30 Days of Star Trek - Day 16 - Favorite Voyager Episode

Meld - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Meld_(episode)

I am one of the people who prefers the early seasons. They never really go into the stuff I found most narratively interesting - the integration of the Maquis crew into Voyager's crew, the things they run out of, the compromises they have to make to try to get back home - or rather they touch it but barely and never with any major consequences (with a couple of exceptions).

My interest in Voyager pretty much went with the Kazon.

I like Meld because it does touch on those things - the sort of person who volunteers for the Maquis is going to be unusual, someone who volunteers despite not being from Demilitarised Zone, is going to be even more unusual and might not have good reasons for volunteering (and Suder's really aren't good reasons). Someone like that, they're going to have issues integrating into Starfleet.

And Starfleet, being based in the Federation, is equally going to have issues coping with them.

At the centre of the episode is an excellent performance from Brad Dourif, who does a fantastic absent, which I imagine is even harder to do than it looks. Suder is bleak.

I also really like the push-me-pull-you of Tuvok's calm being completely eroded by the mind meld and how much of everyone's control is who they are versus what they could be without that control.

(Also Suder in Basic breaks my heart)

The final part doesn't quite work but I appreciate the attempt.

( The other days under the cut )

Withdrawals from the 2024 Tour de France

I was going to say that there were relatively few withdrawals, and then stage 12 happened (https://www.rouleur.cc/blogs/the-rouleur-journal/from-covid-to-crashes-how-stage-12-of-the-tour-de-france).

From a viz perspective, it's interesting because you can see stage 11 and 12 happening to the peleton in the picture.



Or, you can't half tell which week had the mountain stages.

You can also see the race happening to Astana (the red-orange line) in the Kaplan Meier split out by teams.

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The next visualisation is a pie chart of withdrawals by stage.

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The interesting thing is that while normally there's maybe 2 or 3 stages that stand out for having a lot of withdrawals, in 2024, there were no real standout "evil" stages.

All withdrawals



Did not start the stage withdrawals are most of the withdrawals, which is possibly because it takes over night for the riders to realise they are too injured to continue. Adrenaline is a terrible thing.

Withdrawals by week by type

Week 1's withdrawals were all either Did Not Starts or mid-stage Abandonments

( Pie chart under the cut )

Week 2 featured Did Not Starts, mid-stage Abandonments and some Outside the Time Limit withdrawals.

( Pie chart under the cut )

Week 3 also features all three kinds of withdrawals.

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Withdrawals by type by week

( 3 pie charts under the cut )

That's another set of charts that shows most of the mountain stages were in week 2, because those are the stages where people are most likely to be over the time limit.

This series was originally intended to see if more riders withdraw in Olympics years (and showed that they don't - https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2023/11/18/withdrawals-in-week-3-of-the-2023-tour-de-france-an-overall-round-up-and-confirmation-that-the-olympics-didnt-cause-more-withdrawals/), it's interesting to see that there are two groups of races when you compare the withdrawal Kaplan Meier charts since 2020, and two curve shapes.



I can maybe explain 2021's shape being different, although the end point isn't significantly different, because of the COVID withdrawals. 2021 was also the last year before the riders reduced in number, which might explain the two clumps. It's easier for a wounded but not out rider to hide in a pack, whether that pack is his own team, or a larger groupetto.