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This behemoth is why everything else, including the Monaco Grand Prix post for my F1 race scrutineering series is late.

(Please don't feel sorry for me, another part of the reason is I spent the weekend fencing and then watching Women's T20 World Cup Cricket live.)

This post being delayed means I can at least feel confident that complaints that 48 teams are too much because too many less good teams will get in have been overshadowed by the performances of Qatar, Haiti and Cape Verde (Curacao, don't feel bad, Germany do that to teams).

48 teams is too many for my system and I really need to find a way to automate this into R. Yes, I know I say this every time.

Some interesting points from putting the graphs together:

All national teams except Curaçao have at least one player in their home league and at least one in a non-home league.

There are no Real Madrid players in the Spanish squad. I'm sure there was a time when that was unthinkable. Interesting, and possibly showing the strength in depth of the Spanish league, one of Barcelona B is in the Egyptian national side. Luckily, I know how to handle this from the 2025 Women's European Championships

An interesting point is that lots of teams have taken a lot longer to name replacements for injured players. Historically, they've been really short turn arounds, but Canada and Austria have taken 8-9 days to name their replacements. I'm not sure if that's a side effect of the larger squads or longer turn around times between matches.

What does this World Cup's interconnectivity diagram for the group stages look like?

Each national team and club forms a node, with links representing player connections. Larger circles indicate more interactions.

Network graph under the cutCollapse )

I've gone with a red to white colour scheme for small to large sizes because red and white are the colours present in the flags of Canada, Mexico and the United States of America.

I had to turn on the attraction distribution toggle because otherwise several of teams, particularly Ivory Coast and Türkiye, overlap significantly.

Because of the sheer number of players, and club teams they play for, labelling doesn't really help with clarification.

Labelled version of the same bar chart under the cutCollapse )

Even with attraction distribution toggled to on, there still a lot of overlap (Senegal and the Netherlands) and near overlap (Belgium and Morocco, Scotland and the United States).

You can see that some club teams do have a lot of players represented, because their circles are large even compared to the national team circles (which have 26 links, the maximum value of any circle).

The club teams with the most representatives are:
Manchester City with 19
Bayern Munich with 17
and Paris Saint-Germain with 16

Belgium are the national team closest to the centre, with Sunderland, Crystal Palace or Inter Milan the club teams closest to the centre.

The community view does some fun things.

Network graph coloured by community under the cutCollapse )

You would expect 48 colours if each team is a separate community. There are only 32 colours.

There are some interesting patterns - the two rightermost teams are the same colour, as are the three teams that cover the top of the diagram. The bubblegum light blue cluster that seem to have eaten the orange cluster have intrigued me.

If you add the labels to the community view you get some fun groups.

Labelled version of the community view diagramCollapse )

So what are the 32 groups? (These are not in order on the picture)

Groups 1-15 are individual teams separate because they have lots of players who play for clubs which feature relatively few players from other national teams

1) South Africa - grass green colour - kept separate because most of their players play for Mamelodi Sundowns or Orlando Pirates who have no non-South African players representing them.

2) Panama - dark forest green

3) New Zealand - pinky red

4) Curacao - electric light blue

5) Australia - lilac

6) South Korea - Jaguar green

7) Canada - dark red

8) Haiti - mid blue

9) Cape Verde - pale mint green

10) Colombia - mid purple

11) Czechia - pale sky blue - in their case it's all the Slavia Prague players

12) DR Congo - sort of peach

13) Bosnia and Herzegovina - pale brown

14) Qatar - bright pink

Group 15, Saudi Arabia (pale green) is where that pattern starts to break down. Saudi Arabia's players are clustered in a few teams (Al-Nassr, Al-Hilal, Al-Ahli) but other countries have players that play for them.

The next group (groups 16-20) are teams that are linked to lots of clubs with players from other countries, but they're still individual communities

16) Norway - brown

17) Scotland - pale orange

18) United States - olive yellow

19) Sweden - dark blue

20) Ghana - pale navy blue

Then we reach the multi-country groups, which I've ranked from least obvious reason for grouping to clearest.

21) Switzerland and Tunisia - pale blue - slightly inexplicable, because there are few direct links, possibly they are linked by Burnley

22) Ecuador and Mexico - mid brown - possibly linked by the UNAM and Tijuana players

23) Senegal and Argentina - pink - another vague one, the link seems to be Marseilles.

24) Algeria, Belgium and Morocco - this is the orange group eaten up by the large blue group, except Algeria who are half the diagram away. Club Brugge, Strasbourg and Napoli seem to be the link between Belgium and Morocco, then Lille links Algeria to the other two. I'm not sure if those links are the reason they're a separate orange group rather than being part of the electric blue group.

25) Japan and Croatia - pale green - makes slightly more sense, share Ajax and SC Freiburg players.

26) Austria and Germany - mid green - yes, I know. Mostly it's the number of Austrian players playing in the German league.

27) Spain and England - pale pink - linked by Arsenal, Manchester City and Barcelona.

28) Uzbekistan and Iran - bright green - clearly linked by Persepolis, Tractor and Esteghlal

29) Egypt - mid blue - Egypt seems to be separate because they link the clear Uzbekistan and Iran group and the clear Jordan and Iraq group, but are also linked to other teams as well, so don't fit into either of those groups.

30) Jordan and Iraq - bright pink - linked by Al-Karma and Al-Zawraa.

31) Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil - dark brown - linked by Palmeiras and Flamengo.

Then there is

32) Ivory Coast, Türkiye, Portugal, France, Netherlands - the electric blue group trying to eat other groups. Strongly linked by Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Sunderland. What happens to that group as the World Cup progresses is going to be interesting.

The size, shape and pattern of the network graph, and the fact that 8 of the 12 3rd place teams will go through to the second round makes predictions really hard but doing my best to interpret it (and ignoring results so far).

If the interconnectedness dos reflect competitiveness (which is a big if), then the teams that appear most isolated may struggle.

From the graph, things do not look good for Qatar, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Iran, Cape Verde, South Africa, Panama, New Zealand, Curacao, Australia.

(first person to point out that there is no one from group C in there will be shouted at).

It's after that that it gets intriguing (not just for group C)

Czechia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Saudi Arabia look to be the next 3 out, with still no one from group C.

Because the rings are quite concentric, it's really hard to tell who is the next outlier, which could be a good sign for how competitive the group stages might be.

The strength of linkage also suggests football is now global enough to justify the expansion to 48 teams.

Formula 1 2026 - Monaco Grand Prix

Or would anyone who knows who the top 10 were please stand up

I'm reasonably sure Kimi Antonelli won the race, and I'm reasonably sure Max Verstappen didn't get any points. It's everything in between I'm really not sure about.

As a racing fan, even the new regulations cannot produce racing at Monaco.

As a fan of sporting chaos, I was pretty much here:

Sickos yes meme.  It is a grubby looking man standing at a window saying yes, ha ha ha, yes.

The same imp that causes me to want Atlético Madrid to beat free-flowing teams was having a field day.

I mean, I don't think it's a brilliant look for the sport that positions are still being decided 5 days later (Gasly's Monaco third place reinstated after appeal), when the preliminary parts of the next Grand Prix have already started and it means that I can't congratulate Aston Martin on their first points of the season because I have no idea if they'll keep them.

But you can't say nothing happened at Monaco.
The most important feature is that the random check of a top 10 finisher happened in this race, supporting the theory that that check is done every two races. This means the next time should be Barcelona, which gives a way of testing the theory further.

What do you mean the race result is more important?!

Let's look at the scrutineering at the Canadian Grand Prix itself:

Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number.  The values are displayed as a standardised residual.  Car 3 (Verstappen) is the most over-scrutinized compared to expected, with a value of 0.74, followed by car 44 (Hamilton) with a value of 0.56.  Car 16 (Leclerc) is the most under-scrutinized compared to expected with a value of -0.74.  Car 31 (Ocon) is the next most under-scrutinized with a value of -0.37.  Cars 10 (Gasly), 27 (Hulkenberg), 43 (Colapinto), 77 (Bottas) and 81 (Piastri) were tested exactly as many times as expected.

The two cars most over-tested compared to expected were Verstappen (car 3, with a value of 0.74) and Hamilton (car 44, with a value of 0.56), which makes some sort of sense since they were two of the top 3.

Leclerc (car 16) was the most under-tested, with a value of -0.74 then comes Ocon (car 31 with a value of -0.37) which is unexpected since they both finished the race when other cars didn't.

Five cars were tested exactly as much as expected, the cars of Gasly, Hulkenberg, Colapinto, Bottas and Piastri.

None of the differences from expected are statistically significant (for the people who want the details, the results give χ² = 2.0109, df = 21, p-value = 1).

Looking at the season to date:

Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number.  The values are displayed as a standardised residual.  Car 44 (Hamilton) is the most over-scrutinized compared to expected, with a value of 0.62, followed by car 63 (Russell) with a value of 0.39.  Cars 6 (Hadjar) and 14 (Alonso) are the most under-scrutinized with a value of -0.47, followed by car 81 (Piastri) at -0.39.  No cars were tested exactly as many times as expected.

None of the differences from expected are statistically significant (for the people who want the details, the results give χ² = 1.6534, df = 21, p-value = 1).

The most over-tested compared to expected are Hamilton and Russell, which makes some sense given their performances. I'd expect Antonelli to be higher than he is, but that's probably the effect of small numbers (the average car, tested exactly as often as expected, would only have been tested 165 times).

The most under-tested are Hadjar and Alonso, followed by Piastri. Piastri and Alonso make some sort of sense with 2 DNFs which were DNSs for Piastri, and Alonso having 3 DNFs in 5 races. Hadjar is unexpected, because, although he's had 2 DNFs, so have Stroll, Hulkenberg and Albon who have been tested more closely to expected than Hadjar.

None of the cars have been tested exactly as many times as expected.

The most interesting result isn't who is highest or lowest. It's how much the residuals have shrunk as the season has progressed. You can't really see it on the individual post-race image. You can see it a bit if you look at the season to date residuals vs. where the numbers move towards significance at a standardised residual of +/- 2.

Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number.  The values are displayed as a standardised residual.  Same chart as before, but the X-axis now runs from -2 to +2 so the variation from 0 looks smaller.

One way to show it would be an animation of the season-to-date charts at the end of the year.

Formula 1 2026 - Canadian Grand Prix

Sprint Qualifying

Are Williams actually cursed? (We know Lawson is cursed, there seems to be a transferrable Antipodean curse, whose original victim was Mark Webber.)

The info about tyres being colder because the race is earlier in the year does explain some of the extra knocks and crashes.

The sprint race:

You know that point in recent seasons that makes Red Bull go "see, there's a reason we write number 1 and number 2 driver into contracts"? I think we've reached it. I don't blame either Mercedes driver for getting elbows out but it is going to make the rest of the season interesting.

(I am reminded of what Barrichello said about Button the year Button won the driver's title - "love the man, hate the driver".)

The full race:

Ooooh! Damp, changeable Montreal. We are being spoilt! (Sorry, after what they did to Hockenheim, the Canadian Grand Prix is my favourite.)

Poor Lindblad, the start is a terrible moment for total car failure.

Ferrari were not the team that screwed up their tyre strategy. I have no idea how to handle this information!

It was a strange day all round for McLaren, given the mechanical issue Norris had and everything that went wrong for Piastri. I think it was that anti-Antipodean curse. I just wish it hadn't pulled poor Alex Albon into its orbit.

There was racing!
I do love how excitable Harry Benjamin gets.
Inter-team racing is so much less stressful when it's not Ferrari.

Poor Russell!
Given Norris also retired with some sort of mechanical issue, is this a sign that there is a weakness in the Mercedes engine?

Perez's car falling apart might be worse than either of the engine failures.

I dread to think what Alonso's seat issues is code for, given various past seat issues for various drivers - I'm thinking of the time Hadjar's car tried to castrate him in particular.

While there was less racing after Russell retired, there was racing up until the end, which again supports the argument that the new regulations are working.

Meme Reruns

1) One line stories!
Name a pairing or character (that I know something about) and I will write one line of a story for it, or rather a sentence since we all know that my sentences have been known to be very long, and much with the subclauses.

2) Character Meme
Ask me my opinion on any character from any fandom, and I will give it. If I do not know the fandom, I will say what I think I know based on fannish osmosis.

Benford's Law - Refresh and month 1

While writing the F1 scrutineering posts, I realised that was the exact testing I needed to be doing for my Benford's Law project (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2021/03/17/obey-benfords-its-the-law-an-introduction-to-my-benfords-law-project/).

This makes it an excellent opportunity to redo that project, but better, and to finalise it.

The Benford's law project focussed on the leading digit of all numbers in the lead articles for one year of BBC.com front pages.

It began in February 2021.

The 28 daily news articles contained 436 numbers written as numbers (~ 15 per day).

The data looks like this:

Bar chart of the observed number of appearances by a leading digit compared to expected, where expected is described by a standardised residual.  One is massively over represented with a standardised residual of 4.7


Calculated, it's

X² = 37.434
df = 8
p-value = 9.576 × 10⁻⁶

The difference between the expected and the observed is statistically significant.

Therefore, the leading digits do not obey Benford's law. Obviously, this is just one month's worth of data.

Most of the deviation comes from the digits 1 and 2. 1 is massively over-represented (with a standardised residual of 4.7) and 2 is underrepresented (standardised residual of -2.4). 3, 4, 7 and 8 are present as often as they are expected, while 5, 6 and 9 are slightly under-represented, with 6 being significantly under-represented (-2.07).

Fic Intentions - Day 20

20. Any plans to work on original fiction this year?

Like I think pretty much everyone, I am working on something. In my case, a swashbuckling novel. At the moment, it is stuck in a slightly post-swashbuckle point. I try to write a little in it each Monday. I really need to write bits of it more often.

The rest of the daysCollapse )

Fic Intentions - Day 19

19. Would you consider non-fandom writing events, like NaNoWriMo or writing contests?

I have done a couple. It's fun when I have the time.

The rest of the daysCollapse )
The good news is I managed to get a place in the last 32.

The bad news is this was partly because there weren't that many fencers in the competition (only 46 of us) and I think the referee screwed up in my favour.

I can hear you saying "[real name redacted], you complain when they don't give points your way, you really can't complain when they give you points." But on the other hand, it makes me feel bad.

Yes, I know I am impossible.

From an organising point of view, it went really well. Things that definitely helped included having independent first aiders, who were expensive, but meant I didn't need to stress, especially when the one of our two first aiders that is any use had to go home because his wife was being released from hospital (she's fine).

The other thing that helped was splitting the men's and women's foil. My theory is that because they skew younger than the other two weapons and they all date each other so they wind each other up when they're on the same day.

It did mean I was fencing on the Sunday after setting up on Friday and welfare officer-ing on Saturday, which was sub-optimal but hey, it turns out turning up tired may be the solution.

Pre-pool, I warmed up with one of the other vets, and V. who leaves bruises but is the loveliest. I was thoroughly expecting to come last of the vets, because there were 4 of us, and the other three are better than me.

When my pool got called, it was the usual Birmingham horror. I got Z. for the third year in a row (not an exaggeration), who fences like me but better, which is the most frustrating thing in the universe, and always wins 5-3, H. who I've never fenced before but was great fun, J. who I've also never fenced before but is less fun, hits hard, someone better than me can probably find the holes in her technique (or rather exploit them, I can find them, couldn't do anything about them), N. who I look forward to getting many, many, many cards for covering in higher level competitions (because she has lovely nail art and it makes it really clear she covers), and D. who was another vet and who I had spent 20 years failing to beat. I fenced her at the Merseyside and nearly beat her and finally (not kidding re: 20 years) figured out how she does the voodoo that she does so well.

I only won one, against D, because I have learnt not to fall for the nonsense.

Z beat me 5-3 (as always), H 5-2 in my second favourite fight of the day, J beat me to 0 (urgh). Against N, I was losing to 4-0 and thought, stuff it, I am not getting nil-ed by someone who covers and fleched.

Given my general lack of voom, and clumsiness, I do not fleche often. It is literally a "I am about to lose horribly and I am not going to take it lying down" move (example, done better than mine here - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mGVELXbvwQ4) when I do it. Given that they don't tend to come off in training, I was remarkably happy when I got a point (so happy I startled someone watching the piste next door). Opponent was so startled she gave up the next point too. She still won, but that was only a 5-2 loss.

Why was that so important, well, I was exactly 2 points ahead on points difference (like goal difference for fencing) vs. the next of the "only won one match" cluster. That meant I didn't get T. T is a lovely young lady but she also beat me the other time we fenced (at the RAF this fencing year).

I did get A. Who I have never fenced before. And really should have lost to. Since she is both good (technically) and has national stripes.

Unfortunately, she might be one of three people on the entire tour who is shorter than me and I used my height. The other problem was that one of her attacks is a weighted beat, and my coach had been working with me on defending from those on the Thursday before.

As I said, she's a better fencer than me, but tactically I had advantages. But, for the first time in some time, the referee actually saw my parries. On the one hand, yay, because I have been practising them (after many refs not seeing them), on the other hand, suspicion ref only saw them because he's a teammate and knew what I was trying to do. I am not assuming malice, I am assuming subconscious bias. That's why I hate being reffed by club-mates.

I won 15-11, inexplicably.

My reward for that was a match against T. Which yeah, I always was going to lose, but I don't get to fence her that often so I was very happy. I got 6 and took her to the 2nd period of time so yay!

(T. came second overall and I got more hits against her than her semi-final opponent.)

That meant I won the best little old lady prize which makes me happy.

Overall, I'm very happy with how I fenced but still not sure if refs can see my parries.
Bar chart of driver numbers on the y-axis compared to standardised residual levels for the Miami Grand Prix along the x-axis.  The driver the most over-checked compared to expected is Leclerc (car 16), with a value of 0.52 compared to expected.  Cars 6 and 30 (Hadjar and Lawson) were the cars tested least compared to expected, with a value of -0.35 compared to expected.  Cars 1, 5, 18, 41, 55, 63 and 77 were tested exactly as much as expected.

So yes, they are picking on my driver, that's the only reason Leclerc (car 16) could be the most over-tested driver compared to expected.

More sensibly, none of those numbers are significantly away from expected.

There was no "extra check of a random top 10 finisher", even though there were more than 15 finishers. So the reason for the check isn't there being 15 or more finishers - that's one theory ruled out. Maybe they only do the test every other race? At least that's a testable hypothesis.

The season to date:

Bar chart of driver numbers on the y-axis compared to standardised residual levels for the season to date along the x-axis.  The driver the most over-checked compared to expected is Russell (car 63), with a value of 0.51 compared to expected.  Cars 6 (Hadjar) is the car tested least compared to expected, with a value of -0.51 compared to expected.  Cars 1, 5, 87 (Norris, Bortoleto and Bearman) were tested exactly as much as expected.

Over the season so far, Russell's car (63), is the most over-tested compared to expected. Which makes sense given he's finished all 4 races, and quite highly in all of them.

Car 6, Hadjar, is the least tested compared to expected. It makes some sense, he's not finished two of the races, but he's not alone in that. Possibly it's just a quirk of small numbers, because there have only been 136 expected tests.

1, 55 and 87 (Norris, Sainz jnr and Bearman) have been tested exactly as much as expected. That's fewer than after the Japanese Grand Prix, but I think that's because there were a lot of people had incidents during the race so there was more variation in the number of tests.

None of the differences are statistically significant.

After 4 races in of potentially 22, no drivers have been significantly over-tested, but the pattern of how close to expectation the number of checks is over the season varies, possibly as a function of small numbers at this time.

Links

Health:

What are the secrets of the superagers? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42256225

Contaminated blood report 'full of lies' - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42410301 From 2017

Law and order:

The 'completely childish' man hanged for murder - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-42370943

Does profiling make sense - or is it unfair? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-42328764

Miscellaneous:

The town that disappeared - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/the_town_that_disappeared

'Why I'm dreading Christmas': Life as a kinship carer - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42077295 As someone who got landed on relatives, looking after kinship carers is important

Photography:

Capturing East Harlem in the 80s - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-42238503

Politics:

The blight of the Border and Brexit’s toxic threat - https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-blight-of-the-border-and-brexit-s-toxic-threat-1.3316677 From 2017

Sport:

American Football:

Larry Johnson: Ex-NFL player on battle with what he thinks is chronic traumatic encephalopathy - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/american-football/42364622
The Japanese Grand Prix itself:

Bar chart of driver numbers on the y-axis compared to standardised residual levels for the Japanese Grand Prix along the x-axis.  The driver the most over-checked compared to expected is Piastri, car 81, with a value of 0.51 compared to expected.  Next is a cluster of 4 drivers, 63 - Russell, 44 - Hamilton, 10 - Gasly and 5 - Bortoleto on 0.34. 9 cars were tested exactly the amount expected.  Car 87 - Bearman was the car tested least vs. expected at -0.51, followed by car 18, Stroll, on -0.34.

Further to my theory that not finishing means less testing, once Piastri (car 81) finishes a race, he is the most tested car in that race.

With 20 finishers, the bonus testing of one of the top 10 finishers happened. This time it was Lewis Hamilton, car 44. This is more than 15 so that fits in with my theory from the Chinese Grand Prix post.

Bearman (car 87), one of the two non-finishers, was the least tested car. Stroll, car 18, the other non-finisher, is the second least tested. This supports the theory that non-finishers get tested less.

As with the previous races, none of the differences are statistically significant.

Season to date up until the end of the Japanese Grand Prix

Bar chart of driver numbers on the y-axis compared to standardised residual levels for the season, up to the Japanese Grand Prix, along the x-axis.  The driver the most over-checked compared to expected is Russell, car 63, with a value of 0.59 compared to expected.  There are a cluster of 7 cars with exactly the expected number of tests.  Car 14, Alonso, is the least tested compared to expected (with -0.59).

Russell (car 63) was the most tested compared to expected with a standard residual of 0.59.

Alonso (car 14) was the least tested compared to expected, possibly because of how few laps that Aston Martin has finished this season.

One good race has catapulted Piastri from the most under-measured to the middle of the pack. This demonstrates why I think the numbers will tend towards the expected as the season progresses, except for possibly the drivers who are frequently in the top 10 and those whose cars do not finish.

None of the differences are statistically significant, and now 7 drivers are exactly on expected, fitting in with the theory that the numbers will converge as the season progresses.

Fic Intentions Meme - Day 18

18. Do you typically post multi-chapters as you write, or finish it all and then start posting? Would you like to change your posting method?

After painful previous experience of my inspiration plain old drying up mid-way through a story, I now only allow myself to post a chapter after the next chapter is written. It's the happy mid-point between security that I will finish the damn thing and my inner "hamster of wanting feedback".

(This will become important as two of the next three fics after the 3 Sentence Fics go on AO3 are multi-chapter fics.)

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3 Sentence Fics

These are my fills - my prompts didn't get any responses, but they were all obscure fandoms so I completely understand.

Fandom: Any horror fandom
Prompt: horror, any final girl, you know that she should be screaming
Fill: Silence
(Slightly off prompt since it's not for any existing specific film)

SilenceCollapse )

Fandom: Hamlet
Prompt: Hamlet, Laertes, a word, a wound, deeper than the cut of any blade
Fill: Drowned

DrownedCollapse )

Fandom: Robin Hood (2006)
Prompt: Any, any, unsuccessful redemption arc
I've gone with Guy of Gisborne in the 2006 Robin Hood because ... dude, that was his story
Fill: Every Failure Is Worse

Every failure is worseCollapse )

Fandom: Ghostbusters
Prompt: Ghostbusters (1984), Any one of the 4 Ghostbusters, Getting offers to do commercials.
Fill: Ramen

RamenCollapse )

Fandom: Wrestling
Prompt: Any, any, When did we get so old?

I've gone with Randy, a Randy who is having to look over his shoulder at Gunther who's new thing is awfully close to the old Legend Killer gimmick.

Fill: Replacement

ReplacementCollapse )

Fandom: Greek Myth
Prompt: Greek mythology, Cerberus, he doesn't understand how "normal" dogs get by with only one head
Fill: Three Heads Are Better Than One

Three Heads Are Better Than OneCollapse )

Fandom: Revenge
Prompt: stats, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires

Conrad Grayson, from Revenge, this prompt was made for you.

Fill: Audit

AuditCollapse )

Fandom: MCU
Prompt: MCU, any, tell me something true

Natasha and Clint, you are my go to, as always

Fill: A Truth

A truthCollapse )

Fandom: Dune (Villeneuve films)
Prompt: any non-genderswapped f/f

Fill: Bloodlines (Margot Fenring/Princess Irulan)

BloodlinesCollapse )

Fandom: Doctor Who
Prompt: any, any, "How did we lose the prisoner!?" "We forgot to cherish them."

How am I supposed to resist writing River Song fic to that.

Fill: River Song - Perpetual Escape Artist

River Song - Perpetual Escape ArtistCollapse )

Fandom: Mad Max: Fury Road
Prompt: any, any, Mad Max Fury Road driver's ed

Borrowing bits from Furiosa

Fill: Hold Her Steady

Hold Her SteadyCollapse )

Fandom: Zootropolis 2
Prompt: any, any, mob princess

Fru Fru is my favourite and I can't help it.

Fill: Queen of the Castle

Queen of the CastleCollapse )

Fandom: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
Prompt: Any, any twins, who’s the older twin?

Spoilers up to Ceres and canonical character death.

Fill: Older

OlderCollapse )

Tags:

The Big Sleep

Yes - I'm working through Mum's library.

Like "The High Window", the best thing about "The Big Sleep" is the setting and characterisation, not so much the plot. There's a fantastic patina of filth surrounding the crimes and this idea that crime dirties all it touches, with Philip Marlowe desperately trying to be good in a world that makes it difficult.

Definitely worth reading.

LibraryThing SuggestionCollapse )

Of those I've read and bounced off The Maltese Falcon.

Fic Intentions Meme - Day 17

17. Do you typically answer all comments/reviews individually? Do you plan to change the way you interact with your readers this year?

Of course I answer them all :) All feedback is a joy.

No plans to change that :)

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Results from the Chinese Grand Prix

My first observation of the scrutineering at the Chinese Grand Prix is that different things are checked at different Grands Prix.

That makes some sort of sense. F1 engineers are a bunch of overgrown schoolboys and girls looking for a way to get around the rules. If you always checked the same things, they'd make sure those things were legal and that everything else wasn't. But, at the same time, there is no way to check everything on every F1 car every race. So always checking most important things and varying which of the other things you check makes sense.

On the other hand, some of the differences don't make sense.

An example is that, after the Australian Grand Prix, one of the top 10 finishers (car 63 - George Russell) was chosen for "more extensive physical checks". After the Chinese Grand Prix, no car was similarly chosen.

I don't think it was number of finishers, Australia had 16, China had 15. Possibly >15 is the cut off? It's something I'll keep an eye on as the season progresses.

Below is a bar chart of the number of checks compared to expectation (measured using standard residuals).

Driver numbers on the y axis compared to standardised residual levels for the Chinese Grand Prix.  The driver the most over-checked compared to expected is Leclerc, car 16, with a value of 0.54 compared to expected.  Next is a cluster of 4 drivers, 63 - Russell, 55 - Sainz, 31 - Ocon and 10 - Gasly on 0.36.  Car 30 - Lawson, was tested the exact expected number of times.  81 - Piastri, 23 - Albon and 14 - Alonso were tested the least compared to expected, with a deviation of -0.72.

The most tested driver is Leclerc, while Piastri, Albon and Alonso are the least tested. None of the differences from expected are statistically significant.

Most of the under-tested drivers are those that either did not start or had to retire from the race which supports the theory that under-testing is related to not completing the race.

The season up to the end of the Chinese Grand Prix:

The same sort of diagram but now covering all testing up to the end of the Chinese Grand Prix.  Cars 63 (George Russell) and 31 (Esteban Ocon) are the most over-tested compared to expectation.  Car 81 (Oscar Piastri) is the least-tested compared to expectation.  55 (Sainz), 30 (Lawson), 12 (Antonelli) and 10 (Gasly) have been tested exactly as much as expected.

Piastri (car 81) being the most under-tested supports my theory that the under-testing is due to not finishing and is exacerbated by him not even starting those races.

George Russell (car 63) being one of the most over-tested I can explain because of how well he and Mercedes have done. Ocon (car 31) being equally over-tested, I can't explain, because Haas haven't performed as well as Mercedes and Ocon isn't the top-performing Haas driver.

The number of drivers that have been tested exactly the number of expected time, now 4 rather than the 2 after the Australian Grand Prix, also makes sense if, as hypothesised, the number of tests will converge towards expected as the season continues.

Fic Intentions Meme - Day 16

16. Do you have that one fanfic that you wrote a ton for, ages ago, but never posted? Will this be the year, come hell or high water, that it WILL get finished and posted?

Those who have suffered at least 20 years of the "Red is writing this" will be pleased to know that I have started part 4 of Swings and Roundabouts.

(None of that is a joke or an exaggeration.)

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Fic Intentions Meme - Day 15

15. Do you foresee any personal or professional obstacles in 2018 2026, that would keep you from creating fanworks?

As you can see by the gaps in responses, RL things keep intervening in my everything.

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Fencing

Since I am now ... many years late with fencing reports while I will write the catch up ones, I am going to write up this year's Birmingham and onwards in a more timeline manner.

There will be 4 fencing posts if you want to avoid them :)

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