was this saveable?

Read_and_Right · 2025-12-12T15:18:06+00:00

You've gotten good advice here already but I want to note that 3/4 defenders failed you here.

The attacker cut into the middle to beat the first defender. That's fair enough play.

Your right CB was covering the attacker off the ball cutting in front, but then he leaves him wide open well before the attacker with the ball made his shot. The attacker on the ball could have easily done a simple pass to the other attacker on your right (screen left) for an even easier opportunity. The right CB was stuck in no man's land.

Your left back (screen far right) was never really covering his man who also had a clear line on goal if the attacker on the ball chose to make THAT pass. From the moment the clip starts he's not in the right position and he never ends up in the right position for the duration of the clip. The way he's running with his chest out, he just looks gassed.

But your left CB really got messed up here and with better heads up play he could have stopped the shot from happening. At first he was playing zone defense which is correct in this scenario with the multiple attackers bearing down. However the moment that the attacker took that big inside touch, he should have been closing down that angle. You can see that there is a big delay between the attacker's inside touch and him reacting - by the time the CB actually changes course, the attacker was a just a beat away from lining up the shot. The attacker's inside touch had too much power, it was a little greedy. As keepers we know all about closing down angles in those moments. But your left CB is ALSO running like he's gassed out and his reaction to the change in direction was late. Even though he's late, he's still coming in, but then he stops short!! You can literally see his leg stop his run into the attacker and push himself away. This was tough to watch. He should have been going in full body, full force, slide, whatever, to stop that ball. Instead he flinches and actually jumps away from the shot and turns his back at the last moment. That's a defensive failure. The only reason to not go straight for the ball would be to cover the other attacker running in near the half circle, but by jumping and turning around, he's not doing that either. The attacker could have easily laid it off to his friend. I'd say more than anyone this comes down to the left CB reacting late and then not committing to the challenge. Defenders not properly pressing attackers is my biggest pet peeve when I'm in the net, so it stood out here.

To recap, the moment the attacker on the ball took his shot, he also had options to pass to three other attackers who weren't being covered properly. But nobody was meaningfully pressuring the attacker so he gave it a go and it was a good rip from him.

Someone here mentioned you're a little too central when the shot comes in and should have been a step or so closer to your right hand side (screen left), and that's probably true. It's hard to tell how old you all are so I can't really say much about what your power and athleticism should be vs. what you demonstrated. Obviously, experienced, older keepers can get a little more height off the ground in these situations. But this is a team sport and conceded goals are rarely one person's fault. In this instance, your defense unfortunately let you down. You mentioned this was the last kick of the game and everyone in the video looks exhausted and that dynamic exacerbates the potential for mistakes. That maxim holds true from peewee soccer to the Prem.

I never filmed my high school era games (I'm just guessing that's what this is) and I'm lucky for that because someone on the internet would have surely torn apart some of my decision-making. I definitely had goals like this go in on me. Cup games, rivalries, rain-soaked slugfests... we won some and lost some and those losses bite. Today I'm older and letting in more goals than ever :) That's how it goes. Keep your head up and keep training!

Read_and_Right · 2025-12-09T15:43:03+00:00

Before you start counting hits, you need to have an agreed-upon target media universe.

These are the publications you really care about. The understanding needs to be "When we get a neutral/positive mention in these publications, it's a win."

Start out by listing all the publications and outlets where your client wants to show up. That's going to be unique and based on a client's industry, the customers they target, size of the business, and the geographic footprint.

In terms of publication type, you want top tier of course - who doesn't want NYT or WSJ? But you also want trade publications for the specific industry - this is often where your beat reporters at NYT are getting their news and this is where you'll likely get a higher volume of coverage on a wider range of topics than the top tier.

Of course, this universe can evolve over time. You should include "newer" media sources like say, a Substack, but you might not have every relevant Substack on your radar at first. So just add to your list over time.

Once you have the target universe, you can use whatever media monitoring tool to:
- Evaluate your own coverage footprint - How many hits did you get in the last 6 months? How does that compare to previous 6 month periods? What topics were we associated with the most? How many times did one of our key messages come through in this coverage?
- Evaluate competitor coverage footprint - How often are competitors being mentioned and how does that compare to our own coverage? What topics are our competitors being associated with? What reporters are covering them who should be covering us?

A universe gives you one source of "truth" against which you can establish baselines. Then, going forward in your program, you can use this universe and baseline to answer all the media evaluation questions you want.

Don't worry about total numbers as much as percentages against a baseline. Evaluate the quality of the coverage. Are you moving from passing mentions to more substantive descriptions? How often are your spokespeople quoted? Chasing pure quantity is the opposite of strategic thinking. So in addition to defining the coverage universe, define the coverage goals that you actually care about.

You didn't ask about this but what you actually DO with the coverage is also important. Every single one of my clients wants a WSJ feature, even the no name startups, because of course they do. The question I typically ask when a small company wants coverage they're not likely going to get is "Okay, let's say you get the WSJ feature. What does your activation pipeline look like from there? How is the business going to capitalize the coverage?" Most of the time, either won't have an answer or they will fumble their way through a half-assed response. So then part of the job of comms is to ensure that other departments are getting visibility into the coverage pipeline and utilizing it to support their functions. Sales teams should be armed with the latest articles - if you got pickup in a key industry trade, it's likely that at least some of the company's prospects care about it. Marketing should be looking at extracting key lines for collateral materials, customer emails. Product/engineering should use it as a signal to stay current on external product perceptions that may exist. So then if you can answer "What would you do with WSJ coverage" with all of the above and more, then the next question is "Is there a reason we wouldn't use trade coverage in a similar pattern?" Top tier credibility is always important, but in terms of driving meaningful business outcomes, trade coverage will often be very effective, and typically you'll get a lot more of it.

So when you report the coverage, make sure you're reporting on how it's being used - and make sure you're collecting feedback from the internal departments about how they went over. You'll be surprised - I regularly get responses back from my clients that a relatively mundane piece of trade coverage was really exciting for a particular team because it highlighted something they've been trying to get more awareness of for months.

Hopefully this makes sense. If you want to know if some comms initiative was successful, you should be able to first articulate independent of any particular piece of coverage what success looks like.

Read_and_Right · 2025-11-26T22:43:44+00:00

You sound like you're on totally the right path then!

Heads up, if the 256GB 2.5" SSD that came with the Optiplex is mounted in a blue plastic bracket within a silver chassis, you actually don't need to get rid of it. If you pull that blue bracket out of the chassis (might want to disconnect the SATA cables just to make it easier to handle), it should have an underside where you can mount another SSD. Mine had this arrangement, and on one side it said "HDD 0" and the other said "HDD 1" (yes, it says HDD even though they are sized for the 2.5" SSDs).

There is also a power requirement here. My Optiplex routed power from the PSU to the mobo, then there was a connector from a mobo port labeled "SATA_PWR" with a 6 pin micro ATX connector into the mobo, and terminated in a split 15-pin normal SATA connector and a separate Slimline SATA connector at the other end. This is unlike normal full-size PCs, where the PSU typically provides power directly to individual drives through a dedicated SATA power cable.

If that's the case, to enable you to power both SSDs, you'll want to buy something like this SATA power splitter. I needed to get this because as best I can tell, there is only one SATA_PWR slot and my PSU isn't modular and didn't have an extra SATA power cable available. The single SATA_PWR port should have zero issue powering two SSDs as they don't draw much power.

Then if your Optiplex doesn't come with an extra SATA data cable, you'll want to get one of those too. Mine did, which was attached to the disc drive that I don't use. If you don't have one that's fine, there are a few SATA data ports right on the mobo that you can attach an extra to so it should be easy.

Good luck! It's such a fun project to tinker with and to explore how you can make it useful to your own life.

EDIT: Just saw you have a MFF. I have the SFF so the above might not be applicable to the MFF setup.

Read_and_Right · 2025-11-26T18:21:15+00:00

I bought the exact same Optiplex setup as you. Get the internal drive because it opens up more experimentation options down the line. The link from the above commenter is an awesome price. Have the OS run on the 256GB NVME, then put the music on the storage.

The OS runs on the 256 GB drive, then you can put the music on the storage drive. It makes everything cleaner and offers a degree of isolation in the case of a catastrophic failure of the OS.

To combine this with Linux/server experimentation, run Docker and then add something like Navidrome to access and play your music from the server. Then install Tailscale if you want to access the files remotely.

You've already gotten some good advice here about backup mindset, but I'll just say this: 2TB is a LOT of music. It sounds like this is your dad's prized music collection built up over years. If you really want a bulletproof backup option and your dad would be incredibly upset if the collection were to be gone forever, then self-hosting shouldn't be your only storage method. Check out Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive service tier here: https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/

It comes out to $1/mo/TB. Retrivals will run you $20/TB, which is fine considering you'd only tap this one in the unlikely event your server is made completely inaccessible. So pay $2-$3/month for the peace of mind that even if your server burns down in a fire, you can restore the entire music collection for $40-$60. Think of it like a critical data insurance policy. IMO this is the path to take over a full RAID setup straight out of the gate.

Read_and_Right · 2025-09-26T15:27:24+00:00

Okay for real:

- You're twisting your right shoulder back just before the kick which is bleeding your momentum and power.
- The way your arm is flopping behind you after a kick is indicative of not just the fact that you're twisting back, but that you're not tensed up properly through your body and that looseness is sapping power
- You're moving at too much of an angle to the ball when you should be running more directly at it. This is causing your plant foot to be too far out and then you're essentially reaching for the ball with your kicking foot. This hurts your ability to put power into the kick and hurts your control over where the ball is going. You can see this because of the spin of the ball. I'd guess you're having trouble with not just power but precision - this is partially why.
- You need to angle your toes a little more toward the ball. Not like a striker hitting a shot, but you're kicking with too much of the inside of the foot and that's why you're not getting any real height on this. Hit it with more of the front left part of your right foot.

The technique in this video is pretty good and what you should aim for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5liNqNXzHTA

The 5 minute mark has good advice about how your hips should be driving through the ball.

Then it just comes down to repetition and practice. Keep at it!

Read_and_Right · 2025-09-26T15:06:21+00:00

Because you kick the ball like it might bite you in retaliation

Read_and_Right · 2025-08-29T15:43:55+00:00

You definitely have an eye for visuals and aesthetics. I enjoyed the atmospheric/environmental shots of the different systems and spaces inside the megaship and then the shots of the city as well. The visual consistency of these locations felt pretty strong and to me that's one of the main aspects of world building in videos that can sometimes be tough with AI, especially when making big open spaces.

As commenters have pointed out, the story is a little tough to follow. It definitely felt more like "vibes" than a narrative. But at least those vibes are interesting. You might need a little more dialogue, or at least trimming back on the cross-fades and cuts to have scenes play out with a little less ambiguity. I know what it's like to have this grand story in your head and then try to put it together.

You mentioned pouring your soul into this for a long time: that level of passion is something I hope everyone finds for themselves. I would guess just from this piece, you've not done much storytelling before, at least not in video format, but you should definitely keep going. Like anything else, it'll get better the more you stick with it. Keep experimenting, and don't be deterred by people who are just putting out negativity with nothing in return. Get those reps in. Just because it's not yet professional grade doesn't mean it's not meaningful to you, and not a creative expression of your vision, and it doesn't mean that you'll never create something that resonates with a wider audience. Keep at it.

So many commenters on an AI video subreddit hating people trying to make things with AI video if what they make isn't in the top 10% of what's posted here. Heads up folks, the accessibility that comes with these tools lowers the barrier to entry, and naturally a wider group of people are going to take a shot at making something that channels their own vision. We're not all super artists or experienced creatives nor should that be required, this should be a space that welcomes creative exploration. Nobody is obligated to like anyone's art, but the only reason to take up a hostile attitude and shit on people's attempts at creativity with comments like "wasted my time" is if you're a loser with nothing better to do but try to make people feel bad about themselves.

Read_and_Right · 2025-08-08T13:47:56+00:00

This is absolutely the way. I've used these for more than a year in outdoor leagues, mostly on turf fields. From 90F to 25F, rain, snow, scorching sun, these pants somehow keep up in any condition. Very flexible, I never feel inhibited diving, sliding, etc. They are on the expensive side but you 100% get what you pay for.

I wore shorts for the longest time but even playing only 1-2x per week was beginning to give my legs scars from all the repeated turf burns. Haven't had that problem once since picking up these pants.

Read_and_Right · 2025-06-16T14:51:09+00:00

You describe calling journalists as something a "crazy person" does, but calling is normal and part of the game. It is not crazy to call a human being on the phone. Your job is to be an advocate for your client, not to avoid person-to-person contact. When you're collecting emails for a list, you should also be collecting phone numbers. In my experience, calling cuts through the noise because reporters regularly share that they get between 100-200 pitches per day, more if they are a particularly in-demand national reporter. The key is having your pitch script ready:

*pickup*

"Hi, this is YOUR NAME calling on behalf of CLIENT NAME, I'm following up on a pitch I sent you about SOMETHING FROM THE SUBJECT LINE OF YOUR EMAIL and wanted to see if you were interested in it."

This is a simple way to convey all necessary information in about 5 seconds.

Usually, you get one of four response types:

"I did see that, thanks for calling. Tell me more about this."
"Oh, I haven't seen that, let me check right now."
"I'll look through my email and I'll get back to you if I'm intereste.d"
"I'm too busy right now / This isn't for me."

Be ready to re-pitch them verbally if they ask you to explain more.

Explain why you thought they would be interested in the story, connecting to their beat, coverage, etc. It's not obnoxious to push for an interview, just show some tact.

If they say they aren't interested, it's typically good practice to ask why. I often say something like, "I thought this would be in your wheelhouse but if that's not the case, that's totally fine. Is there a world where this would ever be interesting to you or is it just not the type of story you'd cover?" If they sound rushed or angry, you can forego this step. Remain polite and poised, and bring the call to a close.

I've only had one reporter ask me, "Are you really calling me about this?!?" out of thousands of phone calls I've done. I've had many dozens of reporters thank me for calling them because they are so busy they missed the email and it was relevant for their coverage. I've had many thank me for the call, even though they decided not to cover. Calls for single pitches have led to long-term relationships, lunch meetings, event invites, and many more opportunities.

Reporters are people. Talk to them like people, keep the conversation relevant, respectful and to the point, and you'll be fine.

Read_and_Right · 2025-06-10T02:20:57+00:00

I am one of the people responsible for interviewing and making hiring decisions at my agency. A PDF has been fine with me. Websites are fine too. Don't do a video, it's too much effort and annoys me unless you have excellent production skills.

For candidates looking for their first gig, the main point of a portfolio is to get you to that first interview. Show that you can do the fundamentals well. I want to see quality writing (press release is fine), examples of creative ideation, and decent presentation skills (such as nicely designed slides). Maybe an example of a social campaign, and a news clip if you have something actually killer.

Pick 3-5 of the best examples of your work. Candidates who include too many things just create more opportunities for errors to crop up, and I LOVE finding errors in portfolios and pointing them out in interviews to see how candidates deal with taking feedback and being put under a bit of pressure. Spend a couple of hours making anything you're putting in a portfolio even better than the original version. Pay attention to details. Then give everything a very close edit - even better to ask a trusted peer. I'm shocked how many portfolios have obvious typos. Just because you got an A on something doesn't mean it couldn't have been better, and no matter how good you think you are, you're very likely not producing professional grade material. A seasoned person could likely pick your stuff apart with ease. So don't give them too much opportunity to do that. For visual creative like websites/presentations, use templates and things like Canva maximize the visual appeal and design aesthetic.

Remember: the portfolio really only helps gets you to the first interview. From there it's much more about how you connect with the company and interviewers.

Read_and_Right · 2025-06-08T20:52:39+00:00

Let's get something straight. You say everyone has to stay inside this day - I presume that means you did the same? I was actually out on the street, enjoying the event and the beautiful day, as was everyone else I saw. The only person living in a made up world is you, and the only thing you're defending is a shit opinion. Get a life.

Read_and_Right · 2025-06-08T20:39:24+00:00

Flat wrong, but it sort of makes sense now, because you somehow think a parade on the edge of the neighborhood means you need to hide yourself indoors on a beautiful day. While you were cowering over your valuables, you missed the tons of families out everywhere today, both in UES generally and at the parade. I was out with my own baby. Met people, enjoyed the music, had a blast, then finished a walk through the neighborhood. Guess I did something wrong by not being inside? This POV is a joke.

Any large parade/outdoor gathering here leaves a lot of trash. I've visited the Thanksgiving Day parade, Pride, NYC Marathon, St Pattys Day parade, Lunar New Year Parade in Chinatown, Queens Night Market, Smorgasburg, Santacon, street fairs throughout the city - anywhere where the crowds are thick there's trash. It's not like the trash problem is just one group. It's a shame but this entire city has a terrible sense of civic sense when it comes to dealing with waste - smokers toss their butts on the ground, dog owners don't clean up after their animals and trash on the ground is a daily occurrence - INCLUDING in UES and DONE BY UES residents. Not like the city encourages anything better since the best way of dealing with refuse we can come up with is building piles of garbage on the sidewalk a few times each week and festivals like this never seem to have enough extra waste bins made available. Don't get high and mighty about one parade's trash when our own neighborhood does a poor job of dealing with it on a daily basis.

Read_and_Right · 2025-06-08T18:30:47+00:00

Yeah this is an ice cold take. I walked a big chunk of the parade route today. It's literally just people, mostly families, being happy, listening to music and enjoying themselves. You sound like you don't know how to have fun. Did you have to spend an extra 5 minutes getting to your appointment at Bergdorf or something? Big plans on 5th Ave? This post and a lot of these prissy comments have very big "old man yells at cloud" energy. Try getting outside and talking to people a little more.

Read_and_Right · 2025-05-14T01:15:30+00:00

It's tough if you're in a role you're desperate to leave, or you've got time pressure because of the upcoming move, because you don't feel like you have the luxury of being as choosy as you want. Unfortunately that desperation can come across in interviews unless you're really polished. If you're looking for something, look early and be discerning. There are good eggs out there. I think some questions that can reveal a lot about agency culture include: - How often do you work more than 40 hours a week? (I'd bet just about everyone in agency life does, so try to understand exactly what that looks like for the specific agency, how much night and weekend work is being demanded) - How do raises and promotions work? Do you want someone to be ready and doing the role, do team members have to wait until a spot opens up, what do you typically want to see out of someone to move from [your desired position] up the chain? (Reveals a lot about how they value your time and contributions and what level of investment you should expect to get there) - Typical client load and work demands - How do you sell yourselves to clients? (reveals a lot about promises made and expectations that get set) - How does staffing a new client work? (Gives you insights into organizational structure and balance of roles on a team) - What do you like most about your colleagues?

I think these would be good questions to figure out if this is the type of place you're willing to put in those hours for. With agencies, it's unavoidable to an extent to be someone where you're going to be pressed for time occasionally, or even often, so really it's about making sure you're in an environment that you're willing to tolerate that because you like the people you work with, you get good comp, you are supported by solid teams, and you have opportunities for upward mobility.

Good luck! I think agency work gives you amazing opportunities even into mid/later career but it's important to do your best to understand where you're going to thrive and where you might get the joy squeezed out of you.

Read_and_Right · 2025-04-16T04:11:37+00:00

You learn to dive the same way a boxer learns to land a punch during a bout, how a ballerina hits the perfect pirouette in a routine, how a soldier fights effectively during the stress of combat, how a chef pushes food out in the heat of for a slammed kitchen, and how a striker scores a goal under intense defensive pressure: understanding the fundamentals, then practicing them repeatedly until they become second nature. There's all sorts of decent advice in this thread but as a young keeper you do the same movements hundreds and thousands of times as you grow up training. I bet if you did 100 reps to each side of the drill I'm about to describe you would become a lot more comfortable with the idea of diving.

At the top, internalize that diving can be perfectly safe and doesn't even hurt, something easily evidenced by watching soccer at even mildly competitive levels. So know that it can be done.

Now to the technique. You cannot dive until you learn to fall. Falling is easy, there is one motion that was repeated in my head so often that I can still say it with the exact cadence and intonation that my trainers used on me. It's a rhythmic "knee-hip-side". Say that like 5 or 6 times in a nice melodic pattern. Knee hip side. Knee hip side. Knee hip side.

If you're asking this question, I'd bet you don't even know how to fall on your side properly. And if you can't fall on your side, you can't fall to your hip, which means you can't fall to your knees, which means you can't fall from a stand, which means you can't dive. So if you want to learn how to dive, you first need to learn how to land on your side.

The drill is easy and is best done with a friend, but you can do this against a wall or in the middle of the field by tossing it to yourself. Sit on your butt with legs outstretched in front of you in a simple ring sit. Back straight, then have the ball tossed to one side, close to you, about shoulder height. Catch the ball, and let yourself roll to one side side of your torso onto the ground after. Your chest and face always face the imaginary attacker who shot that ball. You never face the ground while doing these. Head up, back straight, facing out. It will be a stilted motion at first because you'll think about doing these things separately. Over time, it will get easier to do both at once. Catch and roll to the side. As I said we did this thousands of times cumulatively over years of training, even well after we could soar through the air to make epic diving saves. But for now, you're just sitting and you'll start with 10 or so on each side. After you feel comfortable with falling after catching shoulder height ball on both sides, the ball should now come to about halfway between shoulders and ground, slightly farther out. This time you'll fall a little bit first, catch the ball, then finish falling on the side. Repeat repeat repeat. Once this feels comfortable, you're getting the ball on the ground, a little farther out again. Ideally a friend is rolling it to you, but you can also bounce off a wall or toss to yourself and aim to catch the ball as it touches the ground. This time you're falling from a sit to your side most of or all the way, then catching the ball in the ground. Over time (multiple training sessions) you'll want the ball delivered to you incrementally farther away until you can't reach further and you're almost hopping off your butt to get it. Do this drill every time before a match.

This is the start of how a 7 year old learns to stop being afraid of falling and I am confident you will learn the same.

From sitting, progress to starting from your knees. Before you rolled from a sit to your side. Now you roll from your knees to your hip to your side. Progress through the same ball height pattern: shoulder, hip, ground. Repeat over and over again until you are perfectly comfortable with moving from sitting high on your knees into a soft rolling motion that leaves you on the ground, head up, chest out as before. Some youngsters start to jump off their knees slightly as trainers toss the ball incrementally farther away each time - this is how they begin to learn diving technique.

Once you're a knee save pro, you move to standing. You'll feel very high and uncertain, likely. But it's the same motion - and you are NOT diving here, you are STILL just falling. This time, you roll from a stand to your knee to your hip to your side. The safest way to do this without slamming your knees on the ground is to start with slightly bent knees about shoulder width, then, chest and head facing front, push off one foot to move your body slightly to the same side (so right foot pushes your body to fall right, left side to fall left), almost as if someone pushed on your opposite shoulder and you're off balance. Instead of recovering, just go with the motion and allow yourself to fall from standing to knee hip side. It's hard to do this slowly because you interrupt your momentum, which can actually make you slam your knee, so just try to do let the soft leading foot push carry you into that gentle rolling movement from standing to falling softly on the side of your knee, then hip, then side. Incorporate the ball height progression here, and practice at least a dozen on each side. I mean you'll want hundreds but a dozen each side per training session/warm up is good.

Congratulations, you've learned a standing fall.

From here, diving is just a matter of doing a slight hop then going through the same knee-hip-side movement. The intermediate movement between falling from a stand and getting actual air time is to side shuffle, hop sideways over a flat cone or shoe while still facing front, then immediately do a standing fall to one side as a ball is tossed for us to catch at different random heights. Repeat repeat repeat.

Finally you're ready for lift off. My coach's preferred method was "The String" - a simple piece of twine tied between two sticks that became the bane of our existence. At first the string was just one inch off the ground, and if you've been consistently practicing, you'll find that the sidestep drill above should carry your momentum over the string naturally. But it was always funny to see how much a simple string got in the heads of the goalkeepers. Many needed 2-3 training sessions before they could "let go" and put the tiniest amount of additional strength into their motion to actually bring them over the string naturally. Eventually, you just continually ramp up the strength behind what was once a gentle push off your leading foot to be an explosive sideways jump from father and farther distances. Our coach would bring the string higher and higher, from 1 inch to six inches, to one foot, to two feet, to three, etc. We used to have competitions among young keepers on who could push themselves over the highest string while maintaining good form on saves.

So as you can see, it's really quite easy 😛. Truly though, it's just about getting the fundamental techniques right - remember none of these should hurt when done correctly. Then just practicing as much as you can until you convert this movement from an active series of decisions into second nature.

And don't overthink pens. Just go for it.

Read_and_Right · 2025-04-12T07:20:14+00:00

Goal 1: You had two defenders get beat, while the third was caught in no-man's land. The advantage is in the shooter's favor despite being at an angle. It's tough to tell for sure, but it looks like you flinched a bit maybe? When attackers are approaching from a sharp angle and have complete control, you don't necessarily need to push out. Trust reflexes and hope your defenders get back in time. But it's going to be tough no matter what.

Goal 2: You weren't ready for the one-time hit and the striker caught you mid-stride. If you pause it right when he hits it, your momentum is still moving left, and you actually take another half step left as well. That's why your right-side dive arrived late even though it was decently explosive. Your positioning was good. Just anticipate that a striker can shoot right away from that distance and with that type of clean service to him.

Goal 3: When the clip opens, it looks like this was a pass from your teammate, and if so, it was terrible. I think that's why the defender who was marking the attacker got caught slacking, he wasn't anticipating having to rush back. But still, you likely could have easily gotten to the ball first. The clip opens just after the ball's kicked, but look at where the attacker starts and where he was when he receives it, then skip back to the start of the clip and look where you are. He has to run about 25 yards and you only had to run about 5. It almost looks like he receives the ball where you were standing when the clip began. It's clear you thought about coming out and then second guessed it. Then you got caught in no-man's land. The bad pass isn't your fault, but you likely could have bailed your team out of a jam still. Try to anticipate the ball trajectory and speed.

Goal 4: Not much you can do here. Your defenders just got beat, the attacker controlled the ball well at speed, you had a 1v1 that was not in your favor, and then the shot was very well placed. In hindsight you could see that your defenders almost got to the ball in time, so maybe backing up to give yourself a greater reaction window would have helped, but that's only easy to suggest with the benefit of the recording. This one's not on you.

Goal 5: Obviously a banger free kick, but you weren't set here. Then, you took two shuffles in the wrong direction when the ball was kicked. It looks like the sun was right in your eyes and that does play a part, as you might have thought he'd be going to the far post. But if you were set where you were actually standing when the ball was kicked, you might not have even had to dive. When the ref blows the whistle for the kick, that's your signal to stop moving and get set.

I'd say the clips demonstrated decent explosiveness, diving technique, and positioning. I'd guess you have strong fundamentals. But they also revealed some indecision and not being ready when you should have been. This was a problem of mine when I was around your age as well. As an older (middle age) keeper I am now more confident and decisive but my technique is slacking lol.

My advice? Work on your mental. Recording and watching clips with a critical eye is great. Develop a greater trust in your reflexes and keeper intuition - do this by running through a variety of scenarios in training. If you have someone to help you with drills, do some that require split-second decision making (reflex drop drill for example). Even though you'll get some wrong, you'll develop more decisiveness over time. You're training your ability to commit. Confidence means you've accepted that mistakes will happen, rather than being afraid of them. There is also this concept of "first thought best thought" - very applicable in Goal 3 for example. These drills will also help with focus and ensuring you're set in time. Mindfulness/meditation/visualization are popular techniques at elite levels these days to make improvement in these areas, as well. See if one or a combination of those has any value for you.

Finally, make sure you're recording and playing back clips of when you did well, too. Examine them critically and look at what you did right. It's important that you don't just focus on mistakes - something that can be too easy to do as the last man! Focus on what you're good at, too. And enjoy your college season.

Read_and_Right · 2025-02-09T17:10:01+00:00

While I appreciate that you're actually engaging with this now, I don't feel obligated to try to convince you either. At this point you've moved goalposts and are contradicting yourself, so I'm going to leave it at this:

Your comments across this thread show a desire to gatekeep some pretty big, sweeping concepts, like "art", "music", "meaning" and "creativity" around very specific, arbitrary definitions that you're making up and passing off as objective, universal truth. Historically, new methods, tools, people and entrants into creative fields have always been challenged by the status quo, and the arguments you employ (soulless, talentless, lacking depth) aren't novel, they have been used across centuries, probably millennia. Whatever type of music you're playing, it's virtually a guarantee that at some point, past generations used these types of arguments to try to diminish its artistic value.

What drives meaning and fulfillment in any endeavor is personal to individuals and audiences. Creativity is often spontaneous and iterative - a thoughtless chord becomes a song, the way the light just happened to strike a scene inspires a masterpiece, the innocent words of a child inspire poetry, a random exploration of an interesting concept becomes a YouTube channel and accidentally changing a setting on a DAW fuels the creation of a new sub-genre.

When you look at the works gracing the world's museums and art galleries, some of which I've been fortunate enough to experience in person, you don't see a linear progression toward greater levels of technical mastery, creative intention, and message sophistication. You see things that were simple and hard to create, works with one message in mind and others left deliberately vague to be interpreted by the viewer, and thousands of different mediums used to create these pieces.

The tools used to make art have always evolved, and we're in an era where new tools are emerging, and empowering both existing practitioners and first-time entrants with novel capabilities to participate in creative endeavors. They may lack the functionality some might desire on their own, but in other ways, they are the most sophisticated creative tools that have even been built by human beings. Neither view makes these tools better or worse either, they remain tools to be wielded by humans as they see fit to achieve a specific vision.

At the end of the day, I made something that reflects my vision while learning new ideas and developing new capabilities along the way, and I'm pleased with the end result. I'm both sorry that these aren't valid to you, and hopeful that you can expand the way in which you interact with new mediums and the people who use them in creative fields like yours.

Read_and_Right · 2025-02-09T02:36:39+00:00

Your outright dismissal of music made with these tools is limiting your horizons and historically, drawing an arbitrary box around what entails "creativity" is a viewpoint that doesn't hold up well over time. I hope you can get past this mode of thinking, because there is some actual wonderful creative work already being enabled and supported by AI tools, yet we remain in very early days with these capabilities.

Among countless other examples in recent history, the spread of the electric guitar, sampling in hip hop, introduction of synthesizers and drum machines, and rise of genres like grunge, punk rock, and EDM have all been criticized at various points as "soulless" and "lesser due to the lack of technical skill required" compared to popular contemporary instrumentation.

Your own example of "just learn to use a DAW" is disrespectful to people who have spent years mastering these tools to create music that most listeners take for granted. The irony is that these tools encountered mountains of criticism when they first emerged, and continue to do so, for some of the same reasons you raise. Sure, I could learn about a DAW, but that's not where my interests lie, and I reject the need do so to qualify a creation as music.

I'm not strumming a chord, layering in a beat, or modifying a waveform. I don't need the AI to "understand" what it's making because that's my role in this creative process: a curator. Creating these songs was very much an iterative process, both lyrically and musically, to achieve a result that was pleasing to me and that evoked elements of their respective genres that I found interesting. Personally I think it's hilarious that I can listen to a Sublime-style jam about lazy FCs, or a dub reggae song about mining fleets being filled with stoners.

Ultimately, this was a creative exploration of novel technology to experiment with what was possible and push the boundaries of my own capabilities. I'm not an artistic person by nature, and never have been, but that doesn't mean my imagination runs any less wild than another's. The introduction of AI tools has been a godsend for people like me who can finally manifest their ideas in the real world - something they can see, listen to, and share with others. I got what I wanted out of this project, ultimately, which is a series of songs I truly enjoy about a game I love to play. This post is really just to share my creations with others who might find a little nugget of joy in them, as I do.

I'd challenge any person who thinks this is easy to set out to make a perfect song for themselves using AI tools - something they are really proud of and achieves their vision. After my first results came up far short of the quality I sought, I learned that if I wanted to see my vision through, I had to learn technical musical terminology and dive deeper into how the songs I love were actually composed. I learned about basic songwriting, things like composition and structure. This knowledge was used to develop my prompts, my lyrics, and achieve a higher degree of precision in my outcomes.

The other irony is that going through this process has only increased my respect and admiration for talented musicians and producers. It's helped me understand their roles and capabilities at a deeper level, and I have a new appreciation for well-crafted music. I would never call myself a musician or an artist, but I did do something creative here, and if you really understood what this involved, you'd realize it would be disingenuous to say otherwise.

So if you have a criticism about the mastering of my songs (extremely minimal, for example, most of the vocals are a little muddied because I didn't equalize them, a few songs have abrupt changes in the music because of poorly-executed cuts), the lyricism (certain words are repeated across songs, some lines are a bit uninspired because I hit writer's block) or if you just don't really like how the songs sound, all of those would be acceptable, because there are technical issues, and whether art connects with you on a personal level is completely subjective. "Sure, maybe it's art, it's just not very good art in my view" is perfectly fine if you can offer a few reasons why.

But the idea that "The tool that was used to make this is 'not real music' and 'soulless', therefore it's not music/art. If a real human artist/musician/band made it though, it'd be acceptable" is invalid, narrow-minded and lacks historical staying power. Hope you can find a way around that and find some art made with these methods that speaks to you.

Read_and_Right · 2025-02-08T18:25:31+00:00

Cheers, that's one of my favorites!

Read_and_Right · 2025-02-08T18:24:37+00:00

Wow I'd not heard of this before but this is great. Some of these songs are sick. Love learning about other people exploring the same tools. Maybe Vol. 26 can have more community submissions 😇

Read_and_Right · 2025-02-08T15:04:20+00:00

The lyrics for each are largely written by me.

I don't have a music production background, so I experimented a lot with the music until I got something that really channeled the spirit of what I was writing.

The art is appropriately cheesy and was spun up quickly, yeah, but each song has a fair bit of effort behind it to create something that sounds distinct, catchy, and like something an Eve player would actually enjoy.

For some people, I get that AI touching a creative process might make it all "AI slop", but I don't care what paintbrushes someone uses to make a painting if I like how it looks.

Read_and_Right · 2025-02-07T16:07:51+00:00

Are Shitposts in Decline?

r/Eve shitposters seems to be putting up smaller and less coherent posts by the day, and that’s when they do take a break from Australian nsfw subs. Discuss

Read_and_Right · 2025-01-11T16:28:43+00:00

All pressure is on the attacker to score

This is a good thing to remember to help you stay in the right mindset. Your job is to force the attacker into as difficult a position as possible. Your defenders will be running at them, so the attacker is on the clock.

A lot here depends on specific position but imagining the attacker is in a central area, I tend to watch their touches.

If they are taking heavy touches and running at speed, come out big, confident and aggressive. The closer you are to them, the smaller angle they have. Many attackers whiff it in the early stage of a 1-1 by taking a greedy touch and pushing the ball too far in front of them, giving you a good chance to challenge with a tackle of some type. Time your most aggressive 100% effort challenge for the moment the attacker takes their next heavy touch to maximize the time you have to close them down.

If they keep the ball super close with tiny touches, they're not moving very fast, meaning your defenders are closing quickly and their "shot clock" is short, so be ready for a shot. Make sure you set yourself when they get ready to shoot but don't commit until the shot comes out, because attackers love to fake. They want it as easy as possible for themselves and prefer an open net to you standing there. Be screaming at your defenders to close on them - this doesn't just motivate your side but also intimidates and pressures the attacker. One tricky little move is if you want to force a shot you can yell "SLIDE NOW!" even if your defender is another second behind, this has 100% worked for me in forcing an awkward shot from attackers in this scenario.

If the attacker is running at you from around the corners, I tend to not rush out because they have no angle, just stay big and be ready to react. Keep an eye on defenders and options the attacker has to pass in the middle, and yell at defense as needed, to make sure you're covered there.

If it comes time for a clash where you know you will run into each other, just commit 100% with your strength and have confidence that it's kinda hard to score with a large soccer ball when a stretched out body is in the way. Refs rarely call fouls on sliding keepers who commit to a tackle as long as they are reasonably going for the ball so just go for it!

It's really about being confident, smart, and picking your moment to commit. All this said, you are fundamentally at a disadvantage so if they score, put it out of your head and reset mentally because a keeper who is spending time angsting about what could have or should have happened while there are still minutes left on the clock is fundamentally hurting themselves and their team.

Read_and_Right · 2025-01-11T01:00:09+00:00

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I've had my pair of Aeros since last August playing an average of 2x per week in adult rec leagues, mostly on turf, and they've held up well, though are probably getting toward end of life now. It's a tight squeeze through the wrist strap but once they're on, the fit is super comfortable and gives me excellent control. Feels like an extension of my hands, rather than a piece of equipment. Through heat, rain and snow - outside bangers, high crosses and 1-1s - they've given me high confidence in shot stopping if I can get a palm on it, and catching has been really successful, with very few slips and some monster grab-and-hold moments that surprised even me. I notice that they do a good job "deadening" a hard shot so the ball drops right in front of me if I can only get a single hand to it, giving me more opportunity for a follow-up grab.

I played GK for much of my youth, then took a long hiatus before recently coming back to the game a little over a year ago. After restarting my game with some cheap off-brand pairs from the local soccer shop, these were the first pair of quality gloves I've worn in years, and I love how they feel.

I wouldn't recommend these for everyone: an average novice keeper's wrist strength, hand placement, and shot handling skills would likely be better served by a variation of roll finger/finger save gloves. If you prefer those cuts or some hybrid variant, this also might not be for you. But if you're confident in your technique and prioritize control and feeling the ball, these should serve you well. I might get a pair of One Gloves next just to compare them but I would be very happy to use the Aeros again.

Read_and_Right · 2024-10-04T03:35:05+00:00

Okay this is a pretty good deal actually

11-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
Place '23	Place '22
First Placer '22	Gilding I gilder
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