FreeRice: Ending World Hunger & Poor Vocabularies

If you've ever wished there was something you could do to help end world hunger (or if you've ever wanted to learn the definition of words like "neologism"), you absolutely must visit FreeRice.com on a regular basis.

FreeRice is a website with two goals:

1. Providing free English vocabulary to everyone
2. Providing free rice to hungry people

In partnership with the UN World Food Program and Poverty.com, FreeRice donates 20 grains of rice every time you correctly guess the definition of a vocabulary word. Granted, 20 grains of rice isn't much, but thousands of other people are playing, too. Since October 2007, users have helped FreeRice donate more than 39 billion grains of rice to feed more than a million people.

If you check out their FAQs, you'll read that the United Nations estimates that the cost to end world hunger completely is about $195 billion a year. 22 countries have joined together to raise this money by each contributing 0.7% of national GDP. While some countries have already met this goal, others are being a little slow. Sadly, the U.S. is one of the slow ones. FreeRice suggests you support your country's participation by sending your government a letter — can't hurt, right?

So, do the smart thing and bookmark FreeRice and play whenever you've got a spare minute. Everyone knows you fritter away hours on the internet anyway — you may as well feed starving people and make yourself smarter while you're at it. Besides, if you don't brush up on your vocabulary, you're never going to win an honest game of Facebook Scrabble. I'm at vocab level 50 on FreeRice. Let's see what you've got.

Yes, that's a challenge. Bring it.

Traveling Light

I'm not a huge fan of extra "stuff". If I won't use it (which means I definitely don't need it), I don't want it. Nor do I want to carry it with me on trips.

Introducing OneBag.com. Apparently, this site has been around for fourteen years, so I can't be too proud of my discovery (in fact, I'm probably one of the last people in the world to find it). Nevertheless, with practical advice on what to pack, what to pack it in, and how to pack it, it seems it's pretty much the authority on traveling light. Site author Doug Dyment argues you can pack everything you need for any trip in one carry-on sized bag. With airlines starting to change for checked luggage, trimming off the extra baggage is becoming an increasingly valuable skill.

Anyway, finding a site so obviously dedicated to efficiency and organization got my neat-freak self all excited. Enjoy!