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. missxannabelle Avatar
    missxannabelle

    hmm…

  2. missxannabelle Avatar
    missxannabelle

    hmm…

  3. bfree Avatar
    bfree

    Why is this a sacrificial lamb. “Independarce,” FUCK YEAH!

  4. bfree Avatar
    bfree

    Why is this a sacrificial lamb. “Independarce,” FUCK YEAH!

  5. bfree Avatar
    bfree

    Why is this a sacrificial lamb? “Independarce,” FUCK YEAH!

  6. bfree Avatar
    bfree

    Why is this a sacrificial lamb? “Independarce,” FUCK YEAH!

  7. Miss Avalon Avatar

    Seeing how my mind doesn’t work like that.. I couldn’t tell you!

    haha Independance..

    I try to not be so nice, or if it’s something I wouldn’t say something nice about, I just look at it, read, and go on.. no comment-y. Now I USED to occasionally say something mean, but I found an old comment of mine, and it had merit… but still uncalled for. haha

  8. Miss Avalon Avatar

    Seeing how my mind doesn’t work like that.. I couldn’t tell you!

    haha Independance..

    I try to not be so nice, or if it’s something I wouldn’t say something nice about, I just look at it, read, and go on.. no comment-y. Now I USED to occasionally say something mean, but I found an old comment of mine, and it had merit… but still uncalled for. haha

  9. Susan Avatar
    Susan

    thats an unhappy looking tattoo.

  10. Susan Avatar
    Susan

    thats an unhappy looking tattoo.

  11. stable Avatar
    stable

    hahahhahahaha..

  12. stable Avatar
    stable

    hahahhahahaha..

  13. stable Avatar
    stable

    hahahha….

  14. stable Avatar
    stable

    hahahha….

  15. mexie Avatar
    mexie

    ‘is why y’all gotta by such haters? ‘

    Dont tar us all with the same brush Shannon

  16. mexie Avatar
    mexie

    ‘is why y’all gotta by such haters? ‘

    Dont tar us all with the same brush Shannon

  17. shiza Avatar

    HAHA, im sry that looks like shit, im normally nice, but damn really. im actually sad to admit that i actually had an idea for a tattoo of a pirate ship with the name independence on it as well. but i actually wanted it to look good not like i drew it five sec before i walked in the studio. but if its supposed to look childish i guess it does have a child like charm about it.

  18. shiza Avatar

    HAHA, im sry that looks like shit, im normally nice, but damn really. im actually sad to admit that i actually had an idea for a tattoo of a pirate ship with the name independence on it as well. but i actually wanted it to look good not like i drew it five sec before i walked in the studio. but if its supposed to look childish i guess it does have a child like charm about it.

  19. 5kem5 Avatar
    5kem5

    wow thats poor

  20. 5kem5 Avatar
    5kem5

    wow thats poor

  21. if6was9 Avatar
    if6was9

    Haters. haha. I have been difficult, but not hating. Yet.

    And if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, right? in regards to the tattoo.

  22. if6was9 Avatar
    if6was9

    Haters. haha. I have been difficult, but not hating. Yet.

    And if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, right? in regards to the tattoo.

  23. Megan Avatar

    the haters are soooo getting old.
    this tattoo however is lovably bad.

  24. Megan Avatar

    the haters are soooo getting old.
    this tattoo however is lovably bad.

  25. peter mahoney Avatar
    peter mahoney

    The script is what really gets me. I can easily look past the quality of work, or the spelling error(hell, maybe it was intended), but I see script like that and wonder, ‘Does it really have to be this way?’

  26. peter mahoney Avatar
    peter mahoney

    The script is what really gets me. I can easily look past the quality of work, or the spelling error(hell, maybe it was intended), but I see script like that and wonder, ‘Does it really have to be this way?’

  27. 5kem5 Avatar
    5kem5

    say what you see right?these things are posted for debate after all

  28. 5kem5 Avatar
    5kem5

    say what you see right?these things are posted for debate after all

  29. me Avatar
    me

    I don’t think people are hating I lthink people are expressing a -difference-of-opinion-
    Furthermore this is far more interesting and entertaining than 50 odd people ALL writing “Wow, so beautiful, so out there etc etc”.

  30. me Avatar
    me

    I don’t think people are hating I lthink people are expressing a -difference-of-opinion-
    Furthermore this is far more interesting and entertaining than 50 odd people ALL writing “Wow, so beautiful, so out there etc etc”.

  31. paleblue Avatar

    That is some fine quality tattooing.

  32. paleblue Avatar

    That is some fine quality tattooing.

  33. Shannon Avatar

    me/15 – See, I’ve never found “personally I find that disgusting” and comments along those lines particularly interesting, insightful, or otherwise worth reading.

  34. Shannon Avatar

    me/15 – See, I’ve never found “personally I find that disgusting” and comments along those lines particularly interesting, insightful, or otherwise worth reading.

  35. solocard Avatar

    funny that.

    Its the second time today I’ve come across this new style of Dance.

    The first was on Post Secrets Valentines Video

    Oh well.

    *dances the indepen*

  36. solocard Avatar

    funny that.

    Its the second time today I’ve come across this new style of Dance.

    The first was on Post Secrets Valentines Video

    Oh well.

    *dances the indepen*

  37. solocard Avatar
  38. solocard Avatar
  39. K Avatar

    I’ve been wondering the same thing Shannon.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrificial_lamb

    In other words, Shannon is giving all the haters an easy target at the expense of the person who owns the tattoo. If you still don’t get it I’m not sure what else can be said. 😛

  40. K Avatar

    I’ve been wondering the same thing Shannon.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrificial_lamb

    In other words, Shannon is giving all the haters an easy target at the expense of the person who owns the tattoo. If you still don’t get it I’m not sure what else can be said. 😛

  41. Muppet Avatar
    Muppet

    @solocard – *dances the indepen* has me cracking the hell up!! LMAO! 😀

  42. Muppet Avatar
    Muppet

    @solocard – *dances the indepen* has me cracking the hell up!! LMAO! 😀

  43. Richard F*cking Davies Avatar
    Richard F*cking Davies

    Surely the tattoo is supposed to be that style and the person who got it loves it – look at Howies tattooing style to see that this is something that people like and want done nowadays – there is too much enthasis put on a tattoos quality and not its meaning, whereas for most people thats the most important factor. Either that or his tattoo is a big F you to conventional tattoos

  44. Richard F*cking Davies Avatar
    Richard F*cking Davies

    Surely the tattoo is supposed to be that style and the person who got it loves it – look at Howies tattooing style to see that this is something that people like and want done nowadays – there is too much enthasis put on a tattoos quality and not its meaning, whereas for most people thats the most important factor. Either that or his tattoo is a big F you to conventional tattoos

  45. d Avatar
    d

    eh…whatever floats your boat.

    =|

  46. d Avatar
    d

    eh…whatever floats your boat.

    =|

  47. JustJen Avatar
    JustJen

    23. I was just about to say that!

  48. JustJen Avatar
    JustJen

    23. I was just about to say that!

  49. christyn Avatar
    christyn

    Chumming negativity?

    I’m going to need a fucking crash course on when it’s ok to make fun of someone’s choice in mods and when it isn’t. Maybe some enterprising youngster can come up with a check list to help determine the difference between “bleeding edge modification/pushing the norms of acceptability” and “poorly placed or thought out hack job.”

    Best I can tell, if this piece is placed where the client wants, they chose the artwork and approved the spelling and presuming a successful healing or at least within the realm of what the wearer is satisfied with….this here tattoo is “pro.”

  50. christyn Avatar
    christyn

    Chumming negativity?

    I’m going to need a fucking crash course on when it’s ok to make fun of someone’s choice in mods and when it isn’t. Maybe some enterprising youngster can come up with a check list to help determine the difference between “bleeding edge modification/pushing the norms of acceptability” and “poorly placed or thought out hack job.”

    Best I can tell, if this piece is placed where the client wants, they chose the artwork and approved the spelling and presuming a successful healing or at least within the realm of what the wearer is satisfied with….this here tattoo is “pro.”

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