Thursday, April 24, 2008

gotta love having time off

So this is one of the things that I've been "working" on the past couple of days...
freerice55
I noticed that FreeRice seemed to have added some new levels as well as new vocab words. So I decided I would beat my previous high level of 50. I got all the way to 55! Woo-hoo! Yup, I'm proud of myself.

I also saw in the options that you can have it remember your level and the number of grains you've "donated" via their website. So, even though this doesn't include my earlier attempts, you can see I've been spending way too much of B's naptime playing FreeRice.

freericegrains

Hey, at least I'm doing something good while goofing off.

Which reminds me...

Here's another way I started goofing off occasionally: The ESP Game.
espgame
Basically, the computer matches you with an anonymous partner, and you get a set amount of time to agree on words to describe photos. I read about this in a Smithsonian magazine article about young innovators. The magazine was interesting... something like 25 people under 25 who are changing the world (don't quote me on the exact title, but you get the gist).

It's set up as a game, but the people who "play" it are basically doing a task to help all internet users: cataloging the internet's photos/images. The article said that people who play get "attached" to their partners, which seemed weird to me at first, I mean, how can you get attached to someone that you can't actually communicate with, don't know their name/username/nothing. All you are doing is typing in words to describe photos. But I will say this: some people are much better partners than others. Funny, it's obvious when you change partners: some people will hit pass immediately for every picture (annoying!), others will try for a while, sometimes I get a partner who really thinks like me, and we get lots of bonus points.

OK, I feel kind of nerdy, but it's fun. And it keeps me off the street.

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