Random
There are three thousand songs on my hard drive, and when I'm playing music I tend to have it on random, cycling through them all so that I don't end up listening to something until I'm sick of it. In theory I could listen for over a week, non-stop, without hearing the same tune twice.
So why do the same songs pop up time after time?
For instance, on now is Kasabian singing Cutt Off. They sang it last night at about the same time, and have sung it over a dozen times since I ripped the CD. But most of the other tracks on the album have only played once or twice. Weird.
Another game the iTunes player does is to favour certain artists. This morning it played several Robyn Hitchcock tunes, each one separated from the next by a track by someone else. Now I like Robyn Hitchcock (even his strange appearance in Jonathan Demme's remake of the The Manchurian Candidate). He went to the same school as me (and Joss Whedon), but left some time before I even arrived. I've ripped a few of his CDs to my hard drive so I can listen to them, after all, but that doesn't mean I necessarily want to listen to them all at the same time.
There's some songs that have played so often I'm beginning to get tired of them. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have sung Venice Queen 61 times now, admittedly in two years, but that's two and a half times a month. True Happiness This Way Lies, by The The, which has also been on my hard drive for two years, has only played once in all that time.
Now I understand what a normal distribution is. I have a slightly higher than average grasp of the concept of probability. I know that a song playing one time has no influence whatsoever on it coming up the next time I use the program (although it shouldn't play the same song twice in one session - that's got to be a bug), in much the same way that this week's lottery numbers have exactly the same probability of coming up next week as do any other selection. But I also have a brain designed to see patterns in chaos. So when William Orbit insists on playing Water on a Vine Leaf for the umpteenth time this week, I see conspiracy.
Or maybe my brain needs to get out a bit more.
So why do the same songs pop up time after time?
For instance, on now is Kasabian singing Cutt Off. They sang it last night at about the same time, and have sung it over a dozen times since I ripped the CD. But most of the other tracks on the album have only played once or twice. Weird.
Another game the iTunes player does is to favour certain artists. This morning it played several Robyn Hitchcock tunes, each one separated from the next by a track by someone else. Now I like Robyn Hitchcock (even his strange appearance in Jonathan Demme's remake of the The Manchurian Candidate). He went to the same school as me (and Joss Whedon), but left some time before I even arrived. I've ripped a few of his CDs to my hard drive so I can listen to them, after all, but that doesn't mean I necessarily want to listen to them all at the same time.
There's some songs that have played so often I'm beginning to get tired of them. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have sung Venice Queen 61 times now, admittedly in two years, but that's two and a half times a month. True Happiness This Way Lies, by The The, which has also been on my hard drive for two years, has only played once in all that time.
Now I understand what a normal distribution is. I have a slightly higher than average grasp of the concept of probability. I know that a song playing one time has no influence whatsoever on it coming up the next time I use the program (although it shouldn't play the same song twice in one session - that's got to be a bug), in much the same way that this week's lottery numbers have exactly the same probability of coming up next week as do any other selection. But I also have a brain designed to see patterns in chaos. So when William Orbit insists on playing Water on a Vine Leaf for the umpteenth time this week, I see conspiracy.
Or maybe my brain needs to get out a bit more.
Comments
Now it isn't letting me post on my own blog.
But what would a day be without surprises?