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tangotube.tv

Engineering notes

TangoTube knows who is dancing, to which recording, at which festival, in more than a hundred thousand videos out of four and a half million examined. It runs on one server, with no machine-learning model in the request path, and every fact on it can be traced to the evidence that put it there. Eight short essays explain how, in drawings, for readers who know engineering and nothing about tango.

videos in the database: 4,566,186videos in the database
shown to visitors: 116,542shown to visitors
dancers: 5,039dancers
with the recording named: 51,810with the recording named
server: 1server

The idea that runs through all eight

Every fact is a clue with a source and a grade. No single clue is ever allowed to make a fact true; two independent clues that agree are. Everything the machine cannot decide is handed to a person rather than guessed. Every human decision becomes a test. And because every rule is deterministic, a mistake, once found, can be traced to the rule that made it, measured, and fixed everywhere at once.

The essays

Volume 1 · The pipeline

How TangoTube KnowsThe whole pipeline, from a channel nobody has vetted to a performance with names on it. The spine of the series.

Volume 2 · The music

Naming the RecordingThe shelf and the notebook. Say exactly what you know about the music, then listen only when you must, to your own shelf.

Volume 3 · The people

The People Who DanceOne person, many spellings. One door for new names. Partners counted nightly. Champions as a test. Dancers hold the keys to their pages.

Volume 4 · Search

Search as an ArgumentRead what they meant. Answer with dances, not files. Rank by what enthusiasts value. Let every click argue back. Never an empty room.

Volume 5 · People in the loop

The Community LoopA stranger is a witness with a grade. Three taps make a fact. One desk, two questions. Mistakes become tests.

Volume 6 · Practice

Practice by the FrameA clip is two numbers. Two players, one invisible seam. Slower, mirrored, one frame at a time.

Volume 7 · Running it

One ServerFour boxes on one machine. Lanes, not services. A night's work in short steps. Know when it is lying.

Volume 8 · Patterns

Patterns Worth StealingThe same ideas with the tango removed, each with the failure it prevents and where else it applies.

If you have ten minutes

Read Volume 1 for the whole pipeline, then Volume 8 for the patterns with the tango removed. That is the argument: graded clues, agreement, honest depth, people for what rules cannot decide. The rest is depth. If you would rather see what is coming than how it works, the roadmap is next door.

Counts are read from the live catalog. Figures quoted inside the essays are the measurements that were taken at the time each decision was made, and are written beside the code they justified.