Still time to do a good deed in 2007

[rolanni]

Remember the One Laptop Per Child campaign? Buy a $200 linux-based laptop for a child in an impoverished country? The OLPC folks have been running a Give One, Get One promotion for the month of December, due to end at midnight tonight. If that gift money is burning a hole in your pocket, this might be worth looking into. Or, if you or a child in your life has no need for a bright green and white computer, consider giving one to a child who has need.

And! Don't forget Free Rice. Around here, it's now bigger than FreeCell as the game to play while waiting for that next sentence to find its verb.

Stay safe, stay warm. Have fun. May 2008 be a year of good dreams coming true.

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately OLPC doesn't do outside US and Canada, so I'm stuck.

I don't like several of the definitions at "Free Rice", there are too many words where none of their definitions is correct (as an example, "altazimuth" does not mean "telescope", it is a type of mounting used for telescopes among other things (like artillery) but actually describes the method of mounting so that it can swivel in both altitude and azimuth planes). Highest I've got is 48, several times, then I get caught be something where none of hte answers seems right. It is addictive, though...

Happy New Year!

[keristor.livejournal.com]

P.S. Free Rice just came up with 'advertent'. I can't imagine why I knew that word *g*...

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

...and they said that reading sci-fi would rot your brain!

[magda-vogelsang.livejournal.com]

And I just got 'grok' as a level 46 word. Clearly reading SF is good for the vocabulary.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Heh. But did they really grok 'grok'?

[magda-vogelsang.livejournal.com]

Perhaps not fully. They had 'comprehend' as the closest match, which is at least in the right ballpark.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I agree about some of the definitions; I've argued with more than my share, and there are some words that I persistently get "wrong" because I can't remember the "Free Rice" definition.

But, hey, good deed, and mostly good fun.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, you can make a small donation if you're inclined, which will work. It took us a careful look at checkbooks and "soon in the mail" publishing things before we decided that doing it was more important than being a little careful of lunch money for awhile.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Ah, it does now, thanks. When I tried some time ago it wouldn't accept my UK PayPal account.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Have you actually seen any of the OLPC computers? Any sense of whether they'd work for adult as well as child hands?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I have not personally seen an OX laptop. However, considering the number of adults of my acquaintance who are typing on teensy-tiny PDA and sub-computer keyboards, I suspect the OX would be doable. For some definition of doable.

Specs (http://laptop.org/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml)

And here's an adult (http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=6ffd976ed367bacae4171dd4999d36431c84b0f5) holding and messing around the with the thing, which might give you an idea of the scale.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Happy New Year!

[laurajunderwood.livejournal.com]

Managed to donate 1000 grains of rice with 41 correct answers (out of 46, I think).

Not bad for me (means I understand more words than I often think I do), and someone will get a bowl of rice for supper.

Thanks for posting that link.