A black-and-white photo of a person mid-air in a Superman-style body suspension pose, supported by multiple hooks in their back and legs, smiling joyfully toward the camera. They are suspended horizontally in a large indoor space with high ceilings and visible rigging. A group of onlookers—some seated, some standing—watch with expressions of admiration, amusement, and support. The atmosphere is lively and communal, capturing a moment of shared experience and transformation.

A Ship That Can Really Boogie

One of the questions that’s been occupying my mind lately, is if you have about 175,000 sentences made up of about 2.3 million words total (ie. the titles and descriptions for all the pictures in the main tattoo gallery on BME), how do you quickly generate a list of the most popular phrases between 1 and 6 words long? As a programmer, these are the types of problems I greatly enjoy because on one hand it seems like a difficult thing to do because there’s so much data, but on the other hand, it almost always has a fast and elegant solution… I need this function to do automatic keywording, so for example, once a subject becomes popular enough in the tattoo galleries, it automatically gets its own gallery.

It’s actually really very easy to do this type of analysis… In my case I use a quick parsing function (written in assembly so it’s very efficient) to create a giant array of every phrase in every entry (about ten million entries), which is then sorted with a shell sort function, also written in assembly. At that point it’s a simple matter of counting the repeats to get the answer to the question — the whole process takes seconds. Incidentally, in the tattoo gallery right now there are about 2,000 useful keywords, and about 12,000 that aren’t useful — drove myself bonkers sorting them manually, but luckily it only has to be done once. Later today I think I’ll post some themed entries here from that data.

The other question that’s been occupying my mind lately, as I read the ModBlog comment forums, is why y’all gotta by such haters? For that purpose, I offer up this sacrificial lamb.

 the-good-ship-independance.jpg

Comments

178 responses to “A Ship That Can Really Boogie”

  1. Dimruthien Avatar

    Did you completely miss the fact that I also mentioned people who stumble across this blog from another place and are unaware of the contents, or did that fly over your overstuffed head?

    It must have.

    Enjoy being up on your self righteous pedestal, become one day, karma is going to come back and kick you in the ass, and it’ll be a long way down off your high horse, Shannon.

  2. Dimruthien Avatar

    Did you completely miss the fact that I also mentioned people who stumble across this blog from another place and are unaware of the contents, or did that fly over your overstuffed head?

    It must have.

    Enjoy being up on your self righteous pedestal, become one day, karma is going to come back and kick you in the ass, and it’ll be a long way down off your high horse, Shannon.

  3. Shannon Avatar

    Dim – I didn’t miss it, I just don’t take seriously the suggestion that I need to stress over people who randomly fall right into the cutting section of BME. The only way I see that happen is if they’re actually searching for this type of material.

    You can have all the insulting tantrums you want, but really, I’m not going to plaster BME with warnings in a way that suits your need to abdicate personal responsibility. People need to grow up and take responsibility for themselves and their actions. The excuse of “no one warned me that I might lose control” is pathetic.

  4. Shannon Avatar

    Dim – I didn’t miss it, I just don’t take seriously the suggestion that I need to stress over people who randomly fall right into the cutting section of BME. The only way I see that happen is if they’re actually searching for this type of material.

    You can have all the insulting tantrums you want, but really, I’m not going to plaster BME with warnings in a way that suits your need to abdicate personal responsibility. People need to grow up and take responsibility for themselves and their actions. The excuse of “no one warned me that I might lose control” is pathetic.

  5. Dimruthien Avatar

    So are you, Shannon. So are you.

  6. Dimruthien Avatar

    So are you, Shannon. So are you.

  7. ginger Avatar
    ginger

    well i suffer from mental illness, and if i am having a particularly bad day, i tend to concentrate on and stick to positive sites, i don’t even go near anything that might have some trigger in it….so as shannon says…a person who stumbles across the and ritual cuttings on BME are probably looking for it…..

  8. ginger Avatar
    ginger

    well i suffer from mental illness, and if i am having a particularly bad day, i tend to concentrate on and stick to positive sites, i don’t even go near anything that might have some trigger in it….so as shannon says…a person who stumbles across the and ritual cuttings on BME are probably looking for it…..

  9. ChillyMama Avatar

    Shannon: “These are real people, with real feelings.”

    Offering their tats up for sacrifice is certainly a dignified way of honoring that.

    [email protected]: “Maybe their child tattooed it on?”

    A fine example of the dichotomy of hate/non-hate policy on ModBlog. Well said, Caitlin.

  10. ChillyMama Avatar

    Shannon: “These are real people, with real feelings.”

    Offering their tats up for sacrifice is certainly a dignified way of honoring that.

    [email protected]: “Maybe their child tattooed it on?”

    A fine example of the dichotomy of hate/non-hate policy on ModBlog. Well said, Caitlin.

  11. Lananaroux Avatar
    Lananaroux

    Oh #23, how could you.

  12. Lananaroux Avatar
    Lananaroux

    Oh #23, how could you.

  13. Southern Belle Avatar

    what’s up, house tattoo

  14. Southern Belle Avatar

    what’s up, house tattoo

  15. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Not to put words in Shannon’s mouth, but the phrase “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” has been used to describe his philosophy of life, and that’s one of the reasons people (and myself) admire him.

    That said, constructuve criticism is always always always better appreciated. People have the right to say “this sucks”. People have the right to say “please don’t say this sucks” too. But over all, I think many here would like to see more of “I think this sucks, because…” and some elaboration instead of just “this sucks”.

  16. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Not to put words in Shannon’s mouth, but the phrase “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” has been used to describe his philosophy of life, and that’s one of the reasons people (and myself) admire him.

    That said, constructuve criticism is always always always better appreciated. People have the right to say “this sucks”. People have the right to say “please don’t say this sucks” too. But over all, I think many here would like to see more of “I think this sucks, because…” and some elaboration instead of just “this sucks”.

  17. fireship Avatar
    fireship

    Dimruthien. . .for someone who disapproves of Shannon and his efforts so vehemently, you’re certainly putting a lot of time and energy into trying to legitimize yourself here. Maybe you should spend that energy elsewhere.

  18. fireship Avatar
    fireship

    Dimruthien. . .for someone who disapproves of Shannon and his efforts so vehemently, you’re certainly putting a lot of time and energy into trying to legitimize yourself here. Maybe you should spend that energy elsewhere.

  19. christina Avatar
    christina

    Christyn/#25: agree 110%.

    As long as the wearer is happy with the job, what else matters? According to the “golden rule” around here, aren’t we supposed to defend a person’s right to do whatever they want, from extreme surgery to what you may consider a bad tattoo? I understand the reasons for demonstrating a poorly executed piercing/implant etc, but tattoos are inherently art and art is friekin’ subjective!

    Personally, I see no difference in this tattoo compared to:

    1) the post-modern tattoos that have been featured recently (e.g. Lionel from Out of Step Tattoo)
    2) a tattoo given by your six year old
    3) tattoos by Howie/Cere
    4) any other tattoo that has personal meaning

    honestly, in reading posts/articles like these I shudder thinking about what you elitists would say about some tattoos that mean the world to their owners.

    /soapbox.

    (as a side note though: being a former cutter, seeing pictures of open wounds of other cutters actually *deterred* me from cutting myself.)

  20. christina Avatar
    christina

    Christyn/#25: agree 110%.

    As long as the wearer is happy with the job, what else matters? According to the “golden rule” around here, aren’t we supposed to defend a person’s right to do whatever they want, from extreme surgery to what you may consider a bad tattoo? I understand the reasons for demonstrating a poorly executed piercing/implant etc, but tattoos are inherently art and art is friekin’ subjective!

    Personally, I see no difference in this tattoo compared to:

    1) the post-modern tattoos that have been featured recently (e.g. Lionel from Out of Step Tattoo)
    2) a tattoo given by your six year old
    3) tattoos by Howie/Cere
    4) any other tattoo that has personal meaning

    honestly, in reading posts/articles like these I shudder thinking about what you elitists would say about some tattoos that mean the world to their owners.

    /soapbox.

    (as a side note though: being a former cutter, seeing pictures of open wounds of other cutters actually *deterred* me from cutting myself.)

  21. funkylamb Avatar

    Isn’t it “ceredependance” or something (dependent on Cere perhaps)? Look at all the c’s in the flags etc…

  22. funkylamb Avatar

    Isn’t it “ceredependance” or something (dependent on Cere perhaps)? Look at all the c’s in the flags etc…

  23. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    Actually, were BME to post any such type warnings they would then be open to much legal meanderings. Much like “beware of guard dog” sign is a no-no.

  24. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    Actually, were BME to post any such type warnings they would then be open to much legal meanderings. Much like “beware of guard dog” sign is a no-no.

  25. jonah Avatar
    jonah

    umm, that doesn’t say indepenarse..
    i think?
    because all of the n’s look the same.
    so its just independance? ..
    i’m not even sure if that’s spelled correctly.
    O;

  26. jonah Avatar
    jonah

    umm, that doesn’t say indepenarse..
    i think?
    because all of the n’s look the same.
    so its just independance? ..
    i’m not even sure if that’s spelled correctly.
    O;

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