online.wsj.com — Earlier this week, Mads Haahr ordered a customized iPod with "God Plays Dice" engraved on its back. Mr. Haahr -- a random-number enthusiast -- intends to answer the question that has long bedeviled users of Apple's popular music player: Does the shuffle function really play users' songs in random order?
Sep 21, 2006 View in Crawl 4
jamesspeltSep 21, 2006
Yes that is what I meant - the article is more about 'what is random' than 'is my Shuffle actually random'.Using an example other than the iPod Shuffle would have greatly lessened it's chances of appearing on the front page.
bitwisemcgeeSep 21, 2006
losboccacc is right, audio players do NOT want a real random sequence, because if it is truly random you most likely will get repetitions of songs.Of course, when a person hear's a song again when on shuffle they immediatly assume the player's rng sucks. This is not the case. When you select 'shuffle' a good player will randomize the playlist first, then play through, thus avoiding repeats
guinsuSep 21, 2006
My biggest problem with the Ipod (and every other mp3 player I have owned) and its random is that the same songs come up constantly. And really, its pretty condescending when tons of users complain that they are unhappy with the random and they are told to STFU, its really random and they are too stupid to see it. Why don't the people at Apple or elsewhere design a RNG that behaves the way the users EXPECT it to?
marker7799Sep 21, 2006
yeah who really cares how random it is...
tonamelSep 21, 2006
1) Open iTunes2) Turn on shuffle3) Start a song, then click "next" a few times, and note each song4) Repeat step 3, starting with the same song5) Notice that you get the same songs in the same order6) Deduce that shuffle isn't terribly randomNo, I don't have the randomness turned down.
bluesdealerSep 21, 2006
"This sort of thing also explains all religion, BTW."Not really. Humans forgetting randomness aside, organic life and an ecosystem are pretty significant patterns to chalk up to randomness. Also, even though the subatomic world may appear fully random, it becomes order in the macro-sense. Maybe you're not the religious type, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't some creative force involved in the forming of our universe. (BTW, the universe's age cannot be infinite because of the law of conservation of matter and energy. If the universe had always existed, therefore allowing for infite randomness, it would be stagnant and no energy could be transfered any longer.)
sweetchuckSep 21, 2006
It's not. the A-minor chord above middle C is a combination of tones at 440 Hz, 523.251 Hz, and 659.255 Hz. In general the ratio of frequencies for a minor chord are around 10:12:15
carzorstelatisSep 21, 2006
Does anyone actually care? A shuffle feature that produces a good, listenable playlist is perfectly fine for 99.99% of users who want their iPod for listening to music, not testing theories on the accuracy of computer random number generators.
bluesdealerSep 22, 2006
You're missing the point. It's about the science, not the product.
matrixneoApr 8, 2007
No. Machines can be programmed to be random. All you have to do is, enable the randomize feature.<a class="user" href="http://technogroove.blogspot.com/2006/11/ipod-shuffle-features-that-makes-it.html">http://technogroove.blogspot.com/2006/11/ipod-shuffle-features-that-makes-it.html</a>
jimmmmJun 7, 2007
While on shuffle my ipod, which has a couple thousand songs, played the entire album, "Some Girls" by the Rolling Stones, in order. That's definitely not random
emalloveOct 14, 2008
I viewed my iPod songs by "Play Count" and noticed that many songs were getting skipped over by iPod's so-called random shuffle mode. I then created a Smart Playlist titled "Seldom Played", which contains songs that are below a certain Play Count threshold. I queue up the "Seldom Played" playlist to hear all the songs that shuffle mode has been skipping over.