WORDS, AND RICE

I love words almost as much as I love metal. That’s probably why I’m so wordy in my NCS posts. That’s also why I was very interested in a message I received recently from one of our regular readers and commenters who goes by the name Utmu.  He brought to my attention a web site called Free Rice, explaining, “I see NCS as a metal blog that actively helps people/groups of people”, based in part on the effort we organized back in March (at the urging of our friend Phro) to raise money for relief efforts in Japan (see this).

When people regard you as better than you are, sometimes that can inspire you to become better. Anyway, I was touched by what Utmu said about our site, and it did inspire me to help spread the word about Free Rice. It’s a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program. It espouses two goals: (1) Provide education to everyone for free; and (2) help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

The program is made possible by sponsors who advertise on the site. So, when you visit the site, it generates ad revenue for the program. When you go there, you’ll see a word challenge. If you click on the right answer, you get a harder question. If you click on the wrong answer, you get an easier question. For every answer you get right, Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice to The World Food Program. According to the site, as of yesterday they had donated 6,499,482,970 grains of rice during 2011 and over 91 billion grains since the program started.

The site also provides this “warning”: “This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance… ” It also helps feed hungry people. As Utmu correctly wrote to me, this is something simple that metalheads can do to help the world. And if you get exhausted with the word challenges, click on the “Subjects” tab at the top of the page, and you’ll find other games that use geography, math, chemistry, languages learning, and humanities. One more time: HERE is the link. Thanks Utmu.