Paint the Tiger, Carve the Swan

Having done some experiments about play counts, and having read some articles about the randomness of iTunes random play, I have no doubt that it is fairly random. I know from my Computer Science training that it’s virtually impossible to generate completely random data from a computer system - they just aren’t designed that way.

It is possible to get the data from an outside source, like keypresses, or the time between them, or the mouse movements, or whatever. I do recall that if you use a function like random(), you need to seed it beforehand, and you should do this with a value that will change each time the program is run, as if you seed random() with a constant, it will return the same sequence of values each time it is run.

Still, it amuses me when coincidences occur with iTunes. I got this one tonight:

This is unusual in a couple of ways: the first is that Tim Rogers is a member of You Am I. So, to start with, I had two songs by virtually the same artist one after another. But iTunes could not know this, as there is no reference to You Am I in the second song (which is in the larger part of the window), and no reference to Tim Rogers in the drawer - which contains the data about the song that actually played first.

The next unusual thing is that both of them have the name Part 1/One, or at least it’s included in the name.

The third weird thing was that two tracks later another Tim Rogers and the Temperance Union track played.

Some Fella’s Heartbreaker • Tim Rogers And The Temperance Union • Spit Polish ★★★

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I noticed the following Comments, or rather Trackbacks, on a post to my blog today. As you can see from them, it is over a year since I posted the article, but the thing to note is that one comment seems to respond to the other:

That’s all well and good, until you look at the post:

It has nothing to do with the comments! That twigged me that it was Spam. And the fact that the URIs all point to the same domain. As does another Spam Trackback I received seconds after starting this post.

techmp3.org is going into my Spam filter…

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Chuck Norris Facts

I love #9: Chuck Norris is 1/8th Cherokee. This has nothing to do with ancestry, the man ate a fucking Indian.

But they are all pretty good!

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NearlyGood.com - Joke - Engineer And Manager Joke

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man below says: “Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees N. latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees W. longitude.”

“You must be an engineer” says the balloonist.

“I am” replies the man. “How did you know.”

“Well” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.”

The man below says “You must be a manager.”

“I am” replies the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well”, says the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault.”

I’ve put the whole joke here, since NearlyGood.com has popups, and they are bad, so now you don’t need to go there!

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I’ve started the revamp of the Blogsome forums. I’ve decided to clear out the FAQ section, and only have questions in there that have an answer, or cannot be answered. General users are not to post problems they have there, but rather to use it as a great place to find information.

Anyone who wants to help out can read FAQ Reorganisation, and start the work!

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