Schinckel.net

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 ★★★