Roberto Medri

european football has spent the past fifteen years solving futbol like chess. a generation of coaches optimized for pass completion, pressing triggers, territorial control, rest defense, and positional occupation. the problem of this is that they optimize for what is measurable. depth, the willingness to attack space early, attempt the difficult pass, dribble past a defender, or deliberately create chaos, is a high variance play. it fails more often than it succeeds. if you evaluate players by completion rate, ball retention, or positional discipline, those actions look like mistakes. so they get coached out. eventually, everyone converges toward the same local optimum. the game becomes increasingly legible. every team occupies similar spaces, presses in similar ways, builds from the back with similar patterns, and minimizes the same risks. systems become better at defeating other systems, but worse at dealing with players who refuse to behave like systems. south american football never fully abandoned the duel as the fundamental unit of the game. the 1v1 remained sacred. so did the tactical foul, the unpredictable dribble, and the player willing to lose possession five times if the sixth breaks the match open. the objective was never simply to preserve structure, it was to create someone capable of destroying the opponent’s structure. football is not won by completing the most passes. it is won by scoring more goals than the other team. those are related, but they are not the same objective. this is the danger of optimizing proxies. when everyone optimizes the same measurements, they stop optimizing for victory itself. they optimize for looking efficient. italy may have been the first major european football culture to lose part of its identity this way. its historical advantage was never athletic superiority or perfect positional play. it was tactical asymmetry, unpredictability, and an instinct for making matches uncomfortable. as italian football converged toward the same coaching model as the rest of europe, it gradually surrendered the qualities that had made it different. the broader lesson extends well beyond football. every optimization process eventually risks becoming self-defeating. metrics become targets. proxies replace objectives. variance is mistaken for error. the outliers capable of breaking the system disappear because the system itself learns to eliminate them.

En confisquant le pouvoir au peuple vénézuélien, en le privant de ses libertés fondamentales, Nicolás Maduro a porté une atteinte grave à sa dignité et à son droit à l'auto-détermination. La France s'est engagée avec constance, notamment par ses actions de médiation, en faveur du respect de la souveraineté du peuple vénézuélien, dont la voix doit primer. L'opération militaire ayant conduit à la capture de Nicolás Maduro contrevient au principe de non-recours à la force qui fonde le droit international. La France rappelle qu'aucune solution politique durable ne saurait être imposée de l'extérieur et que les peuples souverains décident seuls de leur avenir. La multiplication des violations de ce principe par des nations investies de la responsabilité principale de membre permanent du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies aura de lourdes conséquences sur la sécurité du monde, qui n'épargneront personne. Instruite par l'Histoire, la France s'y prépare, mais ne peut s'y résoudre. Elle réitère son attachement à la Charte des Nations unies, qui doit continuer de guider l’action internationale des États, toujours et partout.

> "Why is it so hard for my kid to tell b and d apart?" Nothing's wrong, this is normal. EVERY child confuses b and d because of how our brains are wired. Our brains are rotation invariant by default. If a dog runs past you to your right, and then turns around and runs past you to your left, it's still a dog! But that's not the case when it comes to reading. If a lowercase "b" turns around, it becomes an entirely new thing. Now it's a lowercase "d"! So to tell "b" and "d" apart, we actually have to untrain some of your brain's default settings. We have to teach it that direction matters. And then have to teach it which one is b, and which one is d. The trick that's been most effective for us in Mentava is reminding kids "b has a belly, d has a diaper" (see picture). Make sure they can differentiate the stick figures first. Then get rid of the arms and legs but keep asking, "which is belly / which is diaper?" Once they can reliably tell "belly" from "diaper" (meaning they're understanding that direction matters), you can ask them which is "b" and which is "d". For young kids, you might even need to ask them "what's the first sound in belly", "what's the first sound in diaper?" Without making that connection, they might not understand why the mnemonic is helpful! Always break learning down into tiny steps and don't assume kids know the things that you take for granted. Getting those little details correct makes teaching way more effective.

extremely important finding don’t tell your model you’re rewarding it for A and then reward it for B, or it will learn you’re its adversary

Iga Swiatek hasn't won an event since she came back from her 1 month drugs ban in December. I suspect that Jannik Sinner will also suffer to win events when he returns from his 3 months drugs ban. I don't think either of them getting preferential and short bans will help them.

Un altro nonsense del Post sull’Argentina. È come dire: “Gli italiani hanno perso potere d’acquisto, perciò vanno a spendere in Svizzera”. Se gli argentini vanno a spendere in Brasile non è perché s’è svalutato il peso🇦🇷 ma il real🇧🇷 (oltre alle storture sui vincoli all’import).