FreeRice.Com – Feeding hungry people around the world through your vocabulary.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Sphere: Related Content

About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every three and a half seconds. Unfortunately, it is children who die most often. Yet there is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish them. Being constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often sick. This makes them increasingly less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier. This downward spiral often continues until death for them and their families.

This morning, while at work, I a came across this wonderful website called http://freerice.com/ A no profit website which donates 20 grains of rice for every word you get right. This donation is done by the website through United Nations to people who are leaving below poverty line.

FreeRice has two goals:
1)Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2)Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

By now, you must be wondering how this works and how Rice & Vocabulary are related. When you play the word game on the site, 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. The rice is paid for by the advertisers. This is regular advertising for these companies, but it is also something more. Through their advertising at FreeRice, these companies support both learning (free vocabulary for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry).

Now the next question arises in your mind is on the distribution system of rice. The rice is distributed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). The World Food Program is the world’s largest food aid agency, working with over 1,000 other organizations in over 75 countries. In addition to providing food, the World Food Program helps hungry people to become self-reliant so that they escape hunger for good.

The rice you donate makes a huge difference to the person who receives it. The rice you donate is more precious than anything in the world as you might save a child dieing in the arms of his beloved parents from hunger.

So, if you are GAME to help end poverty...Log on to http://freerice.com/ and start playing.

Posted by Pradeep A.J 3 comments  

Labels: , ,

Art of 'Jollufying'..The Orkut way!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Sphere: Related Content

I was recently watching an interview with Shailesh Rao, MD of Google India, in one of the news channels. I was not surprised when he quoted that India is the second largest user of Orkut in the world after Brazil. There is no doubt about it if you have noticed the amount of time people around you spend on the site. Orkut has been used for various activities from tracking down the whereabouts of your childhood friends to finding a new life partner. Orkut is indirectly competing with matrimonial sites as well as job boards to name few businesses. I was bit surprised to know that the religion based communities on Orkut are acting as matchmakers.

Ok, lemme cut to the chase. My intention of writing this articleis not to glorify Orkut or to list out the benefits of the same, but to throw some light on the most active species on Orkut who belong to a universal community called “Jollus”. Lemme first explain what Jollu in Kannada & Tamil means. “Jollu” means saliva and is often referred to people who salivate at the site of the opposite sex, people who are desperate to see, touch, talk sense, smell and show some kind of desperation to the opposite sex. Orkut no doubt has become a major platform for jollus to perform their act. Jollus are not even bothered to understand the fact that Orkut is an open forum and express their desperation through a communication vehicle called Scraps, which is visible for everybody who visits a particular profile. The Jollus on Orkut have evolved over a period of 2 years and often update and upgrade the statements they make to befriend girls. The opening statements they make vary from Jollus to jollus depending upon their class, upbringing, vocabulary etc. From very colloquial statements to Shakespeare stuffs, from very interesting statements to pale dialogs, sometimes it’s hilarious too.

Below are some of the opening statements I have come across in my 'female friends' (Lemme not complicate it by saying girl friends) scrap books and of course made by the Jollus. These are tried and tested statements, by any chance if you are one of the Jollu in the making, do try and come out with some innovative statements instead using the same old funny stuffs.

P.S: All the characters, statements mentioned below defenetly resemble some one dead or alive and not just a mere coincident. Yes, I have copied below scraps directly from the scrap books and have not bothered to change the senders (jollu’s) names in some cases. If somebody thinks it’s their statement and I have no authorization to publish the same in my blog, they can get in touch with me. It’s been long time that I broke someone in half. If somebody think I am intruding their privacy or copying content, lemme reiterate that Orkut is an open forum and copying scraps from it will not tantamount to plagarism(More over, I am giving credit to the writers by not removing their names).

Like always, my comments in RED.

• Can we cross the limits of being strangers and be friends? (Infiltration is crime)
• Do u agree our friendship. (Where is the agreement??)
• Hi wana b ur frnd. (Will get back to you)
• Hi.. ur face is familiar to me.... (I was your sister in previous birth.)
• Hey.... Was going through ur profile, found it interesting, so am writing to u.....As a normal routine, I know u must be tired of people saying, "hiii there, u r cute, u r pretty, i like ur smile, i like ur eyes....... and stuff"......and i can imagine how irritating it can be when someone out of know where jumps up and says....... "DO u wanna be my friend, or can i be ur friend" and u feel like, Man DO i KNow u ....Hence i would definitely not do the same, neither would i ask u to be my friend... All i shall say is, "WHy dont we start a conversation and let friendship develop on its on....." Hope u would.... (How are u related to Shakespeare??)
• Hi nice smile on ur face iam rohit wann to scrap me. (You are already scrapped off)
• Hai, Add me as a friend. (Will add to my hit list).
• Hi budy u want to friendship with me. (Sure, If you are alive after meeting my Boyfriend)
• hai shwetha how r u i want make friend with u (Make it in your dreams)
• hi........shwetha my name is santosh this is my no 998652***9. Please give mis cal or cal me m waiting yaar. (Indecent proposal).
• u don know me....i too don know u...but u look interestin...if u are here for makin new fnds then scrap me back otherwise leave it...i wil be waitin take care... (If v donno each other, just F**k off)
• Your profile is very interesting…can you tell me more about the picture you have in your album. (Idiot, pictures are self explanatory)
• Hi, how ru m dinesh from haryana will u frndshp wth me.(Why not uncle, I am ur daughter’s friend)
• Hi im mangesh from pune. i wanna know more about u ...can we be frnds ?? (Ask my husband to know more about me)
• Hi… i'm Ravi..may i hav d pleasure of bein ur frnd....?ping me back soooonnn...waitn 4 ur reply ( Not interested in pinging pigs)
• Hi beautiful... i m interested in u through ur profile.. i wud like to know more abt u.. If u also have no probs please do reply (If you also have no probs????what does it mean??)

Posted by Pradeep A.J 0 comments  

Labels: , ,

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)