[Jguy]

So....have you ever got the feeling that your media player, if left on SHUFFLE through your entire library, can read your mind?

this all started a few months ago when the IT department was moving their servers, I was setting up email and monitoring on our servers and finally got the notification emails to go out correctly, I was talking with Patty about it and she sent me a YouTube video of a cockatiel whistling the victory fanfare from Final Fantasy (I'd link it but I'm at work, no YouTube )

So a few months after that, I was getting into Monitoring stuff again, my webpanel shows all green for good, any red is a service or machine down. All the green came up....victory Fanfare from Final Fantasy plays.

At work just a little while ago, we had a distributor of ours that has been ducking us on their invoices. they FINALLY payed them not 10 minutes ago....the song on my media player as soon as I got the nofirication that their account was in good standing.....VICTORY FANFARE from FF. I don't think this is a coincidence....I have over 5,000 songs in my library. My laptop/computers can read my mind and predict the future!

Anything else happen to you that was similar?

Share!

[wrexness]

Depending on your perspective, yes. I like to think I'm reading my media player's mind though. Several times I've been listening to one song and thought, "You know what? Song Y would sound AWESOME after this one." Lo and behold, that was the next song.

[TekoMuto]

ever get the feeling that it's playing the same song too many times?

[SongstressLenne]

TekoMuto, on 18 October 2010 - 11:22 AM, said:

ever get the feeling that it's playing the same song too many times?

I'm up to a 2 times played of Rhianna and Eminem today on the radio, seriously...it's enough. The record was 6 times within 8 and a 1/2 hours while I was work on Friday. I am also noticing how certain songs play right after each other.

[KirbyFanOne]

SongstressLenne, on 18 October 2010 - 11:32 AM, said:

I'm up to a 2 times played of Rhianna and Eminem today on the radio,

Well there's your problem. Most songs on the radio you can hear twice within an hour or so, and that is why I don't listen to the radio.

That, and the radio doesn't have video game music. I haven't really listened to it in forever.

[Emrys]

There are days when my player has a favorite artist and will play three or four songs in a row, then a random song, then the "artist of the day" again, and keep going. Or if an artist has multiple projects, it seems like every other song is by the same singer or composer or whatever.

On the other hand, sometimes it seems like your brain can control/influence simple technology - if you just stare at the screen and concentrate hard enough it feels like you can predict or influence what is going to happen, haha. Those are always fun moments.

This post has been edited by Emrys: 18 October 2010 - 01:34 PM

[Jeff]

SongstressLenne, on 18 October 2010 - 11:32 AM, said:

I'm up to a 2 times played of Rhianna and Eminem today on the radio, seriously...it's enough. The record was 6 times within 8 and a 1/2 hours while I was work on Friday. I am also noticing how certain songs play right after each other.

The reason you'll hear the same songs in a row is because of how the randomization is actually semi-random. All computer randomization is faked.

[wrexness]

Jeff, on 18 October 2010 - 01:59 PM, said:

The reason you'll hear the same songs in a row is because of how the randomization is actually semi-random. All computer randomization is faked.

Actually that's not quite true. There's a difference between random and shuffle. Random means that all songs are available for selection at any time - even if it was just played. Shuffle takes all of the songs in the list, puts them in a random order, and then plays the entire list, regenerates the list at completion and goes through it again. However, regardless of whichever one commercial radio uses, it's always using a very small track list of popular songs and/or artists, so that's why songs get repeated often. It has nothing to do with the computer algorithm. If you only have five songs in your playlist, even in a "truly" random world you're going to get a lot of repeats.

As for computer randomization being faked, that's technically true but worded misleadingly. A randomly generated computer value is theoretically predictable because as a computer, it does indeed work based on a set algorithm. That doesn't mean that you or I would stand a snowball's chance figuring it out though. However, the same can be said for drawing cards in that if you know the state of the deck top to bottom, you can "predict" what the card will be based on which (facedown) card they draw. This applies to a die roll since if you know the initial position of the die in a person's hand, the force and angle with which they release the die, you can predict how it will roll and land. But at that point we're technically straying into quantum mechanics territory. XD

[Kaay-chan]

wrexness, on 18 October 2010 - 07:37 PM, said:

Actually that's not quite true. There's a difference between random and shuffle. Random means that all songs are available for selection at any time - even if it was just played. Shuffle takes all of the songs in the list, puts them in a random order, and then plays the entire list, regenerates the list at completion and goes through it again. However, regardless of whichever one commercial radio uses, it's always using a very small track list of popular songs and/or artists, so that's why songs get repeated often. It has nothing to do with the computer algorithm. If you only have five songs in your playlist, even in a "truly" random world you're going to get a lot of repeats.

As for computer randomization being faked, that's technically true but worded misleadingly. A randomly generated computer value is theoretically predictable because as a computer, it does indeed work based on a set algorithm. That doesn't mean that you or I would stand a snowball's chance figuring it out though. However, the same can be said for drawing cards in that if you know the state of the deck top to bottom, you can "predict" what the card will be based on which (facedown) card they draw. This applies to a die roll since if you know the initial position of the die in a person's hand, the force and angle with which they release the die, you can predict how it will roll and land. But at that point we're technically straying into quantum mechanics territory. XD

I think my brain just broke. I'm just gonna stick to my beautiful art of words. ^.^;;;

I totally agree, though, that it sometimes feels like my iPod or whatever can read my mind. I'll be listening to a song, and another song will start playing in my head, and a few seconds later that song will be playing on my iPod. Now, whether it's a case of my iPod reading my mind or me reading it's mind (or whatever..) is a completely different matter.

[TekoMuto]

Ever get the feeling, when you're going somewhere at night, and a nearby light on a pole goes out and it does it every night that you go past it and there was this one story where there was werewolves but it was just a movie and the girl was attacked by zombies and she was running but then everything seemed ok but really......SHE WENT HOME WITH MICHEAL JACKSON!!!!!

[LambOfTheForest]

TekoMuto, on 20 October 2010 - 06:04 AM, said:

Ever get the feeling, when you're going somewhere at night, and a nearby light on a pole goes out and it does it every night that you go past it and there was this one story where there was werewolves but it was just a movie and the girl was attacked by zombies and she was running but then everything seemed ok but really......SHE WENT HOME WITH MICHEAL JACKSON!!!!!

She should be okay. Micheal is in the Thriller/Neverland Mansion in the sky. And the girl can't fly up to the sky! But she can control my iPod to play the songs that fit my mood and thoughts when I need those songs. She's quite impressive.