Comments on: A tattoo as permanent resource.

Question: A tattoo as permanent resource.

(bb|[^b]{2}) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:47:00 -0800

I have some space available for my next tattoo that I'd like to fill with some sort of reference piece (i.e. a perpetual calendar, a conversion table), but I'm having a hard time thinking of anything beyond that. Any other ideas?

The only guidelines are that the design must be informative, able to fit in a roughly 2" x 3" rectangle, and perpetual (a dollar to euro conversion is out of the question). So what say you mefites? What informative tattoo would you like to have branded on our forearm?

By: box

box — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:52:21 -0800

How about medical information of some kind?

By: a3matrix

a3matrix — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:55:48 -0800

A pancake recipe!

By: warriorengineer

warriorengineer — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:55:56 -0800

The Navier Stokes Equations, the equations which govern all newtonian fluid motion.

or get your blood type.

By: piedmont

piedmont — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:57:43 -0800

Lines for a to-do list that. That way you can just take notes on your arm in an orderly fashion.

By: Futurehouse

Futurehouse — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:59:54 -0800

The formula I have to use ALL THE TIME but that I never remember is percent change. (This year - last year) divided by last year. It would be handy to have it on my arm.

I am also a graphic designer, and I have to know the decimal equivalents to inches. Half is easy (.5), but when you start getting into 3/8's, it gets more confusing. (At least to me.) I'd love to have that table of equivalents on my arm.

I like the idea of a perpetual calendar, but I think your space is much too small for it.

By: zeoslap

zeoslap — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:03:01 -0800

How about the formula to calculate the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sctm/genericv2/1859/68/01AwcAX0iLcl4AAAABAAAAAAAAAAA:.jpg

By: WinnipegDragon

WinnipegDragon — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:03:27 -0800

pi to as many digits as you can fit.

By: zeoslap

zeoslap — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:07:03 -0800

Cricket chirps to temperature ? Temp = CPM/4 + 38

Where CPM = Chirps per minute and temp is in Fahrenheit .

By: jeather

jeather — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:07:52 -0800

Weight to volume baking equivalences.

By: giraffe

giraffe — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:08:07 -0800

Ruler with inches/centimeters. Especially if you're bad at estimating measurements, like I am.

By: PhoBWanKenobi

PhoBWanKenobi — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:10:07 -0800

I've been wanting to get an "L" tattooed on my left forearm for "left" and an "R" on the right for "right" forever, but that's because I'm an idiot when it comes to following/writing directions.

By: AngerBoy

AngerBoy — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:10:08 -0800

How about a DNR order or a copy of your medical directives?

By: vytae

vytae — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:10:42 -0800

A map of your city, either of the streets or of the more permanent mass transit (like, subway).

Personally if I were looking for something like this, I'd go with a recipe for one of my very best baked goods. Most food I can throw together at a friend's house without a recipe, but biscuits or cake require more exact measurements.

By: hooray

hooray — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:11:03 -0800

A pioneer plaque, via this somewhat similar thread (though...it's for business cards, not tattoos).

By: vytae

vytae — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:12:44 -0800

Or, if you want to just throw together a bunch of helpful conversion rates, I think you'd be well served by a few english-to-metric formulas for various scales, as well as fahrenheit to celsius.

By: fidelity

fidelity — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:13:33 -0800

This question asked for similar suggestions, albeit for a different purpose. You may find it useful.

By: vytae

vytae — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:14:53 -0800

You might also find some fun ideas in the Pocket Ref. Tables of morse code, how to tie knots, semaphores, melting points of various metals, the periodic table, names of the currencies of different countries... The list goes on and on.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:18:15 -0800

Radio Alphabet: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc...

Periodic Table.

Chart of numerals in English, Chinese/Japanese, Arabic, Roman, Devanagari, and Hebrew.

Metric/English conversions, cooking conversions for weight to volume.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:21:23 -0800

List of major cities, their GPS coordinates, UTC offsets, altitude, currency and languages spoken.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:22:55 -0800

Volume formulas.

By: waraw

waraw — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:23:25 -0800

A note reminding me it's okay that not everybody wants to be my friend.

By: hworth

hworth — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:23:27 -0800

Tip calculator

By: bondcliff

bondcliff — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:24:36 -0800

A doneness chart for various meats (beef, medium rare = 130F, etc). Include human meat.

By: contraption

contraption — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:30:28 -0800

Instructions for escape in the event of being swallowed by a whale?

What are you interested in? Should it be useful in addition to being informative?

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:31:11 -0800

Mathowie, Jessamyn, and Cortex's e-mail address and IM handles.

By: chairface

chairface — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:36:48 -0800

If you are an American: The First Amendment (or whatever one you like to point at and seem righteous).

I've always wanted Maxwell's equations, as they're both beautiful and central to our understanding of the universe.

An abriged version of the Photographer's Bill of Rights.

By: tallus

tallus — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:36:59 -0800

I've seen rulers with multiple sets of scales e.g. inches, centimetres, ems, picas, or miles/km at common map scales.

Given the size of space you could make something that looks like lots of different ruler scales but acts as a conversion chart, with the scales representing, °C /°F, km/miles etc. It would only give you estimates, but you could include a fair amount of info with out having lots of numbers: if you know what they stand for you just count off the marks.

By: contraption

contraption — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:40:08 -0800

The first n prime numbers.

By: BozoBurgerBonanza

BozoBurgerBonanza — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:40:16 -0800

I like the idea of a perpetual calendar, but I think your space is much too small for it.
Here's a diagram of a perpetual calandar (scroll down about half way) based on a patent application by WJ Sidis....but agree, you may not have enough room.

By: sephira

sephira — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:41:05 -0800

Nutrional information. Of people. Don't know where you'd get the info though...

By: zpousman

zpousman — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:50:38 -0800

2.99792458 x 10^8 (C)

It's one of the only physical constants that is "perfect". It's not a measurement; we've redefined our meter in terms of the constant, so it'll, um, never change. Lots of other physical constants have some measurement error -- they are "as close as we can get" and have a tolerance like +/- 0.00004. C has no such tolerances.

I also like maxwell's equations for propagation in a vacuum, but they take a lot more explaining.

/high school physics nerd

By: dirtdirt

dirtdirt — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:59:06 -0800

Your public (or private?) key.

By: Jonsnews

Jonsnews — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:08:08 -0800

When I was in quality control, I really really wanted to get a tattoo of a scale (small ruler) on the inside (palm side) of my index finger, because I was constantly forgetting mine, and thought it would be nerdy and inconspicuous.

Now I think I want one with US/Metric/Pixels on it. Hold it up to the screen when I need to adjust a website..

By: misha

misha — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:26:24 -0800

Would a periodic table fit in that space? Probably not, based on these, but maybe the noble gases would.

Hexadecimal reference

Ohm's Law Circle (halfway down the page)

Cooking conversion tables and metric reference

By: rhizome

rhizome — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:29:29 -0800

I'm with AngerBoy: DO NOT RESUSCITATE

By: 8dot3

8dot3 — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:29:45 -0800

In the aforementioned Pocket Ref is a page on the comparing strengths of different hardwoods. I mean, when wouldn't that be helpful?

By: box

box — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:30:03 -0800

Any kind of ruler is probably a bad idea, unless your standards for accuracy are pretty low. The dimensions won't change much, but they'll change. And any piece of information that would be both useful-to-you (as opposed to useful-to-others) and capable of being fitted into a 2"x3" tattoo, well, I think you'd wind up memorizing it pretty quickly, thus diluting the utility.

By: trueluk

trueluk — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:33:36 -0800

If you gamble you could use a blackjack reference chart.

How about an RGB chart?

A family tree(may not fit). The biological classification chart, no one can ever remember the order of that amirite?

I like plant(or tree)diagrams. Also, I can never remember where each region of the brain is located. Of course, you could just use a right/left side, creativity/logic image

A time zone map. The Richter magnitude formula (include the approximate TNT equivalent if you want). The rain cycle. The Kinsey scale.

There's always The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, or the Ten Commandments.

By: grateful

grateful — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:41:35 -0800

A barcode. That way, you could always tell people it meant something different.

By: agentwills

agentwills — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:42:56 -0800

How about the longitude and latitude of the birthplaces of Angelina Jolie's children?

By: kidbritish

kidbritish — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:46:31 -0800

I second a tip calculator. Something like this.

By: pupdog

pupdog — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:09:26 -0800

A graph of data from the COBE Mission, as presented on the 'Science - It works, Bitches' comic and shirt from XKCD

By: Killick

Killick — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:38:47 -0800

Any kind of ruler is probably a bad idea, unless your standards for accuracy are pretty low. The dimensions won't change much, but they'll change.
Actually, it might be kind of cool to know this. You could use it as a reference point: When I was xx years old, this was one square (inch, centimeter) of skin here. Twenty years on, it looks like a rectangle, and I can measure how much I've drooped.

(OK, it might also be kind of cool not to know this.)

By: Dumsnill

Dumsnill — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:46:54 -0800

Science tattoos

White and nerdy.

By: hydrophonic

hydrophonic — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:04:29 -0800

A list of all the two-letter words playable in Scrabble

By: hydrophonic

hydrophonic — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:08:13 -0800

In case time travel is invented:
Graph of geologic time scale
Directions to the time traveler's convention (Technically, you only need one.)

By: hydrophonic

hydrophonic — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:16:09 -0800

Sexual response cycle graph paired with an anatomy illustration

Bristol stool scale (NSFW)

By: box

box — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:29:59 -0800

I'd love the two-letter-words suggestion, except that it's not perpetual. It wasn't that long ago that 'ZA' wasn't on the SOWPODS list, and now it is.

By: Netzapper

Netzapper — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:42:01 -0800

You're going to memorize this tattoo in about two weeks, thereby negating its utility. You must go larger.

A large tattoo, like a fully-informed periodic table is one thing. Even my dad the chemist has to check sometimes. If you're a geek or scientist of some kind, a set of equations might be nice--I'd get 3D vector math equations, but I'd need about twenty-five of them at least. The finger or forearm ruler isn't a bad idea, assuming you can find an artist with an attention to precision--don't put on pixels, though, since that's actually really variable.

But, I don't think that what you can fit on a 2x3 tattoo is going to stay useful to you for very long--remembering that the legible resolution of a tattoo is worse than a ballpoint pen. You can get texture that's smaller, but not really letters.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:36:31 -0800

How about a working slide rule tattoo pair (or triple)?

By: casarkos

casarkos — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:41:04 -0800

Find graphic/geometric representations of information that you can work out stuff from, not just a tattoo crib sheet. Something like the unit circle or the musical circle of fifths might work.

By: The corpse in the library

The corpse in the library — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:12:48 -0800

A chart showing how to distinguish benign moles from potentially cancerous ones.

By: Mephisto

Mephisto — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 06:31:46 -0800

A circle.

By: lostburner

lostburner — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:44:26 -0800

A slide rule, if you have another surface available to tatoo the complement.