I have 4 tattoos. The oldest is 20 years, newest about 6. I don't care about the motives in any of them any more. Oldest is a cross and I'm 90% atheist now :) All the tattoos are crude by today's standards.

I don't mind at all though and I will never get them removed. I look at them (rarely or when somebody asks me about them) like a history of my personal development. The cross reminds me that even the things I care most about at one point will change, fade, die.

I think people overthink tattoos. I believe it's perfectly fine to get tattoos of things that have always meant something to you, meant something for you for a short period, or don't mean anything to you at all. I think people get stuck thinking it has to be super personal and define who you are.

Scott Campbell equates his body to looking like a truck stop bathroom stall. He has poorly done tattoos, great tattoos, tattoos that have no meaning, tattoos that have great meaning, but no tattoo he regrets.

These tattoos help remind him of where he has been and where he wants to go.

When I was in my late teens (in the latter half of the 1990s) I read a lot of Clifford Pickover’s scientific/mathematical books. There I came across my first mention of lambda calculus, exemplified by a very imposing diagram taken from To Dissect a Mockingbird by David Keenan. Years later I started to think seriously about having a tattoo of one. I thought about that for about seven years, and now I have a rendition of Turing's Theta Combinator (a fixed-point combinator much akin to the Y Combinator after which Hacker News’ mother organisation is named).

I've had it now for a few months. I’m just a bit embarrassed by owning up to having had myself tattooed to my very closest family members. My sister and my girlfriend both sport multiple tattoos, but somehow mentioning it to my father or anybody more senior unsettles me.

http://dkeenan.com/Lambda/Graphical_lambda26.gif

Thanks for sharing, qubex.

While I can understand opening up to friends and family about getting a tattoo can be hard or embarrassing I am glad you are beginning to do so.

I am sure you don't need my advice but if it helps just remember that your tattoo is a part of you but not the whole you. It's just a physical manifestation of something of interest to you. It doesn't make you any more or less of a person than the person your friends and family love.

From the link your provided I'm sure your tattoo looks awesome.

Here’s a photograph of it...

Make no mistake, I love it. It reminds me of the beauty and underlying pattern of the universe.

https://imgur.com/gallery/a9KhF

This is very, very cool - both the idea and the implementation. I've thought about a CS-themed tattoo for a while but haven't found one that I'm in love with - but yours is exactly like something I'd want!

Nice clean lines. Dig it!

Exactly, and I'd add that not all meaning is relatable. It could take you back to a feeling you had, like sights and sounds and smells can.

Just a few of my tattoos have meaning, the rest don't. But they all take me down memory lane and remind me of various times of my life.

Agreed

I have a friend who got an entire sleave of an MC Escher piece. I asked him what it meant and he said: “I dunno but it looks cool right?”. I think that’s the way to go if you don’t want to regret it later. Just get nice looking art that has stood the test of time.

Up the irons.

That's pretty much my philosophy, I have 2 full sleeves and a few other pieces. Both of the sleeves were not much more instructions to the artists (both close friends) than "I am a fan of X style or Y artist, a sleeve in that style would be neat". Then you go from there (make sure you have lots and lots of money!).

I have tattoos. I think people who don't have tattoos over estimate how much thinking goes into having tattoos.

Your interests change blah blah. Yes they do. But you don't go around thinking every day about the tattoos you have. Most of the time you don't even notice they exist. It's like a cool looking mole or something. It's just there, part of your body, ignored until something makes you notice it.

Usually that something is a new person you're meeting. Now you have a cool and interesting story to tell, if you feel like. If you don't, you can just say "Eh it looks cool" and they're happy with that answer too.

I have a tattoo that looks cool. But it's also a reminder of my first ever solo trip abroad where I saved up all summer to go to London for 2 weeks at 19. That was cool. I could talk about that trip for hours.

I have a tattoo that's sentimental. A joint tattoo with my sister. I got something in her handwriting, she got something in mine. I have terrible handwriting, poor girl. But I'm pretty sure we will always stay brother & sister and the tattoos will have great sentimental value. Plus they look cool.

I have a dumb tattoo. It's on my butt. The logo of my first startup. But it's also the story of how I visited Silicon Valley for the first time ever with dreams so big.

I want more tattoos.

> I think people who don't have tattoos over estimate how much thinking goes into having tattoos.

I agree. I have two tattoos that make me laugh, and they usually make others laugh the first time they see them too. One is symbolic (but still stupid and funny), the other one is just stupid and makes people laugh, which in turn makes me laugh.

It doesn't have to be profound or represent you as a person or have some deep symbolic eternal meaning, I look at it as a way to make my skin look less boring.

Close to half of American millennials now have tattoos [1], so I figure in 40 years tattoo removal technology will have greatly advanced due to demand :)

Maybe I’m optimistic.

1. http://shoulditattoo.com/2016/09/03/tattoo-facts-statistics/

I hear this sentiment a lot (mostly from folks without tattoos), but not every tattoo needs to have some deep lifelong meaning that will never change. My tattoo is relatively meaningless and whimsical, which actually has sort of become its meaning in a way.

There's a picture of it in this piece I wrote about my tattoo artist: https://medium.com/@jacobevelyn/communications-ink-773642f6f...

And some examples of the "whimsical" side of it on this website I made: http://www.thattat.com/#13

Just wanted to let you know that you might have athlete's foot.

I never got the tattoo, but when I talk to my friends who did, they usually describe it not as their personality, but as their personal history. This makes more sense: you change, but your past remains the same.

As for getting tattoo about a particular thing you like, like a rock band, this seems a stupid thing to do indeed. Never knew a single person with a tattoo like that.

There's not much in my personal history I'd want to remember to be honest, which is why I look at it from a 'what do i like' point of view.

BRB getting a Lego tattoo, always liked Legos.

Before I went off to make a tattoo I had a conversation with my father.

He told me, why are you getting one? if you like something so much, tattoo it in your heart, not on your skin.

I am glad I listened to that advice and never got a tattoo. As you said interests change from time to time and at the end of the day you can be whoever you want to be within your brain, there is no need to show it off to others.

P.S. I got nothing against anyone that has a tattoo, the advice worked well for me, other people love to have tattoos etc.

My left upper body up to shoulder is covered with tats and none of them has profound meaning, all simple truth in my life...

- a Chinese dragon because my father is born in the year of dragon (Chinese Zodiac)...

- a snake because my mother is born in the year of snake...

- a guitar because I like playing guitar...

- a gear-powered sun because I like steam-punk stuff and I like outdoor activities, a.k.a sunlight (link to the tat https://www.instagram.com/p/Bf4lxG3gNTG/?hl=en&taken-by=jaac...)

They are all rather superficial but I would unlikely regret having them.

As I understand this, the attraction is not "I will want this forever" (you won't) but "I will want to remember this forever" - like embarrassing photos of your childhood, it physicalises your life log.

There are definitely different categories of tattoos. From flash to full body art pieces, remembrances of pets, girlfriends names, things to cover up ex-girlfriends names.

There are absolutely tattoos one can get that are less likely to incur regret. It's like getting hardwood floors in your home instead of patterned or brightly colored carpet.

I see many millennials with full sleeves of flash art that means approximately nothing to to them, other than it looking cool and being very in at the moment. I think this is probably going to belong in the green carpet category.

Yes. Someone should develop the skin-equivalent of e-paper :)

I'm sure it's on someone's list.

There's been enough scifi with animated tattoos that I think it has to happen. :)

It exists already! (kind of... the ink is implanted but the active part is a gadget) https://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/moodinq-tattoo.shtml

That product is actually an April Fool's prank, as shown by the little winky face box at the very bottom of the page. I was fooled for quite a while as well.

Damn it! That explains there are no action shots or anything...

I hope it exists one day... How would it work?

An April Fool's joke that I hope one day becomes real!

I’ve always wanted a tattoo, still do, but nothing has ever seemed right for this reason—what will stand the test of time? What won’t I want to remove from my skin?

Some day I may do something mathematical like a visual proof of a theorem I care about, or some symbol meaningful to me. Or maybe just something like this on my wrist:

    Blood type: A+
    Allergies: Penicillin, Eggs
    If Dead: Cryopreserve

I'm sure the blood type and allergies information would be welcome, but the "if dead" bit may be problematic if you don't follow it up with legal docs.

Recently there was a dilemma in an Emergency Room where a collapsed patient had a DNR tattoo on their chest: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/1...

You’re absolutely right. That was a bit of a joke in reference to exactly that situation, and in retrospect it didn’t come through.

I have Turing’s Theta Combinator: http://dkeenan.com/Lambda/Graphical_lambda26.gif

Here’s an image of the tattoo itself, for those that might be curious: https://imgur.com/gallery/a9KhF

(I’m simultaneously very reserved about it, almost to the point of embarrassment with family members, while at the same time being very proud and admiring of it. Odd combination.)

Ironically, are you 100% sure you're allergic to Penicillin?

Hah, no actually, I’m half-joking here. I did get hives and bleeding from amoxicillin/clavulanate and my mother has had the same, so it’s probable, but I would definitely want to double-check anything I put on me!

The “If Dead” bit is tongue-in-cheek because it’s probably legally useless, although I guess something like that could function as a way to get in contact with the right people in the event of an emergency, whether for cryo or notifying kin.

Recommend to make it say chicken eggs instead.

There's a fallacy of composition lurking somewhere around here...

>Iron Maiden, Spiderman, Sci-Fi, LEGO, The Amiga Computer, Batman, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr Who, Pink Floyd

A big part of my decision to start getting tattoos in my late 20s and early 30s was talking with people who had them, many of whom advised staying away from such specific things. Add a level or two of abstraction, so your tattoo can be enjoyed on more than one level, because it's about more than one thing. Maybe instead of getting the cover of "Animals" by Pink Floyd, get a tattoo of three different looking pigs, like the song. That way if you end up disliking Pink Floyd, you have an artful tattoo of three pigs instead of something that can't be anything else.

> ...if you end up disliking Pink Floyd

Can't see that happening. :) But good advice none the less.