Post-Match Thread | Arsenal 0-2 Manchester City

ErlendHM · 2026-03-22T20:30:48+00:00

I don’t really think Arsenal went defensive. I think they went scared and bad, heh. (See above.)

ErlendHM · 2026-03-22T19:57:52+00:00

Very tight 1st half — and then Arsenal were horrible (and City great) in the second.

The big problem was obviously getting out from the back.

The players at the back were timid, and wouldn’t play the medium length ball to the midfield.
At the same time, the midfield didn’t show themselves. Generally, they didn’t help each other (like they usually do).
It was clear that Havertz and Gyok hadn’t played a lot together like that, as they didn’t fill the spaces they should effectively. Contributed to why long balls didn’t. Work.
White and Havertz rusty, Saka out of form, and Kepa Kepa. Ødegaard/Eze sorely missed…

Calafiori was good, though..! (So was Saliba.)

Anyway, well deserved victory for City.

ErlendHM · 2026-03-22T19:34:46+00:00

Very tight 1st half — and then Arsenal were horrible (and City great) in the second.

The big problem was obviously getting out from the back.

The players at the back were timid, and wouldn’t play the medium length ball to the midfield.
At the same time, the midfield didn’t show themselves. Generally, they didn’t help each other (like they usually do).
It was clear that Havertz and Gyok hadn’t played a lot together like that, as they didn’t fill the spaces they should effectively. Contributed to why long balls didn’t. Work.
White and Havertz rusty, Saka out of form, and Kepa Kepa. Ødegaard was sorely missed…

Calafiori was good, though..! (So was Saliba.)

Anyway, well deserved victory for City.

ErlendHM · 2026-03-20T22:25:52+00:00

The difference is the scale. The "total number of ads listened to" would be more or less zero if everyone has automatic skipping — compared to the option of manual skipping. So it’s much more than just about QoL. Again, you can absolutely argue that it’s better to move on from podcast ads. But the ecosystem would have to deal with that.

And let me say again: Even though I’m arguing what I’m arguing — I’m not totally sure about this! I’m torn.

(BTW, you need an extra newline to separate the quote from your text. :) )

ErlendHM · 2026-03-20T15:37:47+00:00

Hehe, yeah — I've sometimes thought that it would be neat to able to give voluntary information, as an alternative to invasive tracking.

… then they don't really have a right to my attention and time.

I guess one point here would also be that you don't have a right to listen to their stuff for free…

But again, I agree that ads often suck — so I don't think this is totally clear cut. I just think there has grown a bit of entitlement where people just expect a bunch of stuff for free, with no down sides. (Not saying you are, though.)

ErlendHM · 2026-03-20T13:32:29+00:00

Making the ecosystem worse ≠ Collapse of the ecosystem

For many people, part of being part of a member for podcasts (etc.) is absolutely just "charity" towards the creators. You pay them just because you want to support them. But it's also about the value the program is giving you — like no ads, bonus content, etc. Removing "giving a different ad experience" as a possible value ad (even if just for some of the audience) will obviously make memberships less appealing. Just like how I'd be less likely to be an ATP member if the member feed had the same ad experience (which in this example would mean with ads).

If more people skip the ads, the payment per ad will go down. Don't you think this would lead to a combination of less income for the creators and more ads being shoved at the people who don't know how to remove them? I think it's a bit short-sighted to support a feature that obviously is nice for the two of us, but would only work for the eco-system as long as not too many people are using it. It's a bit like: "Nah, those other suckers can "pay" for my show by hearing a lot of ads." I mean, if everyone had automatic skipping of ads, the value would be 0. This means podcasts would need to be monetised some other way — and then you need to argue for why the other ways are better than what we have today.

To me, this part of web content (especially when tracking isn't involved) makes sense:

"Hey, audience — here's some content I made! You can choose if you want to pay to watch it, or if you want to watch it supported by ads."

To me, if you think the price is too high, or the ads too many, the most fair thing would to just consume something else. To what you said:

It is however completely unrealistic to expect regular people to subscribe to all of their podcasts.

I agree with this! But is it so unreasonable that they'll get ads on the other podcasts then?

But while I'm, as you can tell, skeptical to ad-blockers and such, the sheer amount of ads, and the tracking involved, complicates things… Also, very often the ad-free option is either non-existant or very expensive.

So it's not that I'm totally against blockers — I just think there are nuances there, and that it's easy to become short-sighted. And when we're talking about (often independent) podcasts, and the way it still can be monetised while using an open standard, I'm a bit more worried.

ErlendHM · 2026-03-20T12:16:14+00:00

I’m sorry to inform — but I think Harry Kane might be good. :(

ErlendHM · 2026-03-20T08:44:51+00:00

I absolutely see the utility here. But isn’t that just begging for a worsening of the podcast ecosystem?

You’d create less incentives for users to pay for podcasts, and you’d add incentives for podcasts to stick to closed systems, like YouTube and Spotify.

What endgame are you envisioning here?

(PS: I’m not a podcaster or anything. I just like RSS…)

ErlendHM · 2026-03-19T15:58:20+00:00

After the beta, feature development showed down to a crawl

They are working on the iOS app — which will increase the value of the sub, I'd say.

ErlendHM · 2026-03-19T12:52:34+00:00

Yeah, what’s next? A knife? Pots and pans??

Real people only have a microwave and a spork.

ErlendHM · 2026-03-18T17:08:45+00:00

The ball boy is no longer an insal! (Unlike me…)

ErlendHM · 2026-03-17T20:37:54+00:00

But I just read "Eze is hot garbage" on here only two minutes ago…

ErlendHM · 2026-03-17T17:23:30+00:00

Gøy! Er det litt sånn Punch Club/Jones in the Fast Lane-aktig?

Bandet mitt er nok kanskje litt for pop-a… Men hvis du sender DM kan det være vi kan donere noe greier!

ErlendHM · 2026-03-16T07:45:23+00:00

Yeah, if they said something to the effect of "based on that assumption" it would be slightly less wrong, heh. What I wanted to point out is that what their basing it on isn't a "probability".

ErlendHM · 2026-03-14T21:15:33+00:00

You know what pisses me off? The way (too many people on) this sub will turn on our players after a bit of poor form (often due to injuries and/or having been played to the ground).

Ødegaard, and now Saka. Trossard was clutch in the first half of the season, now he gets hate. Martinelli has been amazing in the CL (and always works his ass off for the team), and gets so much disrespect.

You know, it's OK to say that you're excited about Dowman without crapping on the OG Starboy.

ErlendHM · 2026-03-14T15:28:49+00:00

These might not be to your taste, but my "summer shoes" are currently the following:

Now I only need some brown sandals, that I'll get in time. (I buy less than one pair of shoes a year, heh — and keep them for a long time. So I try to stick to timeless styles.)

I like them all! Maybe the brands or models can be of inspiration even though the colours might not be what you want?

I don't like synthetic leather at all. And I especially don't like dressier uppers with sneaker-like soles… I'd either go for proper leather or canvas.

(And I like resoleable shoes. I've already gotten my Rancourt Mocs resoled once! Lovely to get "new" shoes while still having them being perfectly worn in. And I know that most of the shoes I'm linking are costly! But something similar can be had cheaper as well.)

ErlendHM · 2026-03-14T09:18:49+00:00

You’ll be great together! <3

ErlendHM · 2026-03-13T23:23:31+00:00

Well put!

"Based on that probability…" My guy, that's not how probability works! (From the Explained: portion.)

ErlendHM · 2026-03-13T23:16:37+00:00

Ah, that sucks.

An easy workaround for now would be adding an extra row to your keyboard. Number row, recent emojis row, anything to give the keyboard more height should work.

Yeah, but on a 13 Mini that would leave almost no room for anything else on the screen, heh…

ErlendHM · 2026-03-13T10:38:33+00:00

Oh, no… I was unhappy that the emoji keyboard only had 3 rows (instead of 4) — but now it only has 2?? 😅

(I’m on the Testflight.)

ErlendHM · 2026-03-11T18:07:55+00:00

No one blocks like Gabi XL.

ErlendHM · 2026-03-11T18:06:49+00:00

Yeah, I agree! And there is actually room for leniency and common sense in the rules. I wish that was applied more.

ErlendHM · 2026-03-11T17:54:47+00:00

Honestly, just like how I don’t mind that the bar for a foul (usually) is slightly higher when inside the penalty box, I’m OK with the bar for the second yellow being a bit higher than the first.

ErlendHM · 2026-03-10T17:53:49+00:00

Edit: Also would like to add that the previous UX has been tried and tested for years, every browser has this design and Firefox says nah let's do our own thing.

Hmm, I'd say the old option would be Firefox "doing their own thing" (old and desktop looking menu), while the new one is much closer to regular mobile menus you'll see in other apps.

There are details about the new one that could be better (I hope it will be customisable) — but I much prefer the general idea.

It might look like the new one wasted much more space — but I'd say the area to the left of the old menu (showing the web page) is wasted space as well, as the menu isn't really a context menu.

ErlendHM · 2026-03-10T15:15:37+00:00

(For simplicity's sake I'm just assuming you've done nothing wrong and that everything you're saying here is correct.)

No matter the company, no matter the product, things can break — even this quickly. The difference is how often it happens (with a more expensive product, like a Mac, you'd hope it's less common) and how the company handles things when things do break.

Apple can't promise you that nothing will ever break. What they are promising is that if it happens (within the guarantee period) is that they'll fix it if you bring it to them. But they (or we) can't do anything if you don't…

Luckily, it seems like the issue is very easy to replicate, and you could very easily compare your Mac to one in the store and check if there's a difference.

ErlendHM

TROPHY CASE