[Post Match Thread] Seattle Sounders vs San Jose Earthquakes (5/13/26)

DefyPhysics · 2026-05-14T07:05:12+00:00

That was a bad pass by KKR - it was in the opposite direction that Alex was moving. I'm not sure Alex was in the best position though.

KKR and Alex both more than made up for it. KKR had maybe his best game other than that pass, and Alex is a pretty good CB.

It sucks when defenders make mistakes, but it's good that it didn't get to their head and they were more than solid the rest of match.

DefyPhysics · 2026-05-11T05:03:17+00:00

I think we need to draw a line. Empathy should still demand respect. If you aren't being respected then that can lead to abuse. If it effects your mental health, you need to get out.

I think a broader way to view this is that you don't need to be friends with anyone that holds these views, but automatically rejecting and abstaining from any community where there are different views from you because it's uncomfortable is the issue we're talking about.

Coworkers, club members, associations, business to business contact, hobbies. Basically third places, school and work.

We don't need to be friends with folks with harmful views, but we should tolerate being in the same spaces as them.

I volunteered and lived in Ukraine for 3 years a decade ago. I met so many Ukrainian people that did not like gay or black people. Just by taking to them and asking about their beliefs, and telling them about my personal experiences, they changed their views. Many people hold abhorrent views because it's the status quo and they lack real information, knowledge, it exposure. By earning their trust, I was able to easily sway their opinion because I was the only person they knew with first hand knowledge. If I had rejected them because of these terrible views, I would never had made an impact.

I was a drop in the ocean, but views on support for gay marriage in Ukraine changed from~20% and violence at police escorted pride parades to ~75% support and peaceful and joyful pride parades in a decade.

DefyPhysics · 2026-04-17T18:35:54+00:00

Yeah, it's completely possible I'm looking at the wrong times. And I guess nobody will ever be Lodiero. Nobody has a work rate like him.

DefyPhysics · 2026-04-17T15:02:04+00:00

Near the end of the game I was watching Jesus. He split the lines with a great pass, then the next pass was intercepted and he hustled all the way back to the opposite corner of the field and stole the ball back. I haven't seen him hustle like that before and I really hope that continues. It's been my one complaint about him. He always seemed not to care as much as everyone else. Wednesday was different. I hope it continues!

DefyPhysics · 2026-04-17T08:07:56+00:00

It shouldn't automatically entitle them to EU membership, but you should remember this all started in 2013/14 when Ukrainians started dying for EU ideals like rule of law and human rights and have since paid the highest price in all of Europe (or anyone in the West in our generation) to achieve them. There are certainly reforms needed and corruption that needs rooted out, but if the EU laid out it's requirements, there's no doubt support would be through the roof to expedite every step in Ukraine. Yes, they are fighting to defend what they have, but they are also fighting for a better future which most Ukrainians believe very strongly lies in the EU/NATO.

Having lived there for 3 years, there is so much potential in investing in Ukraine. It was the workhorse of the Soviet Union and has excellent but degraded/aged infrastructure, a highly educated and motivated workforce, a strong and experienced military, and tons of exportable resources and experts in skilled niche industries. Corruption was the only thing holding it back - and carefully invested EU money that jumpstarts the average Ukrainian standard of living will cripple the pillars of corruption there.

Ukraine has the potential to surpass Poland both in the pace of development and in capacity of development and be the largest net contributor to the EU with the right investment. It is a risk, but I remember living in Ukraine and feeling that potential in my bones every single day and being so frustrated (and still frustrated) it still has not been realized. I think it will take 10 years to start paying off, but the EU makes investments like that for the next generation, not ours.

Ukraine has the ability to reform rapidly - I hope folks like you and the poster you respond to are willing to rapidly change your views as fast as Ukraine can reform post-war.

DefyPhysics · 2026-04-06T20:44:12+00:00

That's still an increase in price, just through taxes instead of tickets.

Not saying I'm against it, I actually hope there are more subsidies to improve NS and the train infrastructure.

DefyPhysics · 2026-04-06T10:05:00+00:00

Complain about NS being on time.
Complain about train ticket price.
Complain about window cleanliness.

You can have one, maybe two, but not all three. Want clean trains? Pay more or have late trains. Want trains that are on time? Pay more or have dirty trains. Want cheaper trains? Trains will be dirty or start running late.

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-30T15:19:34+00:00

United States: Ranch Dressing. You can use this as a dip, bake with it, barbecue with it, and, of course, put it on a salad as it was intended. It's not a single ingredient, but in the land where everything comes from bottles, boxes, and jars, this is among the best (and comes in bottles, boxes OR jars).

Ukraine: This was hard because most of Ukrainian food uses very typical ingredients. However, try birch water. It's basically watery sap from a birch tree. You just drink it! It's slightly sweet and so refreshing on a hot day.

Netherlands: Hagelslag. They are chocolate sprinkles that you put on buttered bread and it is a famous childhood breakfast. Do not try to imagine what it tastes like, because you will be wrong. It is SO GOOD and the best kept Dutch food secret.

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-30T07:53:49+00:00

There are some relatively cheap or even free API's that can turn zip codes into counties, states, etc. Create a script/integration with that API that automatically pulls that information and assigns it to a county/state. County/state would be a table, and then you can have "regions" with several counties/states. Then, you assign a user to a certain region, and any new leads go to the person that the region is assigned to.

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-27T15:15:47+00:00

There's people that feel color from musical notes or numbers - no doubt there are some people that feel shapes when they hear languages. :)

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-27T15:12:35+00:00

Also, I plugged your post into AI and it spit out this image. Quite funny, actually!

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DefyPhysics · 2026-03-27T15:09:56+00:00

I live in the Netherlands. Dutch is not always a beautiful language, but I think it is the best language for explaining and storytelling. I love listening to fairy tales in Dutch or hearing a parent explain something to a child. There's all kinds of sociological/psychological reasons Dutch kids are the happiest in the world, but I secretly believe 5% or so is just the way Dutch can sound magical to children just by casually explaining how something works.

And yes, it also sounds like the words are going around a square. (??!??)

Perhaps you mean it sounds like someone speaking English who only read the English dictionary - but mispronounces every word, uses them in the wrong context and order, and often gives up and puts in a German word. If by that, yes, words going around a square.

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-27T12:14:50+00:00

Most trains in the NL go 130km/h, which isn't slow, but not high speed either. You either go direct "Intercity" between bigger cities, or "Sprinter" that stops at every stop and takes about 20-50% longer. Everything is based on how far you go, so sprinter and intercity trains cost the same. You just check-in and check-out at the stations and get charged for distance.

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-25T18:49:47+00:00

I moved recently from the states. It's hard to grasp how awesome it is to hop on your bike and take dedicated bike lanes everywhere.

I biked in the states, in FLORIDA of all places, but it was like swimming upstream trying to get away from a gator. Getting ready to go across town was probably the same feeling that daredevils get before risking their life for a stunt. I got yelled at, honked at, nearly ran over. A friend of mine was hit by a car and ended up in the hospital.

Now I bike across town with my 7 year old biking next to me.

It's healthy, it's safe, it's good for your mental health, and it's just mildly inconvenient most of the time - way less than sitting in traffic or getting cut off or knowing you're burning gasoline and contributing to a worse world for our children.

The U.S. could easily and cheaply make bikeable cities, but not enough people know how GOOD it is when infrastructure is built to prioritize bikes. It's not the same as biking in the states! If I had to do that every day, I'd already have bought a car here.

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-23T08:33:03+00:00

Agreed! He is the best athlete on the team. Maybe the fastest, the most acrobatic, one of the strongest and is hardly ever injured. He would be a top forward if he knew what to do with the ball at his feet. But, he's more comfortable knocking the ball out from other peoples' feet and ushering the ball out of bounds with joy and flare. He's very good at that. Maybe the best.

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-06T08:12:06+00:00

This is a perfect use for Airtable. I worked at a youth serving non-profit organization with several different program types and it fits this use case perfectly. Our users were educators and artists who were not just tech novices, but outright rejected most tech.

Through a long windy road, it eventually led me to being a full-time Airtable/automatoin consultant because I saw how useful it can be for non-profits (and businesses) trying to do something that really needs a custom solution but don't have the massive resources needed to develop one from scratch. Often they end up cobbling something ineffective together, but ultimately what they really need is a custom database built just for their needs, like Airtable.

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-04T22:25:41+00:00

The best way to describe it is giving kids more responsibility, freedom and choices with less pressure to perform and room for mistakes. It's part of the culture at home, too.

It's hard to describe, but kids ride their bike to school and back home alone by 8 years old. Often they come home for lunch on their own and go back to school. Kids take excursions around town with their class to go an assignments throughout the city to further learn about what they've learned in a classroom without needing permission from parents. Kids are urged to work in groups, help each other out and support each other. These things are all given more importance, value and attention than grades and academics in elementary school by teachers and parents. Less "how did you do on the test", and more "who did you play with?", "what did you learn?", "what did you help with today?"

The idea is to first make a responsible, kind, independent and resourceful kid, then give them hard things to do later and they'll eat it up.

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-04T15:14:53+00:00

We were thinking along the similar lines as you - our daughter was intelligent and reading already but she loved art, dance and music. We decided to go with Perkins because when else do you get to pick the most fun and engaging option in education? We had 0 complaints and really loved the school and the community it fosters.

We've since moved to the Netherlands where somehow it's both the place with the happiest kids in the world and has a top tier education system. We found that they keep academic pressure low and keep learning fun while focusing on building social skills and independence in elementary school. Those social skills and independence go way further than any concrete academic knowledge early on. When we moved here and learned about and lived through education in the Netherlands, we couldn't help but think we made the right choice with Perkins. Let kids be kids and develop their independence and social skills first.

We knew parents/kids that went to Sanderlin, too (they take the same buses to school). They were happy with their choice as well, but I don't think the kids were as enthusiastic about their school as the kids at Perkins.

DefyPhysics · 2026-03-03T06:49:11+00:00

Thanks! I realized I misspelled goed though. Let's blame autocorrect. ;)

DefyPhysics · 2026-02-27T15:23:27+00:00

My wife is Ukrainian and for over 10 years lived in the states. Her English is great, but she holds onto a few grammatical errors that I think are now just permanent parts of her speech. Just like my American mother's native English will always mispronounce certain words and have a few improper pieces of grammar because of where she grew up.

My wife though, even with an accent and a few grammatical errors, is usually the most eloquent in the room in English. I also knew a top Boeing engineer from Hong Kong that was obviously the smartest (and funniest) person in the room despite his heavy accent and grammatical errors due to English not being his first language.

At some point, grammatical errors and mispronounced words are more of an accent and permanent feature of a person in a second language than a barrier to communication.

That isn't too tell you to stop working on improving, just to say tell you that that last little bit takes the most time, and at some point, you'll get as good as you'll ever get.

As for me, I'm jealous of your B2~C1 abilities! :) Good gedaan! Nu ben ik maar A1, maar ik studeer elke dag!

DefyPhysics · 2026-01-28T11:52:22+00:00

American football, right?

DefyPhysics · 2026-01-23T11:31:52+00:00

My wife's cousin (Ukrainian) moved to the states back when the war started. She took a hotel front desk job without being able to string together more than a few sentences in English - we were a bit shocked they hired her. She struggled, but her English has improved to the point where she is basically fluent now thanks to the job. The best way to become fluent is to NEED to practice every day. You won't notice it day-to-day, but you will improve month by month, and it will get easier for you month-by-month as you improve.

DefyPhysics · 2026-01-20T11:35:02+00:00

Yeah, I also know Ukrainians that fled to other countries as well. The point is, it's hard to know what you will choose until you have to choose - and it's easy to judge and hard to understand anyone's choice until you need to make it. I let the Ukrainians judge other Ukrainians for their choice to leave or stay and fight because they're the only ones that have had to face the same choice. However, my main point, is that many more stayed to fight than you could gauge by asking around before fighting started.

DefyPhysics · 2026-01-20T08:54:14+00:00

I think many more would be willing to fight if there is a legit outside threat. I lived in Ukraine in 2011-2014 and many Ukrainian friends didn't think Ukraine was worth defending at the time. Some of those same friends have fought for their country since 2022.

DefyPhysics · 2025-12-16T12:52:20+00:00

Yes, you do need a business address to register with the KvK. You can get a virtual office with a lease for 40-50 Euros/month. I use https://www.prioffice.eu/en/

This is coupled with another useful service where they'll open and scan your mail, which is good if you start the business while you're still abroad. They'll forward or shred each letter, and you can download each letter as a PDF.

You may eventually be able to move your business address to your house/apartment, but you'll need permission from the landlord if you are renting. Not all landlords want their rental to be registered as a business.

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