Well, my trusty 2-year-old iRiver mp3 player’s “shuffle mode” really does shuffle. I have a choice to shuffle the songs in a list, directory or all the songs in the player. When I try to move to the next song, it uses this “random” list to find the next song.

Best thing is when I’m on “repeat shuffle mode”. Once the playlist has been all played out, it re-shuffles it and plays the list once again.

Ahh! I love my mp3 player even more now. [hugs player to chest]

I’m wondering if we can study “randomness” in the shuffle. We can start with about 100 songs and we can press next and tabulate which song it plays and how how often it plays it. Maybe we can actually define the “random” logic that the shuffle uses.

I learned from my physics teacher that computers suck at randomness because they are such orderly and logical tools. They need rules to employ randomness, while true randomness relies on unpredictability.

Interesting take on the use of a static radio channel as a source of random seeds, Sach. White noise has long been used for this purpose in cryptography; intelligence agencies utilise radio aerials dedicated to collecting white noise from the ionosphere.

You never told me you worked for the CIA! Maybe I should expect the black helicopters any night now… =)