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Entertainment Sports

JP Morgan Uses “Maths” to predict World Cup 2010 Winner – Why Did We Bother With Stadiums?

It seems the financial analysis gurus(?) have come to the soccer World Cup party, with a few mathematically modelled predictions for the winner of next month’s world cup here in South Africa.

“JPMorgan, which described the report as “an opportunity to lightheartedly explain quantitative techniques,” applied a mathematical model, built to screen and identify stocks, to soccer. It used data including bookmakers’ odds, official FIFA world rankings, previous results and the match schedule to predict a winner.”

If they’re right, then we really did not need to spend ridiculous sums of money on infrastructure and stadiums, did we?
Let’s hope this maths hasn’t taken all the unpredictability out of the sport.

[More here]

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Entertainment Humor Sports

World Cup 2010 South Amerafrica

Yes,  right. I’m not surprised at the “controversy” highlighted in that headline.
Quite glad to see this World Cup is bringing geographic enlightenment on South Africa to the whole world…

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Entertainment Humor Sports

The Better Official FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa Theme Song

Dear Shakira (and Freshlybackground),

Go hop back into your wolf-cage. Arrrooooooooo!

We already have a theme song for the FIFA World Cup that sounds way better than the WAKA KAKKA piece of crap you’ve come up with.
It’s got waay more spirit and fire and a true African feel, and yes, it’s performed by an African!!

I must say I’m hella confused tho. Does anybody else want to do a FIFA theme song? How many do we get?

Another FIFA fuckup?

Categories
politics Rants Security Technology Web

FIFA World Cup Durban Site Cookie Fail

Apparently the 2010 Durban FIFA World Cup site cost 6.5 million bucks to develop. Yeah. R6.5 million. R 6 500 000. I’m making that a tax deduction on my IRP5 next year.

I asked for more details, but only time will tell if they release that info.

Anyway, according to their Privacy Policy the site does not use cookies. Firefox has something else to say about that.

Durban 2010 Website does make use of cookies.
Durban 2010 Website does make use of cookies.

It doesn’t really matter, but it adds to the general feeling of incompetence coming from Adapt-IT, the site “developers”.

Categories
Entertainment Sports TV

World Cup 2010 – Let the Ticket Scalping Begin!

FIFA
Image via Wikipedia

Friday 20th February 2009 is D-Day for those South African soccer fans who want to attend a match in the 2010 Soccer World Cup. They’ll either have to be willing to fork out huge chunks of cash for a prime spot, or buy up all the cheap seats going for at least R140.  (One wonders if South African flag coloured binoculars will be complimentary with the purchase?)

From mg.co.za:

“In order to facilitate the access of ordinary South African football fans to a tournament that might otherwise be beyond their reach, Fifa has blocked off about 16% of the tickets — all the cheapest category four tickets — for South African residents.”

If FIFA truly wanted to be charitable towards South Africa, they’d give a cross section of all ticket categories at reduced prices.

“Tickets for the tournament go on sale to the general public on Friday on Fifa’s website, fifa.com, and through nationwide branches of South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB), a national World Cup sponsor.

SOWETO, SOUTH AFRICA - DECEMBER 12:  A general...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This sale starts online at 1pm (11am GMT) and runs until March 31.”

Yes, because Internet penetration in this country sucks so bad and the crime is so bad that we have to sell tickets at the bank or nobody will be able to buy them?!!? Either way, you still have to wait a further month after parting with your money to see if you win the lucky draw to get your ticket(s).

Either way, I predict thousands of these tickets are going to end up in foreign hands, at a premium of course. The opportunity to make a quick buck is way too high. This is South Africa, the land of corruption, after all.

So sports fans, best you go find yourself a long queue on Friday. Or, like me, you can just kick back and watch the games in High Definition on TV.

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