra math was very easy. Lots of quick free rice. Identifying countries was harder, but I enjoyed it because I learned a lot, and donated about 800 grains. On the artists/paintings, I thought I was doing very well because even if I don't recognize the painting, I do recognize the style of the better-known artists, so I can guess well ... and then noticed I never made it out of level 1. Not much rice there, I'm afraid, but again, I learned a lot.

It's a way to play a bit, learn a bit, and do some good, and you don't even have to register or give them any info.
.

1546 Free Rice

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Go to FreeRice.com ( http://www.freerice.com/faq.html) to read about an interesting approach to ending world hunger. Click on tabs at the top to read about it, and then click on "Home" to take the vocabulary test.

For every word you get correct, 10 grains of rice are donated, paid for by the advertisers. (Don't tell those advertisers, but I wasn't even aware there were ads there. Oops!) Every time you get three words in a row correct, you are raised to a more difficult level. I got to level 47, with 60 of 70 words correct (and at level 47 you need to rely on a passing knowledge of Latin and Greek to figure out the base of the words, because I swear I've never heard of those words before!), and 600 grains paid for, before I went into brain freeze and quit.

It's addictive. I plan to go back and rack up more rice.

Update: See also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7088447.stm
.