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Click a mouse, feed a mouth in U.N. campaign

freerice.com — FreeRice offers participants multiple choice definitions to the meaning of a word, with each correct click generating 10 grains of rice for the United Nations World Food Programme. A food-linked word game put on the Internet a month ago has proved a runaway success and has already generated enough rice to feed 50,000 people.

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  • kalleanka, on 11/14/2007, -7/+42Please digg this up so more people play with it and more money gets donated to the hungry.
    This shows the total of how much rice has been donated:
    http://www.freerice.com/totals.html

    If I know the power of Digg correctly, YOU can make a difference here and now by digging this up!
    • Abomonog, on 11/14/2007, -23/+14No Digg unless Americas hungry get the rice. We live in the worlds richest country with the highest homeless rate in the industrialized world. WTF? We got children living under bridges here and we are worried about some kids in Africa?
      • iticu, on 11/14/2007, -12/+19Not everything is about America.
      • regression, on 11/14/2007, -10/+0those kids chose to be there...

        /sarcasm
      • terrordome, on 11/14/2007, -6/+15Just shut up. The same greed which keeps Americans living under bridges keep African children starving.
      • dpw45, on 11/14/2007, -4/+12So because of the rate of homelessness in your country, you aren't prepared to spend 10 minutes of your time helping others for free???
    • djphatjive, on 11/14/2007, -4/+11Seriously, that is like a 50 bags of rice. for 1500000 grains.
      http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_grains_of_rice_ ...

      • skifreak107, on 11/14/2007, -3/+6According to the website:
        12 November 2007 188,987,290 grains
        190 million grains/29,000 per pound = 6551 pounds of rice...

        Impressive if true.
        • djphatjive, on 11/14/2007, -1/+3Oops I read that wrong, Thats billion, Wow that is a lot. Site says 1,519,627,180 as a total. Wow. Ok now i'm impressed!
        • Samosama, on 11/14/2007, -1/+11,519,627,180 grains of rice = 52400 pounds = 26.2 tons of rice!

          That's enough to feed about 600,000 people
      • funkyjunk3, on 11/14/2007, -2/+43 tons of rice in 2 weeks for playing word games. Impressive!
      • funkyjunk3, on 11/14/2007, -2/+3I've converted the whole stats list using the 29000 grains per pound conversion. First column is date, second is # of grains, third column is total pounds and forth column is total tons.

        10/07/07 830 0.03 0
        10/08/07 5670 0.2 0
        10/09/07 76020 2.62 0
        10/10/07 287960 9.93 0
        10/11/07 4584100 158.07 0.08
        10/12/07 3541350 122.12 0.06
        10/13/07 3194630 110.16 0.06
        10/14/07 4343350 149.77 0.07
        10/15/07 6403920 220.82 0.11
        10/16/07 6645520 229.16 0.11
        10/17/07 12157010 419.21 0.21
        10/18/07 26703160 920.8 0.46
        10/19/07 40373060 1392.17 0.7
        10/20/07 16175550 557.78 0.28
        10/21/07 13276900 457.82 0.23
        10/22/07 26881930 926.96 0.46
        10/23/07 30423770 1049.1 0.52
        10/24/07 37670700 1298.99 0.65
        10/25/07 30819620 1062.75 0.53
        10/26/07 29607480 1020.95 0.51
        10/27/07 37056070 1277.8 0.64
        10/28/07 42153550 1453.57 0.73
        10/29/07 48720340 1680.01 0.84
        10/30/07 56893100 1961.83 0.98
        10/31/07 59167790 2040.27 1.02
        11/01/07 52142290 1798.01 0.9
        11/02/07 45925390 1583.63 0.79
        11/03/07 45760870 1577.96 0.79
        11/04/07 48038530 1656.5 0.83
        11/05/07 53847080 1856.8 0.93
        11/06/07 73566480 2536.78 1.27
        11/07/07 75201580 2593.16 1.3
        11/08/07 77126310 2659.53 1.33
        11/09/07 63253810 2181.17 1.09
        11/10/07 122377240 4219.9 2.11
        11/11/07 136236930 4697.83 2.35
        11/12/07 188987290 6516.8 3.26
        • funkyjunk3, on 11/14/2007, -3/+2Total tons: 26.2 tons of rice in 1 month!
    • X1Jack, on 11/14/2007, -1/+9The power of Digg to crash the site and deny the worlds poor food?
    • mcraigw, on 11/14/2007, -2/+3It says the rice is paid for by the advertisers that advertise at the bottom of the page. Since I have advertisement blocking add-ons I don't see any advertisements, do the advertisers still pay? It says I've donated 310 grains of rice -- have I really?
    • illegalamigo, on 11/14/2007, -1/+3This whole premise is kind of messed up. What, they won't donate the rice if you get the quiz wrong? I think if people are starving we shouldn't be playing a game over if they get to eat or not.
      • qwertydvorak, on 11/14/2007, -1/+2i picture a guy in africa with a sack of rice and a laptop. hungry kid holding out a bowl. the guy starts to pour rice, kid's face lights up, and suddenly the guy stops pouring after the laptop beeps. kid feels punk'd. laptop beeps again, man starts pouring.
  • m6arate, on 11/14/2007, -6/+8digg this everyone!!!!
    • sgtbutterscotch, on 11/14/2007, -2/+5I thought I already did a couple months ago. Oh well, it's for a good cause.
  • elbergel, on 11/14/2007, -5/+29I saved more lives than you did.....
  • eliburford, on 11/14/2007, -4/+10I can see this thing being gamed... but then, that would actually be a good thing. This is a fairly hard game to play for a very good cause.
    • mcraigw, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1It changes the level of the vocabulary based on how well you do, so just quickly click the first answer for a while, and it should get easier to answer correctly.
  • moulin1, on 11/13/2007, -23/+7Yes! Lets all make John Breen very very rich, Then congratulate ourselves heartily for our great humanitarian achievement earned by the dint of doing absolutely nothing. I have no doubt this will make it to the top of Diggs charts, There's nothing everyone like better than believing their apathy is a great achievement. Try contributing to a real charity with real money.
    • skifreak107, on 11/14/2007, -8/+11Someone woke up on the wrong side of the cave this morning.
    • TotalHalibut, on 11/14/2007, -3/+9He has a point. Many people seem very willing indeed to play some silly word-puzzle and then pat themselves on the back for being so kind and charitable, but ask them to actually fork out some cash and suddenly they're nowhere to be found.
      • zengonzo, on 11/14/2007, -2/+4What is the point again? It's stupid to take best advantage of human nature to resolve problems? It's better to sit with a cup and wait for donations that people aren't going to give?
  • NeoCortex, on 11/14/2007, -11/+22I don't get this. Why only give so much rice per click. Why not just give however much race they are capable of?
    • victorycig, on 11/14/2007, -2/+38FAQ:
      FreeRice is not sitting on a pile of rice―you are earning it 10 grains at a time. Here is how it works. When you play the game, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.
      • NJank, on 11/14/2007, -0/+6anyone do a check on the company yet? Is this like the feedthedogs, clickforacure, etc etc that we saw a few weeks back where only like 9% of their profit goes to the charity, the rest goes to lining the pockets? Although, 9% of anything is more than zero, but still.
        • coleki, on 11/14/2007, -2/+1also, freerice never claims to be a non-profit, nor does it claim to donate any percentage of anything... they only claim to donate 10 grains of rice per correct answer. as long as they are doing that, what's the problem?
    • earthceltic, on 11/13/2007, -9/+3They reserve the right to still be a greedy charity business that makes money. Offering X amount total allows them to keep the extra while looking good publicly overall.
  • theciuffo, on 11/13/2007, -17/+7I found this a week ago but I didn't submit it to digg because it's already been dugg...and it made front page. Over 2000 diggs I think. Buried.
    • leejae, on 11/14/2007, -6/+10You're a douche.
    • skinfrakki, on 11/14/2007, -6/+4Total douche nozzle
    • cosmikdebris, on 11/14/2007, -3/+4That's really interesting theciuffo, I found this yesterday and also saw that it had already been submitted 30 days ago, 130 odd diggs and hadn't made frontpage. You must be using a different digg.com than me!
    • pintomp3, on 11/14/2007, -1/+1you're right. it's a dupe, so let's assume everyone else is on digg all the time and world hunger has ended.
      • theciuffo, on 11/14/2007, -0/+1And let's let everyone claim credit for a story that they didn't break.
  • heartcoldfusion, on 11/13/2007, -1/+57Even if this is ***** and it doesn't benefit anyone, at least you get to increase your vocabulary...
  • BrPyne, on 11/14/2007, -3/+10I'm just going to keep clicking the first one, over and over with 2 second intervals.
  • SilverBack101, on 11/14/2007, -5/+16Interesting concept. I can train myself with a vocabulary game while helping. Great combo. Lets put a Digg stamp of approval and digg this site up.
  • slackerxpc, on 11/14/2007, -12/+4i got bored at 200 grains......
  • aaronwolfe, on 11/14/2007, -4/+7Can't get over 38 vocab level....is that bad?
    • skinfrakki, on 11/13/2007, -2/+8garsh i rekun nawt
    • slashbot, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1I averaged about 38-40.

      This game reminded me of the SAT/GRE :P
    • nilcam, on 11/13/2007, -0/+0According to the FAQ, 50 is the highest level and very few people score above 48. I scored a 37.
  • Raiden47, on 11/14/2007, -5/+5This is such an amazing idea. There is some amazing work being done with such a small cost.
  • Drogoganor, on 11/13/2007, -17/+11I didn't click *****. Starve, *****!
    • gebx, on 11/13/2007, -8/+7Digged cause it made me laugh, even though it's wrong..
  • ssjasper2003, on 11/13/2007, -13/+2I do not get the whole concept of it, quit after 50.
  • mstoneburner, on 11/13/2007, -16/+3HAHA, the joke's on them, I have Firefox set up in such a way that I can play this game all day and not get served a single ad. TAKE THAT, POOR STARVING PEOPLE!
    • TotalHalibut, on 11/13/2007, -1/+1Wow, Adblock thievery just reached a whole new level of suck.
    • thuang513, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1then why the ***** are you playing in the first place? ...what a *****
  • sandygmaharaj, on 11/14/2007, -18/+5Buried as new form of spam
  • yellowsnowcone, on 11/14/2007, -6/+31Since when did mouse clicking become social activism? I swear, today's generation is so damn lazy. If you really want to make a difference, why don't you go out a volunteer? Or send some money to Doctors Without Borders?
    • Zuggy, on 11/13/2007, -0/+3Look at the bright side. Now even the lazy bastards can contribute something to the world
    • NJank, on 11/14/2007, -1/+2because this is free to me.
    • xerexes1, on 11/14/2007, -1/+1I do. I also don't see the need to justify to which charities I donate. This is a clever, easy and fun way to do something positive.
  • xili, on 11/14/2007, -11/+2How ridiculous is this? If they have food to give to the poor, GIVE IT! If you thinking "digging" this stupid story is going to help feed people with rice surplus, then call me because I have some beach front property in Northern Russia to sell you.
    • temugen, on 11/13/2007, -0/+8They don't have it, their sponsors donate money when people view the ads, so thus you have to take the quiz for them to get money to buy the rice.
  • cbegin, on 11/13/2007, -3/+1I wonder if they've ever read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Kings-Chessboard-Picture-Puf ...
  • Siriquelle, on 11/14/2007, -3/+5This is brilliant,
    • mstoneburner, on 11/14/2007, -6/+2No, it's not.
    • thuang513, on 11/14/2007, -1/+1it is brilliant, 3 pay per view ads showing at once, each generating a few cents which are equivalent to a few grains of rice...this is brilliant
    • thuang513, on 11/14/2007, -1/+1it is brilliant, 3 pay per view ads showing at once, each generating a few cents which are equivalent to a few grains of rice...this is brilliant
  • missingnoh4x, on 11/14/2007, -2/+4Wow, motivating people to learn by providing charity for each answer you get right. That's awesome, two public services in one.
  • temugen, on 11/14/2007, -2/+4Does anyone want a program that gets all the correct answers from thesaurus.com and automatically submits them? I made it a couple weeks ago and have been getting millions of grains of rice a day by just running it in the background.
    • uberlit, on 11/13/2007, -0/+0Yes
    • Quakes, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2I made a similar one, except it learns as it goes (since the site tells you the correct word if you guess wrong) and saves them in a MySQL database for further use.
    • Quakes, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2I made a similar one, except it learns as it goes (since the site tells you the correct word if you guess wrong) and saves them in a MySQL database for further use.
    • omgwthlol, on 11/13/2007, -0/+0cani see
    • pentalive, on 11/13/2007, -0/+0If too many of us run programs to answer the questions, then the advertisers will feel that they are not getting anything for their advertising money (since your robot can't buy stuff) and they will quit paying FreeRice.

      Also this way you don't get the vocabulary, mines 36 or so.
    • temugen, on 11/17/2007, -0/+1http://digg.com/software/Feed_the_world_with_merel ...
      There's the application. I agree with pentalive's statement but it's worth a shot :)
  • ncc74656m, on 11/14/2007, -2/+4The issue with this to my mind is that basically it comes down to a very Americanized version of a charity. "Well, we know you're too cheap to give real money to a charity, and too lazy to do real volunteer work, so here, get some entertainment, and for every click through you perform, we get money, of which a small portion is given to charity so we can also net a tidy profit from it."
    • x2wenty4x, on 11/14/2007, -1/+2its better then just being lazy and them getting nothing.
    • NJank, on 11/14/2007, -1/+2It goes right along with:
      "please sir, would you donate $10 to support research into curing this disease? No? Okay, thank you for your time."
      OR
      "would you be interested in buying a ticket to this charity auction for $60? All proceeds (net costs of about $50) go directly to funding for the cure. You would? And you'll pay to bring two friends? Great! Thanks!"

      That's how charity work works. You ask for money and you're begging. You skim off the top of 'fun' and you get interest.

      on top of that, how about every stinking school fundraiser? Here, buy this horribly overpriced candy/pizza/cookie/knicknack stuff, and the school gets a portion of the sale! If you just asked for donations, you'd get zilch.
  • xili, on 11/14/2007, -6/+4Do you want to see where UN Rice goes? Watch CHILDREN OF THE SECRET STATE .. still available on Liveleak:
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b50_1188117332 Part1
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0e4_1188117781 Part2
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5b2_1188118225 Part3
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a41_1188118759 Part4
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=eeb_1188119043 Part5
  • ChazHollywood, on 11/14/2007, -4/+4I bet this website is NOT, not for profit. They're trying to make some good cash and donating a small amount of the profits in the form of rice.
  • sodomizer, on 11/14/2007, -4/+6The world suffers from overpopulation and starvation is a result of too few global and sustainable resources for the size of the population.

    We'd all have plenty and could solve starvation, homelessness, and poverty if we reduced the population to a sustainable amount for the resources the earth provides. By facilitating overpopulation, well-intentioned people actually create human misery.
    • Drogoganor, on 11/14/2007, -2/+6Tell it to the Catholics who rail against birth control
    • mstoneburner, on 11/14/2007, -1/+6Actually, starvation is generally a result of poor land management, corruption, and strife. See: Zimbabwe. Nice job trotting out the "sustainable" buzzword, though.
      • vertinox, on 11/14/2007, -0/+3Feeding people with hand outs won't solve the problem. Sending tractors, fertilizer, seeds, irrigation systems, and technical advisers will.
    • NJank, on 11/14/2007, -0/+5I'll rephrase for you:

      Starvation is a result of "our current levels of wastefulness, laziness, selfishness, resulting in poor management with regard to" sustainable resources.

      The world produces more than enough food for the current population. We just poorly distribute and waste most of what's needed. So yes, population reduction is one option for maintaining solvency in an inefficient system. The second is to correct the system.
  • SebK666, on 11/14/2007, -3/+3“It costs you nothing but time to show you care.”
    http://www.thehungersite.com/
  • danielsan1701, on 11/14/2007, -1/+11http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism

    But, I guess it's better than nothing.
  • kalvinb, on 11/14/2007, -2/+7In the time it takes to play this stupid game to earn enough rice to fill a bowl, you could have earned enough money working a real job to buy a large bag of rice containing tens of thousands of grains of rice and donated it.
  • Ryan121, on 11/14/2007, -4/+5People are starving and to get food people who have the Internet available have to play a game so the people starving can get food. Is this a sick joke? The U.N. has me worried some times.
  • ZenMojo, on 11/14/2007, -2/+3I hope this is funded by ads, otherwise, why not just give the rice to people?
  • ssjasper2003, on 11/14/2007, -4/+3After getting to 1550 the vocab level started going up from 10-11 to 14.
  • sandygmaharaj, on 11/14/2007, -7/+0Kill agent smiths and I will personally donate all my rice grains to the UN:
    http://www.foldworld.info/top/index.php?option=com ...
  • IHaveCrayons, on 11/14/2007, -6/+1I own this game.
  • HunterBriley, on 11/14/2007, -3/+2I know this is nice and all (I think its a wonderful idea), but why not just send a lot of rice instead of needing people to play the game?
    • thcobbs, on 11/14/2007, -2/+3Did you notice the ads at the bottom?

      The ads are there to generate money. The longer you look at the ads, the more money the program makes. The more money the program makes, the more rice can be donated. The more rice that can be donated, the more people are saved from starvation.

      See how it works?
  • Invalice, on 11/14/2007, -3/+1i got to 34 and the vocab is so hard... I ended using a dictionary and sometimes the dictionary doesn't have it


  • thcobbs, on 11/14/2007, -2/+4Digging again cause it's fun AND good.
  • slashbot, on 11/14/2007, -4/+4Donated some 3000 rice. Learned some vocab in the process
  • ssjasper2003, on 11/14/2007, -3/+0http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/7875/57119382dc ...
  • calipan, on 11/14/2007, -3/+2The guy makes more than he ever gives to charity.
    http://perigee.livejournal.com/414894.html
    • moulin1, on 11/14/2007, -0/+1Diggers don't like to hear the truth. Every phony charity scam on the internet gets dugg to the top of the charts. This site does donate some money to the UNWFP (per the UN) but it is NOT A CHARITY. Now watch us get buried.
  • dimplemonkey, on 11/14/2007, -1/+3Why do you need a game or an expanding vocabulary to remind you that the rest of the world is starving? Give to Operation Blessing International where the food actually gets delivered and villages are spared from having their families go hungry.
  • kizzbizz, on 11/14/2007, -1/+6Not a registered charity, no independent verification that the ad money he's making is actually going to pay for rice. Like somebody said, its a very "American" thing for us to donate through playing a game. However, its much MORE American to pull at the people's heartstrings in order to make a buck at their expense.
  • michael43, on 11/14/2007, -3/+0It's hard to believe this isn't B.S. but it's true, we can just click those starving people right out of Ethiopia. Some of them anyway, I guess there would be a few that would still starve because one of us ***** up and missed a word. Now the poor bastard doesn't get his grain of rice.
  • CLShortFuse, on 11/14/2007, -3/+1Free Condi!
    what? that's not what this is about?
  • smegthelight, on 11/14/2007, -2/+4"...has already generated enough rice to feed 50,000 people."
    or line the pockets of 5 people..

    Guess which one will happen.
  • diggzoid, on 11/14/2007, -2/+3Fun game, worthy cause but: "pennoncel = lance streamer"??
    OK I don't know what pennoncel is but what the ***** is a lance streamer?
  • HonestAbe, on 11/14/2007, -7/+2I can't believe how many of you are falling for this.
    • Szat, on 11/14/2007, -2/+2They have corporate sponsors paying for this. Why would they just advertise Mac, Time Life, Fujitsu, iTunes, and Radisson Hotels for no reason? I'm sure all those sponsors checked into the validity of the website's claim; if not then the admins of the organization could be in big trouble when the sponsors found out. HonestAbe has little faith in man.
    • shazzb0t, on 11/14/2007, -2/+2Not to mention that its administered by the United Nations World Food Program. Its more than likely not a scam.
    • moulin1, on 11/14/2007, -0/+1Where did you find something to make you think this For Profit corporation, wholly owned by John Breen is "administered by the UNWFP"???????????????????
  • graphak, on 11/13/2007, -1/+2uhh, cant we just let them have some rice without playing a game? Why does satisfying their hunger depend on the level of vocabulary that most people probably lack?
  • Szat, on 11/14/2007, -1/+1400 grains!
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