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A program just for fun: Six Degrees of DVD Profiler
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DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorDJ Doena
Registered: May 1, 2002
Registered: March 14, 2007
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When I saw GSyren's post a few days ago, it reminded be of an old parlour game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon which in turn is based on the idea of six degrees of separation.

So I went ahead and wrote an analyzer of my own collection to see who links to whom in what way:





You need to export your collection via DVD Profiler's File menu and then start this program:

http://doena-soft.de/dvdprofiler/3.9.0/SixDegreesOfDVDProfiler.zip

The source code can be found on Github: https://github.com/DJDoena/SixDegreesOfDVDProfiler

Have fun
Karsten
DVD Collectors Online

 Last edited: by DJ Doena
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorGSyren
Profiling since 2001
Registered: March 14, 2007
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That's pretty cool! 

But what happens if it doesn't find a link? It seemed to hang once when I tested with an American actor and a Swedish actor.

I think it might be a good idea to exclude compilation titles like That's Entertainment when one creates the export file. Those make it just too easy to link people.

It's surprising to see how difficult it is to find people who actually take six degrees to link. At least in a large collection like mine.
My freeware tools for DVD Profiler users.
Gunnar
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorCubbyUps
Registered: March 14, 2007
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I was doing this in my head and I find many actors are linked somehow to Star Trek.

Very simple example. Sally Field

Sally Field starred in Gidget, in one episode Walter Koenig was a guest star, Koenig starred in the original Star Trek.
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorDJ Doena
Registered: May 1, 2002
Registered: March 14, 2007
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Germany Posts: 6,737
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Quoting GSyren:
Quote:
That's pretty cool! 

But what happens if it doesn't find a link? It seemed to hang once when I tested with an American actor and a Swedish actor.


It depends on your collection size, your search depth and the search spheres these two actors are in.

For example when the start actor has a huge web of connections but that never lead to anything in the sphere of the smaller actor, then it will get stuck. Let me think about putting a maximum of search requests in there.

Have you tried searching from the Swedish actor to the American one? If the Swedish web is much smaller it should quickly give you an answer.
Karsten
DVD Collectors Online

DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorDJ Doena
Registered: May 1, 2002
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I've uploaded a new version for you to play with. Same link as before.
Karsten
DVD Collectors Online

DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorGSyren
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Thanks Karsten!

Still something not quite right, though.

John Wayne - Max von Sydow: 1 degree
Max von Sydow - Hans Alfredson: 1 degree
John Wayne - Hans Alfredson: Connection not found

Well, it's just for fun, so no biggie if it doesn't work 100%, but if you want my export file for testing, just let me know.
My freeware tools for DVD Profiler users.
Gunnar
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorNexus the Sixth
Contributor since 2002
Registered: March 13, 2007
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That's funny, I was just thinking about the Kevin Bacon game when I read about Gunnar's program.

Gunnar: Check that you don't have two Max von Sydow's in your collection. The first, middle and last name fields are sometimes not populated correctly.
First registered: February 15, 2002
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorDJ Doena
Registered: May 1, 2002
Registered: March 14, 2007
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Germany Posts: 6,737
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Quoting GSyren:
Quote:
Thanks Karsten!

Still something not quite right, though.

John Wayne - Max von Sydow: 1 degree
Max von Sydow - Hans Alfredson: 1 degree
John Wayne - Hans Alfredson: Connection not found

Well, it's just for fun, so no biggie if it doesn't work 100%, but if you want my export file for testing, just let me know.


Can you export just these two movies and test if it finds them then?
Karsten
DVD Collectors Online

DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorGSyren
Profiling since 2001
Registered: March 14, 2007
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Quoting iPatsa:
Quote:
Check that you don't have two Max von Sydow's in your collection.
Good thought, but no.

Quoting DJ Doena:
Quote:
Can you export just these two movies and test if it finds them then?
Done - not found.
My freeware tools for DVD Profiler users.
Gunnar
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorDJ Doena
Registered: May 1, 2002
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Which teaches you to don't do important programming at 03:00 am.

New version is up :-)
Karsten
DVD Collectors Online

DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorGSyren
Profiling since 2001
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Quoting DJ Doena:
Quote:
Which teaches you to don't do important programming at 03:00 am.

Good thing it wasn't important programming, then! 

John Wayne - Hans Alfredson took more than 1000000 request. I added another zero and it worked.
Hans Alfredson - John Wayne, on the other hand, worked fine with 15000.

So, putting your "lesser" actor first can make a big difference.

I am impressed by the speed. Must be pretty efficient code! 
My freeware tools for DVD Profiler users.
Gunnar
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorDJ Doena
Registered: May 1, 2002
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Quoting GSyren:
Quote:
I am impressed by the speed. Must be pretty efficient code! 


TBH I was pretty suprised by the speed as well. The only thing I did before doing the actual search is building a dictionary of all people involved and then a list of their movies which in turn contains a flat list of their co-stars.

So I start from the left person find all their movies and thus all their co-stars. Then I take the co-stars as new left person and do it all over again without going back to people I've already been to.

This is my dictionary builder. And this is my search engine.
Karsten
DVD Collectors Online

DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorGSyren
Profiling since 2001
Registered: March 14, 2007
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Sweden Posts: 4,508
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Quoting DJ Doena:
Quote:
The only thing I did before doing the actual search is building a dictionary of all people involved and then a list of their movies

Funny, that's pretty much what I did too. I created a dictionary with cast name as key and a list of Profiler IDs for the profiles they appeared in. I guess great minds think alike? Or perhaps it was just the obvious way to attack the problem? Nah, I'll go with the first option! 
My freeware tools for DVD Profiler users.
Gunnar
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantJLYoung
Royale with cheese
Registered: May 13, 2007
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Ok, this is fun.  Thank you.
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorDJ Doena
Registered: May 1, 2002
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My colleague who wrote his doctoral thesis about graph theory is helping me to write a much more efficient code to find two related nodes (aka actors) and their Bacon number. New version coming out in the next few days. 
Karsten
DVD Collectors Online

DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorGSyren
Profiling since 2001
Registered: March 14, 2007
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Quoting DJ Doena:
Quote:
My colleague who wrote his doctoral thesis about graph theory is helping me to write a much more efficient code to find two related nodes (aka actors) and their Bacon number. New version coming out in the next few days. 

Cool! Not that you really need it for this program, but it's always interesting to learn stuff like that.
I'll be sure to take a peek at the code when you're done to see if I understand it. 

I took math some 50+ years ago, but graph theory wasn't on the curriculum. Not sure if this is a case of "you're never to old to learn" or "you can't teach old dogs new tricks". Probably the latter. 
My freeware tools for DVD Profiler users.
Gunnar
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