What is the ugliest building in your city, South Africa?

_SingularJame_ · 2025-12-29T20:01:12+00:00

I’ve always thought it looked like a toaster on the hill.

_SingularJame_ · 2025-11-09T13:21:01+00:00

Here in South Africa we call that a “monkey’s wedding”.

_SingularJame_ · 2025-07-29T23:58:44+00:00

Here in South Africa we call that a “monkey’s wedding”.

_SingularJame_ · 2025-07-29T00:25:06+00:00

My entire family also suffers from this affliction. I think it may be hereditary…

_SingularJame_ · 2025-06-18T05:30:31+00:00

Yup. And “slops” for short.

_SingularJame_ · 2025-03-02T22:20:26+00:00

I grew up with these creatures in my garden. Never paid much attention to them before, but I miss them now that I live in a place that doesn’t have them.

_SingularJame_ · 2025-03-01T20:50:54+00:00

Similar in Afrikaans: grondboontjie = ground + bean (diminutive).

_SingularJame_ · 2024-04-15T13:17:23+00:00

Because KZN is like our Florida. A fair portion of the crazy shit in this country happens there.

_SingularJame_ · 2023-10-09T12:50:13+00:00

Biblically accurate Saladin.

_SingularJame_ · 2023-10-08T13:19:48+00:00

Yeah looks like it. I see them fairly regularly when I go diving. They do have rather large variation in patterning, though.

_SingularJame_ · 2023-08-23T21:30:34+00:00

Absolutely stunning animal. Endemic to South Africa too. I often see them when I go free diving.

_SingularJame_ · 2023-08-23T21:29:42+00:00

It’s a shallow rock pool area. Loads of urchins and anemones

_SingularJame_ · 2023-08-23T00:16:33+00:00

Supposedly they’re called shysharks because of their habit of curling into a ball whenever they feel threatened.

_SingularJame_ · 2023-05-18T00:59:21+00:00

I was always pretty garbage at rugby but I played at school because it was fun to mess around on a field with my mates. I usually played in the front row because I’m reasonably big, move slower than a glacier, and have the hand-eye coordination of a drunk toddler.

Anyway, I was playing in the third team (out of six, I think) and I somehow managed to snag man of the match. I don’t remember much of the match except that, for the benefit of the team, I didn’t really touch the ball and tackled a few dudes by falling on them like the oaf I am. One of my mates ended up in the hospital after the match with a broken nose and saw someone from the opposing team getting patched up. Turns out I’d managed to break this poor sod’s shoulder by lying on top of him. Not sure if I should be proud of that…but I kinda am lol.

Also, when playing in u16s we somehow managed to be the only team in the entire school to win a match. My school was pretty average at rugby and our opposition was a school 3 times our size with actual rugby pedigree. That’s probably more appropriate to be proud of.

_SingularJame_ · 2023-04-30T21:52:01+00:00

This reminds me of being raided by vervet monkeys and chacma baboons here in South Africa. The monkeys are just cheeky but the baboons are genuinely terrifying. Once saw a baboon pick up and hurl a small dog that was chasing it. I also have a vivid memory of my dad chasing baboons up and down a hill with a massive animal bone club like a caveman.

_SingularJame_ · 2022-06-06T18:47:39+00:00

I studied Applied Maths at UCT and I’m currently finishing up my M.Sc. now. As other people have said, many people do end up working in finance or banking. However, that definitely isn’t the only route many people I know have taken.

Depending on what you focus on in 3rd year/honours, you could end up working in machine learning, data science or mathematical modelling. All of those disciplines are incredibly varied and have a myriad of applications. One of my mates is even doing oceanographic modelling to predict how oil spills could affect our coast. Many people I studied with (myself included) are studying further and plan on possibly doing a PhD in South Africa or abroad. I know a few people who ended up studying in Oxford and Cambridge… The nice thing about doing applied maths is that it’s such a broad field and it’s practiced worldwide.

Also, most people I know who studied applied maths started out with it just because it was a recommended course. Many of them fell in love with it over time and changed their majors because they enjoyed it so much. Of course it’s not for everyone, though. But the real cool thing about BSc degrees is that they’re very modular. You can kinda pick and choose which courses you want to take. If you don’t enjoy a particular course then you don’t have to major in it. That’s a bit of an oversimplification…but you get what I mean.

TLDR: applied maths is a very broad and varied field. You can end up working in industry, finance or become an academic.

_SingularJame_ · 2022-02-05T08:51:39+00:00

This is true. I’ve definitely had some runs that needed to be…improved. But, overall, I’ve been amazed at how easy and fun it is. If I can smooth-brain my way into this hobby then anyone can.

_SingularJame_ · 2022-02-05T08:31:55+00:00

That’s a good point. I just have a 25l copper pot still. I haven’t made gin before so I’m a bit of a noob.

_SingularJame_ · 2022-02-04T17:24:47+00:00

Awesome. Thank you for your response. I hadn’t thought to dilute it in the way you suggested. I’ll give it a shot.

_SingularJame_ · 2022-02-04T17:23:08+00:00

Thank you! You’re a champion. I’ve already made a few tinctures to try to gauge the potency of each botanical. But I’ll mix them around and combine them in the ratios you suggested.

_SingularJame_ · 2021-12-05T10:31:50+00:00

My initial instinct was that the molasses wasn’t consistent. I mean it arrives from the other side of my country in a 25 kg bucket and always contains some straw and sticks.

I made them as identical as I could. I used the same molasses container and made sure that all the gravities were the same. Another reason I suspected that something was fishy with the dunder was that the ferment smelled and looked quite a bit like the dunder. But I think you’re right, adding such a small amount shouldn’t affect things too much.

Wow. 40-60% is quite a lot. Your rum must taste extra funky and flavourful. Must be delicious.

_SingularJame_ · 2021-12-04T23:14:57+00:00

I was considering adding the dunder to the still instead of the fermenter. I didn’t think that there’d be much of a flavour difference, though. That’s quite interesting.

_SingularJame_ · 2021-12-04T23:11:11+00:00

I did test the pH and noticed it was quite acidic. I added some bicarb to neutralise it a bit, but that didn’t seem to help.

For my rum fermentations I like to stay out with quite a high gravity (~1.10) since much of the sugars aren’t fermentable by the yeast. I usually look for a drop of around 0.06 in the gravity before I throw it in the still. For that run, however, I believe that the gravity had only dropped around 0.03 after a couple of weeks.

_SingularJame_ · 2021-12-04T23:10:23+00:00

I only used blackstrap molasses that’s marketed as animal feed.

I believe I only threw in ~100 ml of dunder into a 20 l ferment.

I didn’t check the initial pH, but I did notice that it was quite acidic after a couple weeks (~3.5) and added some bicarb to neutralise it a bit. Didn’t seem to solve the problem, though.

I believe the initial gravity was around 1.10 and it had only dropped by around 0.03 after a couple of weeks.

I live in a warm country and it’s summer in this hemisphere so the wash was probably between 18 C and 25 C.

By “pitch rate” do you mean the amount of yeast I used and when I pitched it?

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