A perk of living next to major facilities of non-military nature (datacentres [1, 2] are used for military)

think I neglected to mention a sort of “uptime privilege” this morning. I realised this only later. It’s a kind of an “RK” privilege one can forget about. You take this for granted when you’re next to international games or actions.

My computers have high uptime records owing to good electricity infrastructure (reliability/uptime/availability); we have a sort of fortune or the mere luck of having very reliable electric grid (near a very large and famous stadium) with persistent connections and decent hardware nearby, fallbacks included, with no natural disasters, not even floods (we’re in a slope).

In some parts of the world they have extreme weather this year, including prohibitive costs of living (UK minimum wage a lot higher than the average in Europe), war, conscription, and worse. Here, unlike Ukraine, no shelter time (or risk of being hit by missiles), is expected, so carrying on as usual is almost always possible. Until someone from another continent pays $130,000 to drag you down to London. But even then, your computers remain turned on at home.

Life goes on

think it is fair to say that our life this year has been good and we’re more productive than ever before. Tomorrow it’ll be exactly two years since we sued Garrett. We sued him in September 2024 [1, 2]. We didn’t invest much in our lawsuit because, according to legal professionals, even if we won, he would not pay. He was already broke (his wife shed light on that), he lived in another continent, and he had really bad character.

We move on with our lives and we do what we can do best. We curate links and publish many articles.

Don’t underestimate them

have been goalkeeping since I was a young kid. My body type suited that position and I naturally became good enough to win some medals and be the goalkeeper for Computer Science at the Victoria University of Manchester (before the UMIST merger). I still have the kit. I don’t wear it much; I want to preserve it.

Goalkeeping is not as easy as it seems (despite being idle a lot of the time) and a lot boils down to reflexes as there’s not much time to think or plan. Goalkeepers can be significantly older than the average player on the field because they compensate with experience and seniority for a declining stamina and inability to jump far/high. Many goals are scored because the goalkeeper didn’t do well enough, e.g. stood at the wrong place, spilled the ball, dribbled too much.

Goalkeepers that are good not only stop balls from entering the net; they know when to catch, when to hit the ball down to the ground, then catch (no rival player nearly and fast/strong shot – making a direct catch riskier), when to pinch/parry the ball over the bar, when to deflect the ball back into play (if a defender nearby can take the rebound), when to carry the ball, when to punch/kick the ball (and how far), and so on…

There’s not much time to think about all this. The decision needs to be a reflex, based on who’s near you, how strong the shot is, the position relative to the bar etc.

Spatial awareness is important (distance to bars, which players stand where, and whose team they play for).

It’s a lot to do with gut feeling, it’s like playing an instrument.

There is also a lot to be said about how to handle different ways of taking penalties (e.g. kicker stops near the ball to trick the keeper into jumping prematurely) and one-on-one situations where the keeper can run outwards to face the player or stay close to goal, wherein the position of the feet can help obstruct a kick, but not while “on the move” (must know when to stop moving, prepare to stretch out limbs).

There’s a lot of fine strategy involved in goalkeeping, many different scenarios to learn from (in order to improve). That’s why goalkeepers need their own dedicated coach like Caballero, usually a very experienced but greying (or balding) keeper like aging gymnasts who focus on “theory”, not “practice” (anymore). They “pass the knowledge”…

I like goalkeeping, but when mistakes are made it can be harsh.

Should be straightforward today in good weather

went out last night after 9PM. Rianne and I saw the barriers being set up for today’s home match:

Enzo says they want to compete for trophies and the most prestigious one is the one involving the most matches: PL.

The “cups” typically involve just winning 6 or 7 games in a row, sometimes in penalties. That’s little compared to 38 games against hard rivals (not teams from lower leagues).

So far it’s looking positive for EnzoFC, which brings many new players (many left).

He is alive and his site is alive too

ichard Stallman’s Web site is online again, but he seems to have lost a lot of work after this very long downtime and he’s not getting younger. What a shame. How often were full backups taken?

Stallman is 73 and like everyone his age he is not in fine health, he is surviving and coping with conditions.

When he was young, Stallman did not have a beard. No long hair either. It seems like the long hair developed some time in the 1980s.

Something positive

nowing that next week will be the second week of an autumn/semi-summer month, I tried to take advantage of the weather that provides a recess from heavy and moderate rainfall. I picked up this season’s last beans from the garden and was gratified to see fluffy green grass where only 2 weeks ago there was dried yellow ‘straw’, nothing resembling grass at all.

We’re coming to the end of summer, but maybe we get to savour one last weekend of it.

4 hours ago by Sarah Rainsford:

rowing uncertainty and worries due to tensions with Russia are felt here, as our government openly encourages citizens to ‘stockpile’ food under the assumption of lack of power (to cook good). As if there is recognition of threats to the power grid, which is unlikely to happen due to bad weather but it likely to happen during conflict (as Russians and Ukrainians learned).

Stockpiling was not encouraged but discouraged during COVID-19 lockdowns (e.g. toilet paper).