I-pods have musical preferences - NY Times

[trogdor]

It was news to me.

Revere Greist, a doctoral student and amateur bicycle racer in Los Angeles, has concluded that his iPod's Shuffle command favors the rapper 50 Cent - and perhaps more important, that it knows exactly the right time to play 50 Cent's biggest hit, "In Da Club." He finds the dramatic beat, coupled with the lyrics "Go Shorty, it's your birthday," inspirational.

Mr. Greist rides his bike 15 hours a week, often more than three hours at a time. To get him through the tedium of this workout, he created a 40-song mix called "What It Takes," a name derived from a quotation on a documentary film about Lance Armstrong's training for the 2000 Tour de France. (After Armstrong defies his team manager's orders and races up a snowy mountain, his team manager says into the camera, "Now, that's what it takes to win the Tour de France.")

The iPod "knows somehow when I am reaching the end of my reserves, when my motivation is flagging," Mr. Greist insisted. "It hits me up with 'In Da Club,' and then all of a sudden I am in da club."



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/technology/circuits/26ipod.html?th

[vi5]

1. There's definitely something not random about the shuffle...

Mine has 9,000 songs on it and I always play it with shuffle. And it definitely tends to hit certain artists again in short periods of time.

[shoelace414]

2. a computer can't randomize randomly.

[trogdor]

3. You hit it right on the head.

It's probably the kind of algorithm they teach first-year computer science majors at junior college. Really basic. Pascal 5.0 level stuff.

[AZCat]

4. It's just the synchronicity of nonlinearity

All hail the god of chaos!