mark thompson
@markposts.bsky.social
data software engineer @ Twenty3 Sports || sport for all || (he/him) || ⚽🎾💻📰🏎️🤖
Dyche Lasso being confused about all this will fill episodes one through five
mid 90s devils already did the neutral zone trap with a goalie who could hoof it. they changed a bunch of rules because of them (two line pass, goalie trapezoid, smaller goalie pads, more obstruction penalties).
February 9, 2026 at 9:43 PM
Dyche Lasso being confused about all this will fill episodes one through five
this sport is amazing
The boards and glass aren't uniform either. For instance, Detroit's old Joe Louis Arena used to be known for its "bouncy" dasher boards
February 9, 2026 at 9:26 PM
this sport is amazing
the English Ted Lasso: Sean Dyche rocks up in the NHL, screws up the ice to frustrate higher-quality teams, and rocks the world with long puck hockey
You could. I don't think it's done on purpose because no team generally has the advantage. You might hear announcers say the ice "isn't good," which can come from temp variation in the rink or machine issues/different refrigeration systems.
February 9, 2026 at 9:25 PM
the English Ted Lasso: Sean Dyche rocks up in the NHL, screws up the ice to frustrate higher-quality teams, and rocks the world with long puck hockey
if I knew anything about ice hockey tactics (and had data and, moreso, time) I'd be lacing up my analytics skates tomorrow
Yes. “Good" ice is generally characterized by being hard, cold, and smooth, allowing for maximum speed and predictable puck movement. "Bad" ice is typically soft, warm, or rough, which increases friction and causes the puck to bounce or "suction" to the surface. Good and bad ice impacts skating too
February 9, 2026 at 9:22 PM
if I knew anything about ice hockey tactics (and had data and, moreso, time) I'd be lacing up my analytics skates tomorrow
can't believe that - having worked almost solely in football - I've been blessed by a sport with a spherical ball
I would say, yes.
Puck orientation (flat v. on-edge) significantly impacts control in both shooting and passing. A flat puck allows for better stickhandling, and more accurate shots when shooting quickly and powerfully.
If there’s data that shows otherwise, I would love to see it.
Puck orientation (flat v. on-edge) significantly impacts control in both shooting and passing. A flat puck allows for better stickhandling, and more accurate shots when shooting quickly and powerfully.
If there’s data that shows otherwise, I would love to see it.
February 9, 2026 at 9:13 PM
can't believe that - having worked almost solely in football - I've been blessed by a sport with a spherical ball
Got an ice hockey data question: does it make a meaningful difference what 'orientation' the puck is in to executing technique? Is that a thing that an Old School Hockey Type might moan that xG doesn't factor in?
February 9, 2026 at 8:45 PM
Got an ice hockey data question: does it make a meaningful difference what 'orientation' the puck is in to executing technique? Is that a thing that an Old School Hockey Type might moan that xG doesn't factor in?
Reposted by mark thompson
Women’s Super League Football, the organisation which oversees the top two tiers of women’s football in England, is monitoring developments with X’s artificial intelligence tool Grok due to concerns regarding its creation of sexualised images.
More from @charpur.bsky.social
bit.ly/4ai5rn6
More from @charpur.bsky.social
bit.ly/4ai5rn6
February 9, 2026 at 8:22 PM
Women’s Super League Football, the organisation which oversees the top two tiers of women’s football in England, is monitoring developments with X’s artificial intelligence tool Grok due to concerns regarding its creation of sexualised images.
More from @charpur.bsky.social
bit.ly/4ai5rn6
More from @charpur.bsky.social
bit.ly/4ai5rn6
skill issue
AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It || "[...] employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so."
hbr.org/2026/02/ai-d...
AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It || "[...] employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so."
hbr.org/2026/02/ai-d...
AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It
One of the promises of AI is that it can reduce workloads so employees can focus more on higher-value and more engaging tasks. But according to new research, AI tools don’t reduce work, they consisten...
hbr.org
February 9, 2026 at 5:35 PM
skill issue
AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It || "[...] employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so."
hbr.org/2026/02/ai-d...
AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It || "[...] employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so."
hbr.org/2026/02/ai-d...
Reposted by mark thompson
Free newsletter: I'm leaving Substack and moving to Ghost.
First delivery from the Ghost platform will come tomorrow!
open.substack.com/pub/tacticsf...
First delivery from the Ghost platform will come tomorrow!
open.substack.com/pub/tacticsf...
Giving up the ghost on Substack
TacticsFreeZone™ is moving to Ghost
open.substack.com
February 9, 2026 at 4:30 PM
Free newsletter: I'm leaving Substack and moving to Ghost.
First delivery from the Ghost platform will come tomorrow!
open.substack.com/pub/tacticsf...
First delivery from the Ghost platform will come tomorrow!
open.substack.com/pub/tacticsf...
Realised that this is just the Douglas Adams theory of technological development
I'm really lucky that these coding models hit at *just* the point where my coding skills were decent enough to already be turning my thinking to software design
I am absolutely convinced that AI tools convince people that they're coding gods because they are extremely efficient at solving (read: copy pasting) solutions to the leetcode-style problems they're trained on.
But they are no replacement for software *design* when the going gets tough.
But they are no replacement for software *design* when the going gets tough.
February 9, 2026 at 1:36 PM
Realised that this is just the Douglas Adams theory of technological development
Reposted by mark thompson
Bravo to journalist @romain-molina.bsky.social for having ceaselessly investigated sex abusers in the world of football and defied those who protected them, from France to Haiti and Gabon, at great personal risk to himself. Thanks to his work, another of those criminals has been arrested.
Daniel Ella Ndong dit "Lesage", coach à la section féminine de l'Union Sportive d'Oyem, a été écroué pour viol sur une fillette de 12 ans
Depuis nos révélations sur les réseaux pédocriminels au sein du sport gabonais, il s'agit du septième à tomber en prison
gabonallsport.com/foot-feminin...
Depuis nos révélations sur les réseaux pédocriminels au sein du sport gabonais, il s'agit du septième à tomber en prison
gabonallsport.com/foot-feminin...
Foot Féminin-Viol/Un entraîneur de football féminin écroué pour viol sur mineure à Oyem - Gabonallsport
L’entraîneur de la section féminine de l’Union Sportive d’Oyem (USO), âgé de 40 ans, est actuellement en garde à vue dans les locaux de la police judiciaire (PJ) de la ville pour viol d’une fillette d...
gabonallsport.com
February 9, 2026 at 10:44 AM
Bravo to journalist @romain-molina.bsky.social for having ceaselessly investigated sex abusers in the world of football and defied those who protected them, from France to Haiti and Gabon, at great personal risk to himself. Thanks to his work, another of those criminals has been arrested.
Reposted by mark thompson
A single ball knower would build a setting to delay our feed up to 5 minutes when we’re watching the sports games.
Something annoying to me personally is none of the key owner/operators of social media platforms seem to enjoy sports. I think they’d be run somewhat differently if that weren’t the case.
February 8, 2026 at 8:18 PM
A single ball knower would build a setting to delay our feed up to 5 minutes when we’re watching the sports games.
Not being able to hear the ref's on-mic decision is the icing on the cake
Weirdly, unexpectedly the most absurd end to a football match I've seen
February 8, 2026 at 6:31 PM
Not being able to hear the ref's on-mic decision is the icing on the cake
AND THERE'S STILL MORE
Weirdly, unexpectedly the most absurd end to a football match I've seen
February 8, 2026 at 6:30 PM
AND THERE'S STILL MORE
Weirdly, unexpectedly the most absurd end to a football match I've seen
February 8, 2026 at 6:28 PM
Weirdly, unexpectedly the most absurd end to a football match I've seen
Reposted by mark thompson
A lot of the ASA-erati attended the @americansoccerinsights.com summit at Rice University last week, and people wanted to talk about their experience.
So we convened the ASA roundtable for highlights.
www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2026/2/7/asa-roundtable-american-soccer-insights-summit
So we convened the ASA roundtable for highlights.
www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2026/2/7/asa-roundtable-american-soccer-insights-summit
ASA Roundtable: American Soccer Insights Summit — American Soccer Analysis
At the end of January, many members of our ASA Community headed down to Rice University in Houston to talk a whole lot of soccer analytics. ASA Slack was buzzing around so much we figured we’d convene...
www.americansocceranalysis.com
February 7, 2026 at 9:31 PM
A lot of the ASA-erati attended the @americansoccerinsights.com summit at Rice University last week, and people wanted to talk about their experience.
So we convened the ASA roundtable for highlights.
www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2026/2/7/asa-roundtable-american-soccer-insights-summit
So we convened the ASA roundtable for highlights.
www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2026/2/7/asa-roundtable-american-soccer-insights-summit
I don't watch a lot of rugby but that's gotta be the quickest yellow card after entering the pitch that I've seen
February 7, 2026 at 5:57 PM
I don't watch a lot of rugby but that's gotta be the quickest yellow card after entering the pitch that I've seen
Head on over to bsky.app/profile/did:... for a stream of light football posts. You can follow @blueskysportsbar.bsky.social if you want your football posts to be pulled* into the feed
*the algo is a work in progress but it's still pretty good
*the algo is a work in progress but it's still pretty good
February 7, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Head on over to bsky.app/profile/did:... for a stream of light football posts. You can follow @blueskysportsbar.bsky.social if you want your football posts to be pulled* into the feed
*the algo is a work in progress but it's still pretty good
*the algo is a work in progress but it's still pretty good
I find it annoying that @bsky.app has such a good feature but it's not obvious to me how to easily grab a link to the feed during general use of the app/website
Gonna try and tweak something on the Live Football Chat feed to weed out some of the more obvious Six Nations chat
February 7, 2026 at 4:47 PM
I find it annoying that @bsky.app has such a good feature but it's not obvious to me how to easily grab a link to the feed during general use of the app/website
Gonna try and tweak something on the Live Football Chat feed to weed out some of the more obvious Six Nations chat
February 7, 2026 at 4:40 PM
Gonna try and tweak something on the Live Football Chat feed to weed out some of the more obvious Six Nations chat
We are so, so close to that guy finally being able to cut his hair #footy-live
February 7, 2026 at 2:12 PM
We are so, so close to that guy finally being able to cut his hair #footy-live
I'm a little uneasy about pressing the accelerator on this kinda thing, but an LLM agent self-developing a framework for social media interaction made something that would be useful to, like, 30% of bsky
February 7, 2026 at 1:57 PM
I'm a little uneasy about pressing the accelerator on this kinda thing, but an LLM agent self-developing a framework for social media interaction made something that would be useful to, like, 30% of bsky
The recent United men's team performances are a good example of how players aren't just one static 'quality'. There are times over the past few seasons when a Casemiro-Mainoo double pivot would've been heavily targeted
February 7, 2026 at 1:41 PM
The recent United men's team performances are a good example of how players aren't just one static 'quality'. There are times over the past few seasons when a Casemiro-Mainoo double pivot would've been heavily targeted
I'm really lucky that these coding models hit at *just* the point where my coding skills were decent enough to already be turning my thinking to software design
I am absolutely convinced that AI tools convince people that they're coding gods because they are extremely efficient at solving (read: copy pasting) solutions to the leetcode-style problems they're trained on.
But they are no replacement for software *design* when the going gets tough.
But they are no replacement for software *design* when the going gets tough.
February 7, 2026 at 9:51 AM
I'm really lucky that these coding models hit at *just* the point where my coding skills were decent enough to already be turning my thinking to software design