I stumbled on this website called FreeRice.com. It’s a simple, and great idea. You are given a word, and four possible synonyms. You click your choice, and if you’re right, you win ten grains of rice! Actually, that rice gets automatically donated to hungry people, so even if you don’t like rice, you can still help the needy while improving your vocabulary.
The rice actually does gets donated. There is an advertisement at the bottom of the page, which apparently pays for the food contribution. The game can be quite addicting, as it adjusts the difficulty level of the given words automatically, making it more challenging the longer you play. I have even seen some completely new words while playing. Although I don’t think I will be using some of these new words I am learning, it could help me know them if I ever see them again.
The fact that this rice actually gets donated has me thinking… how hard would it be for someone to write a program that plays this game by comparing the given word and choices to a thesaurus, and repeatedly answers the questions, donating absurd amounts of rice? I wonder if the website has safeguards against that. Even if the program always guessed the first choice, it would still probably donate more rice than a person could.
I am a web designer and full time student (Computer Science). I also enjoy playing the acoustic guitar, listening to music, and playing soccer.