Everyone knows that South African ID numbers start with date of birth. If you were born on May 13, 1988 then your ID number starts with 880513.

This post details what the rest of the digits in an ID number mean.

The format is:

{YYMMDD} {G} {SSS} {C} {X} {Z}

• {YYMMDD} is the date of birth
• {G} is gender. 0-4 is female and 5-9 is male
• {SSS} is a sequence number
• {C} is citizenship. 0 for South Africans and 1 for other citizens
• {X} is usually 8 or 9 – not clear what this is
• {Z} is a check digit calculated from the other digits

So for the ID number 8909025012083 we know certain things about the person:

• Born on September 2nd, 1989
• Male
• 12th male born on that date to get an ID number
• South African citizen

Not very useful, but interesting.

OkCupid is a large online dating website. They therefore have a lot of data relating to interesting subjects.

Their blog, OkTrends, is dedicated to showing statistical analyses of various parts of their dataset. It’s fascinating reading and I highly recommend it.

The latest post is about the merits of older women and includes a lot of interesting graphs.

This graph shows the oldest and youngest women that men claim they are interested in as they get older.

• Men are only ever willing to consider women slightly older than themselves
• As they grow older men are interested in relatively younger and younger women

This graph, by contrast, shows the ages of women that men actually try to chat up on the website.

• Men are actually sending messages to women much younger than their supposed youngest acceptable
• By far the most messages are going to very young women

This is the same for women.

• Women are also interested in men younger than they say they are
• Women are less age sensitive than men

Even more interesting are the vertical color changes. For example, as soon as women turn 20 it seems that they suddenly feel comfortable contacting much older men.

The same thing happens again when women turn 29. At 28 women send plenty of messages to young men (19 or 20) and almost none to men over 42.

But when they turn 29 women suddenly send almost no messages to men under 22 but start sending many more messages to men in their 40’s and early 50’s.

The benefits of older women

The blog then goes on to sing the praises of older women.

Older women are cheekier when it comes to sex (several more graphs on the site):

Older women are also more comfortable with themselves (again more graphs on the site):

There is a lot more information and many more graphs (including several interactive ones) on the actual blog. I recommend taking a look.

The latest Economist has an article on corruption in South Africa. It makes for pretty frightening reading.

Examples

The article mentions several high profile cases of corruption: Zuma, Cwele, Selebi, etc.

There is also discussion of several other examples of corruption.

• 400,000 civil servants getting welfare payments to which they are not entitled
• 6,000 senior government officials who failed to declare business interests and are awaiting disciplinary hearings
• 423 prison officials disciplined for corruption; 26 criminally charged
• 923 corrupt officials from the ministry of public works have been ‘brought to book’

Reasoning

Corruption among those in power is a human condition. However, it seems that ANC officials are especially prone to corruption.

Even Gwede Mantashe, the ANC secretary-general, explains that too many “comrades” regard election to office as simply a chance to get rich.

The Economist also mentions that corruption in South Africa is exacerbated by “a culture of entitlement to compensate for past suffering under apartheid”.

In other words many in the ANC feel entitled to take their fill because of our history. As I have blogged in the past, a feeling of entitlement has been shown to make corruption significantly worse.

Silver lining

The ANC claims to be working on several corruption busting laws and measures including:

• Laws to facilitate swifter and reliable prosecution of corrupt officials
• A review of the ANC’s deployment policies which currently put people into jobs based on having the right connections instead of the right skills
• Tougher rules and more openness on the awarding of public contracts
• Better protection for whistle blowers who are often suspended for “poking their noses into smelly areas”

It seems like everyone is having a go at Jacob Zuma.

I believe that he is in the wrong. But it seems my reasoning is different to that of the majority of South Africans.

Unprotected Sex

By having unprotected sex with various women Zuma is setting a shocking example. He is selfishly risking the lives of his wives.

He deserves strong criticism because:

• It shows terrible disrespect to his wives. Zuma has literally risked the lives of his wives so that he could have a shag.
• It also sets a horrendous example to the men of a country plagued by rape and by HIV/AIDS.

For these reasons Jacob Zuma should be vilified.

Polygamy is not morally wrong

Many people are criticizing Zuma for practicing polygyny (one man with more than one wife).

But why is polygamy morally wrong? People assume polygamy is wrong but they seldom back up their conviction with reason.

If all parties are voluntarily entering the relationship I don’t see the problem.

Many people assume that polygyny is bad for women. In fact polygyny is beneficial for most women. Sharing half of the best man is often better than all of a bad man.

Monogamy benefits the average men, who would have no wives in a polygynous society. It does not help the average woman who could have a happier life in a polygynous society.

These women are voluntarily marrying Jacob Zuma. If they were unhappy then they would leave him.

Conclusion

• Zuma should be criticized for unprotected sex
• Zuma should not be criticized for having multiple wives

I’ve always been taught that different areas of the tongue are sensitive to different taste types.

Turns out that this is a lie!

All tastes can be detected all over the tongue.

The myth seems to have arisen due to an incorrect translation of a paper written in 1901.

During the 1930s some Himalayan Tahrs escaped from the Groote Schuur zoo near UCT. They bolted onto the mountain and lived happily up there for the next 70 years.

In 2004 SANParks controversially decided to cull them because they are an alien species and were causing damage to the indigenous species. I agreed with that decision.

But, I can tell you for a fact that they didn’t get all of them.

Yesterday afternoon I saw three tahrs grazing right next to the path on Platteklip Gorge. They were right above the site where I saw someone jump to his death exactly 2 weeks ago.

I was able to walk really close to them and they just looked at me. They’ve obviously forgotten about the culling almost 6 years ago!