Much like last year I won’t be donating money for my yearly birthday giving this year. A few weeks ago I started going into the Bookery (or watch an overly dramatic video about it) for a few hours, twice a week to sort, label and cover books for school libraries. I’ll continue this for the time being.

There’s also a very good chance I will return to Ingwavuma to help out at Zisize again.

Previous years:

• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006

“Attention is the holy grail,” Mr. Strayer says.

…

Among the bright academic lights in the group, Mr. Kramer is the most prominent.

[Links added by me.]

That’s strange. Well, the Times repeatedly messes up cardinal’s titles so who knows.

The other day I started realized that toilet paper is pretty non-linear. (As I’m not the first person to point out.) The last part of the roll disappears a lot quicker than the start because each sheet makes up more and more of a warp around the roll.

I decided to do some calculations and make it real by measuring (using my awesome new Mitutoyo calipers I love) a roll of 350 sheet two-ply toilet paper I have here.

Conceptually one can look at it as a series of concentric shells of radius Rn and length 2*pi*Rn. A roll with no center tube looks like:

L = pi*R^2/T + pi*R

where L is the length of paper, R is the radius, T is the paper thickness.

The Clackson Scroll Formula discounts the R term (and plugging in some numbers from my case confirms that it’s fairly negligible). And if one then subtracts the length of paper that would have been inside the cardboard tube (radius R0), the length is:

L = pi/T * (R^2-R0^2)

If one takes a constant rate of paper being unrolled, as is done elsewhere, the rate which the radius goes down over time, dR/dt, goes as 1/R.

But I’m not interested in day to day use, so I plotted it discretely, as one would use the toilet paper, both 1 sheet at a time or, as I think is probably more common, 3 sheets at a time. I also plotted diameter because I feel that is the most apparent visual dimension.

(One of the tricky things, I should note, is that with an easily compressible material like toilet paper, one basically cannot measure its thickness reliably. I used known variables to calculate the thickness, which turned out to be about 0.22mm.)

Three sheets at a time:

Three sheets at a time, for the last portion:

I’m a little disappointed that the non-linearity isn’t more pronounced, but you can see how the dots in the last one seem to stretch out. That’s when you say, “Geez, we just had a full roll here and now it’s gone!”

Here’s a different way to think about it, the % of the diameter that’s used up by diameter and by length. The length is completely linear; as you can see, the diameter is not.

Feel free to let me know if you see any mistakes.

If you missed the US America v Algeria game the other day, it was US soccer’s “most dramatic and important” win. I attended the game and was on the edge of my seat the entire time. My hands were shaking so much by the end of the game that I had a hard time writing an SMS. It seems that the other fans liked it as well, possibly because it very American.

I’ll write more later about my experiences going to that and the previous US game (US v Slovenia) later, but in just a few hours, the team plays again, this time against Ghana, the lone remaining African hope in the tournament. Some smart people put the odds at even for who will win. Though I’ve been rooting for African teams at every turn, my allegiances today will be with the US.

Go US America! Go Yanks!

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I came up to the high country to go to a couple US America soccer games. I went to the US-Slovenia game on Friday. Even though I had the cheapest class of tickets for the game at Ellis Park, somehow I had great seats. See my view above.

I think America should have won with a botched call from the ref disallowing the would-be winning goal. That said, I really had a good time at the game. The atmosphere and the game were exhilarating.

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I drove up through the Karoo, the semi-arid interior of the country. It’s a stark and beautiful area. It’s cold at the moment; the snow on the mountains marks the first time I’ve seen it in the country.

It’s a long drive, some fifteen and a half hours over two days. It’s easy to forget that South Africa is this big.

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I rode the brand new Gautrain yesterday just for fun. I like high speed rail. This never really had a chance to get up to full speed but it was still impressive.

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Today I watched the Slovakia-Paraguay at a fan park in Newtown (pronounced as if it was two words) and went to the top of the Carlton Centre, the tallest building in Africa (but not tallest structure). The tower used to be prime property but is now in a fairly rundown area; on the other hand, Newtown seems to be in the middle of revitalization.

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I don’t think I have to reiterate this, but I will: the entire existence of this country is the World Cup right now.

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In last Sunday’s church bulletin was a special World Cup prayer. I was a bit surprised that there was one. It was for the country, sportsmanship and fairness–things like that.

The most visible church between the city center and the stadium is a Catholic chapel that has been undergoing upgrades to the foundation. After being closed a year or more, it’s reopening this Sunday, June 13, the first Sunday during the World Cup. I’m sure this is not a coincidence.

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Wednesday was Vuvuzela Day. People were to blow their vuvuzelas at noon. I managed to go up onto the road-to-nowhere with the giant vuvuzela there. At noon they sounded it using compressed air, I think. It was pretty amazing. Between that and all the vuvuzelas on the streets below, it was a fantastic cacophony.

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There are tourists everywhere now. Everywhere.

The bad part is that whenever I open my mouth now people think I’m a tourist. Before people wouldn’t assume that but now that the World Cup is on, I’m a tourist again.

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A giant coke man was erected in Johannesburg. I was pretty jealous until I found that they’re making one at the Waterfront in Cape Town too (see above!).

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For the occasion I put together a a post on/ mix of great South African music. Go check it out. I’m happy with how it turned out.

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They’re showing some games in 3D. I think I’ll need to go to one of those.

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The Big Picture has a nice selection of photos of World Cup preparations.

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Look no further. This is the best World Cup calendar.

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moments after Tshabalala’s rocket

I walked into town yesterday to watch the game with some friends at a bar that, for whatever reason, the French Consulate was throwing a party at. On the way there people were cheering and yelling out of car and minibus taxi windows. I was greeted and smiled at randomly on the street, which is a rarity here.

The bar was a good atmosphere: lots of people cheering on their adopted country. There wasn’t much action in the first half other than South Africa’s goalkeeper making some great stops. When Tshabalala scored the first goal of the World Cup to put Bafana Bafana up 1-0 on Mexico. The room, already loud and raucous, became absolutely buoyant. It was not to be, however, as Mexico tied up after not too long.

Near the end of the match, there was devastation like earth opening up underneath us when Mphela’s breakaway ended in a shot off the post.

There’s always Wednesday, Bafana. There’s always Uruguay.

The first perfect game was thrown by Dallas Braden. He has mediocre numbers while pitching for a decent team. The opponent was easily the top team in baseball at the moment.

Roy Halladay threw perfect game on Saturday night. He’s widely acknowledged as a pitching ace. Playing for a top-of-the-division team, he pitched against one of the weaker teams in the league.

(See highlights at each of the ‘perfect game’ links.)

Not for those scared off by explicit language, but a pretty funny video some Australians introduced me to. I have a hard time not quoting this all the time, even if it’s in self-deprecation.

I haven’t watched a lot of Ellen but this clip is hilarious. Thank you, internet.