Re: MP3 Player Shufflin' Along

On Fri, 16 May 2008 05:46:52 +0100, John Hatpin
<RemoveThisjfhopkin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>Hactar wrote:
>
>>Pseudo-random algorithms are hard to do well.
>
>While that's true, it should be reasonably possible for a modern MP3
>play to play songs so much at random that should satisfy anyone. Yeah,
>lots of "should" in there, and this is the real world, so maybe it
>doesn't always happen.
>
>It's not as if the thing needs to fool a mathematician in a kind of
>Turing test - all we're asking for here is a roughly even distribution
>coupled with testing to see if a track's already been played
>"recently" and a memory for "recently" long enough to convince the
>user.

Hell, most non-cheap MP3 players have a clock. If the clock has a fine
enough resolution, even that should be able to seed some kind of
random number algorithim.

-- 
Neal

* Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables 
smelled as good as bacon.