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From: Jeremiah Dodds <jeremiah.dodds@gmail.com>
To: Ivan Kanis <ivan.kanis@googlemail.com>
Cc: emacs devel <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
Subject: OT: appropriateness of "random" for playlist generation (was: random doesn't feel very random)
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2012 08:45:43 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87boi08nm0.fsf@friendface.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <876288yh72.fsf@kanis.fr> (Ivan Kanis's message of "Fri, 24 Aug 2012 07:47:29 +0200")

Ivan Kanis <ivan.kanis@googlemail.com> writes:

> I am using random for generating music play list. I have found that it
> is not random enough. It keeps playing the same tracks.
>
> I have even wrote a cache of recently played tracks so that it tries
> harder. Obviously it's a band aid.
>
> Yes I am just talking about "feeling" here. I don't know how to prove
> that random does not work. Is it even possible?
>
> On a side note are we using /dev/random?

FWIW, I've never found even "good" random algorithms to be good for the
purposes of playing music, especially when your collection is large. 

I like to listen to albums as a whole, and in particular I'd like to
listen to random albums that I haven't heard before, if any are
present. A lot of times, this can end up with you hearing multiple
artists in a row.

I actually went so far as to write my own little mp3 player that uses
an algorithm that can be summed up as "play me a random album from a
random artist that was not the last artist played", which sounds a lot
more "random" to my ears, but is technically much more stable.

-- 
Jeremiah Dodds

blog       : http://jdodds.github.com
github     : https://github.com/jdodds
freenode   : exhortatory
twitter    : kaens



  parent reply	other threads:[~2012-08-24 12:45 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 43+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2012-08-24  5:47 random doesn't feel very random Ivan Kanis
2012-08-24  6:22 ` Tassilo Horn
2012-08-24 17:19   ` random doesn't feel very random, random doesn't feel very random, " Ivan Kanis
2012-08-24 18:50     ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2012-08-25  7:46       ` Ivan Kanis
2012-08-24  6:30 ` Leo
2012-08-24 22:48   ` Richard Stallman
2012-08-24 22:57     ` Andreas Schwab
2012-08-25 20:55       ` Richard Stallman
2012-08-25 23:25         ` Leo
2012-08-26 13:12           ` Richard Stallman
2012-08-26 14:24             ` Achim Gratz
2012-08-26 23:22               ` Leo
2012-08-27  0:50               ` Stefan Monnier
2012-08-27  6:31                 ` Simon Leinen
2012-08-27  3:41               ` Richard Stallman
2012-08-27  4:48                 ` Stefan Monnier
2012-08-31  9:41                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2012-08-31 15:06                     ` Stefan Monnier
2012-08-31 15:23                       ` chad
2012-08-31 17:50                       ` Eli Zaretskii
2012-08-31 19:43                         ` Stefan Monnier
2012-09-01  1:18                           ` Paul Eggert
2012-09-01  7:19                             ` Achim Gratz
2012-09-01 13:19                               ` Paul Eggert
2012-09-04 19:19                                 ` Nix
2012-09-04 20:07                                   ` Paul Eggert
2012-09-04 20:11                                     ` Nix
2012-09-02 12:27                               ` Jason Rumney
2012-09-02 13:08                                 ` Stefan Monnier
2012-09-01  7:22                             ` Ivan Kanis
2012-09-01 11:13                             ` joakim
2012-08-31 23:04                       ` Leo
2012-08-27  5:17                 ` Achim Gratz
2012-08-31  9:42                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2012-08-31 15:07                     ` Stefan Monnier
2012-08-31 17:50                       ` Eli Zaretskii
2012-08-26  9:06         ` Ivan Kanis
2012-08-24  7:03 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2012-08-24  9:10   ` Paul Eggert
2012-08-24 17:45     ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2012-08-24 12:45 ` Jeremiah Dodds [this message]
2012-08-24 14:37 ` Drew Adams

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