Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Content

Just an update that the torus balloons are being posted out in waves. But splitting them into batches it makes the logistics far more manageable, so sorry if you are still waiting. I'm trying to go roughly by duration-of-support order (it was that or totally random). The next release should start hitting mail boxes in just over a week.

I am still missing postal addresses from a bunch of people. In theory you can go into your Patreon 'manage membership' settings (or profile settings / shipping address) and you should be able to add your address to your Stand-up Maths pledge. But if you cannot or don't want to do that, I have set up a google form for you to give me your address.

https://forms.gle/6Wv3p6hE1MtDNsQp7

Any postal address you have in Patreon will take precedence over my form, but if I do not have an official contact address for you from Patreon, I will use what you put in this form.

And I will not leave anyone behind! As we speak my self-made python mail-merge code is running and emailing everyone I am missing an address for. I will email again at the end of September (or so) if there are still any supporters I am missing an address for.

Finally: Yes, the first batch of cards had a typo and said "ballon" instead of "balloon". Don't worry, the person responsible was fired. And then immediately rehired. Because it was me. I have ordered a fixed version of the card, but I think if anything, it makes the error cards even more special because of their limited edition nature.

UPDATE: A few people have asked if their balloon can be donated to someone else. Which is a great suggestion! I'll ask for nominated schools on twitter. But if you wish to direct your balloon to a specific school just use this form and enter your patreon email so I can match it up. https://forms.gle/YirXBgcprjrBrG926

Comments

Derek Chandler

Got mine thanks! Just trying to work out what to do with it…

Simon Pain

Oh yeah, I didn’t notice that spelling mistake 😁

AlexLogical

Got mine with the special ballon card a couple of days ago. Thank you!

Marcel Blank

Thanks Matt, I'm honored to own a $$ Limited Edition $$ card now! Any recommendations on what to do with the balloon, though? 🤔

Robert Watkins

I was so excited I missed the ballon! THANK YOU!

Maarten Daalder

Ha ha, I didn't notice the spelling mistake in either the card or this post title. 🤣 Then, again, ballon is Dutch for balloon.

Michael Preston

Mine is up in what my wife likes to call my "Matt Parker shrine" lol

xje4

Did you test your code with non-ASCII chars this time? 👀

Peter Pfundstein

Got mine already, so happy. Many thanks for your continuous effort and going to the trouble of sending these all over the world (germany it was in my case)

Zsolt Beke

I received it this week, thank you. And I also haven't noticed the typo, but I agree on its enhanced specialness. 🙂

Gregor Shapiro

I got my (sent to Sweden) a few days ago. Thanks. BTW my father was a topologist who worked on the first visualization of the eversion of a sphere with Bernard Morin.

Tim

I give on Patreon to support the work of people I appreciate but I don't wont that money spent on postage back to me and environmentally speaking I don't like the posting of all this physical stuff all around the world anyway. So I appreciate the sentiment but maybe just consider those of us that don't add an address here maybe/probably did so as a choice rather than posting multiple messages and emails.

Gregor Shapiro

'Ballon' is French it's OK to be international.

The Dean

It's not a typo. It's just "Parker Spelling".

Andreas Knab

Works in German as well, but you have to capitalize it!

Andreas Knab

I replied to the email (hopefully it goes somewhere...) to suggest donating my "ballon", perhaps Matt can donate the unclaimed ones locally somewhere.

Balázs Jókay

I also got mine (sent to Hungary) and also missed the spelling mistake, but it has more value in this way, so it's a plus :)!

Thecommexokid

It appears not to be possible to add a shipping address to my Stand Up Maths membership on Patreon, perhaps because I am pledging a custom amount rather than one of the preset tiers. So thanks for the Google form option!

The Dean

Don't you need 98 more of them? And I believe they need to be red?

Andreas Knab

Just don't let them fly away accidentally

standupmaths

No worries Tim, I'll add you to the 'do not send' list. But due to the hand-crafted nature of my system you may still get more asking-for-address emails. Just ignore them.

Russell Monkey

Just curious...have you done this sort of thing before (posting to everyone), and how much are you regretting it? 😉

RvdV

No, only in the English version of the song there are '99 red balloons'. In the German version, da sind '99 Luftballons', which would translate to '99 hot air balloons' but I suppose that were too many syllables to fit to the music :-)

Andreas Knab

That would be "Heißluftballon" (literally hot air balloon), a "Luftballon" is just a balloon. But yes, they are not red in the original version :-)

standupmaths

I have not. Sort of. I’ve done pre-orders of books before. Thankfully I have the Maths Gear office to help! PS I REGRET NOTHING.

Matthias Kuus

I am very grateful for your python script as I never noticed the part of linking my address on Patreon. Now done. I wish you good luck with the mailing process.

Grace Serenity

I was very surprised when I got a letter postmarked from the Royal Post, yesterday!

Matt Knight

I live somewhere (Cayman Islands) where there's no universal postal service, nor did I want to endure the expense of having a PO Box to receive about 2 items of mail a month. Plus there's the crazy import duty that would probably arise. It's regrettable that one of those items this month would have been a toroidal balloon, but such is the nature of living here! I shall donate to my former junior school instead!

Parrik

I used the form - too stupid for patroon (though I think they should have my address). This is such a cool idea - thank you so much for everything you‘re doing!

Keith Moser

This Patreon gift just got you a second view of the video. I watched it weeks ago when you first released it, but when I got the ballon card, I couldn't remember HOW it had four holes, so I had to rewatch it to learn again :-)

John Sawyer

Yeah I thought my postman had got sticky fingers. :O

Egor Nazdryuhin

Thanks Matt. I don’t know why I filled this form because my address is properly saved at Patreon. Anyway, it is nice to have this option!

Magnasium

Thanks for reaching out to the others. I linked my address late, and I was regretting not having done earlier. But now it seems I'll be getting a toroidal :D

Blue Kae

Got mine today! I knew it was going at some point but was still confused and amused at first to see something in my mail box with my online name on it. Going to be a great topic of conversation with my kids later.

standupmaths

Wow, let me see if I can summon up some sympathy for you from rainy England! PS No worries. I've added you to the 'no send' list. You balloon will default to school donation.

standupmaths

My pleasure! And don't worry, none of us mere mortals understands the inner working of patroon.

standupmaths

My python script will default to the Patreon address and only check the form if it comes up blank.

standupmaths

I try to be the place where online meets real world.

Phil D

As much as the torus balloons are cool, I fear it would just sit in a drawer gathering dust if posted here, and would bring far more joy by going somewhere else, so you can add mine to the "donate" list.

Giles Skerry

My payment declined cos I lost my wallet, have just updated. Is it too late to get a balloon?

Niklas Haglund

I just got mine today. First time I got a letter addressed to banananaa

standupmaths

I think I will do a final sweep through for any new patreons at the end of September, so don't worry.

SonOfSofaman

Living in the US I seldom receive Royal Mail packages addressed to "SonOfSofaman". It took me about 6.28 seconds to realize what this was.

Justin Reeves

"when did I order something from the UK???" - Me 10 minutes ago --- also, anyone got any ideas on how to blow it up without it being lopsided? 🤔

Joseph Parker

I just got a letter from the UK and wasn't expecting it... took me about 20 seconds to work out what it was. Haven't and don't plan on opening it, it's just going in my Mathsgear / Matt Parker pile of stuff. Real pleased, thanks again Matt.

Robin Capper

The Ballon just arrived in Auckland, New Zealand :)

Kerry S Hall

I got my BALLON a few days ago :) Any tips on getting it to blow up evenly? I'm having the same trouble as Justin Reeves. My kids are terribly amused anyway :D

Stephen Olivier

Got my balloon today in South Africa. Some advice, don't blow too hard mine lasted about 15 seconds then popped 😂

Brian Mernoff

I found that once the side close to you is fully inflated, the resistance increases and then the small side will begin to inflate. The other way I found that kind of works is to inflate them very slowly and push the air around to the other side manually. I think the lopsidedness is for the same reason that when you connect two balloons of different sizes so air can flow between them together, the air flows from the small to the big balloon.

James Fudge

Balloon is here, thank you. Also struggling to inflate it evenly though, so my son called it a Parker Balloon....

willyjohn1

Balloon arrived on the same day I will be moving country for uni. Great timing

Paul Ganzevoort

Just received my second balloon! And both with a beautiful "ballon" card. Bit confused but not complaining haha

standupmaths

Ah, I auto resent balloons if I detected an address change. You may have been a false positive. Enjoy!

Paul Ganzevoort

Thank you! :D I changed my address after the first announcement so that might have triggered it. Or possibly the space in my street name? Regardless, I will enjoy both!

Oorslavich

Ah, mine finally arrived - on my birthday, to boot. Matt, you need to become super famous so I can flex my limited edition Matt Parker ballon card. People will be so jealous.

ViliamF

I received a second Ballon... I am confused and happy at the same time.

Benjamin Neff

I also got a second balloon today, now I have one "ballon" and one "balloon" card :D I didn't change my address, but I noticed the two addresses on the envelope are different, the one from today has a comma where the first one didn't have one.

Brian Mernoff

I was curious to see how the torus water balloons compare to spheroid water balloons when popped. The results were really interesting although I was only able to get one trial due to spontaneous balloon disassembly. (I guess I will need to get more!) From the images I captured in the following link, it looks to me like the water rushes into the center causing a plume and catches air underneath. This air causes a center column to remain slightly longer than the water that is sprayed outwards as seen in the second picture which was about 0.2 seconds after the first one. I would now like to capture some images from the side to get a better view. I have also included images of a spheroid water balloon for reference. It would be great to hear what you all think is going on or if anyone else has tried this! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19ewkMYLGgaP9wxCcO-540HxLs4uWJ2Ke

Viniter

I just received my limited edition Ballon card! I'm sure this typo is one day going to be a highly sought-after collectible. Gotta hang on to it.

Norman Rasmussen

My balloon card arrived in California yesterday (post-marked 23-09-21), awesome! I started supporting last Christmas for those who want to compare batch numbers. I had been thinking of supporting anyways, and getting my name in lights was the just push I needed to get it done.

Norman Rasmussen

We should ask the Slow Mo Guys to film this!

Vasyl Mykhaliuk

Just recieved mine in Ukraine today (marked 14-09-21, limited edition Ballon) big thanks! And now that I've confirmed I can recieve things from the UK, I might think about buying some dice from Maths Gear...

Max Kaye

Got a balloon today. Grouse

Daniel Welsh

Received the balloon in Seattle, WA, USA. Thanks, Matt!

Liam Boyd

Was it supposed to be an actual balloon or just a postcard?

blakethepatton

You gotta inflate the far end of the ring first

blakethepatton

Well that was fun... Sadly I've popped mine, but not before I was able to get the kids all excited about such a unique balloon! Awesome perk!

Eric Sharakan

Just got mine (thanks Matt!) and came here to ask the same question! No matter what end I get to inflate first, I just can't get that 2-dimensional hole symmetrically deployed.

Reinier B

I was glad to see my address (Street Name 9-3) had not been changed into Street Name March 3rd by some spreadsheet magic :)

Toby Archer

Just got mine in Perth WA thanks Matt!

Toby Wei

Just got mine in California, but there is a tear in it :(

Benjamin van de Vorstenbosch

Couldn't have timed it better - it turned up today in Sydney... on my birthday! Thanks Matt :)

Oleg Gromyak

Just got mine in Ukraine! Thanks!

Ben Wiseman

Mine came in Toowoomba on the 19th of October.