{"id":7567,"date":"2005-02-02T08:52:20","date_gmt":"2005-02-02T15:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/02\/02\/fighting-randomness.html"},"modified":"2005-02-02T08:52:20","modified_gmt":"2005-02-02T15:52:20","slug":"fighting_random","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/02\/02\/fighting_random.html","title":{"rendered":"Fighting randomness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fundamental to human thinking (and survival) is pattern recognition. It’s how we spot food (or a tiger) against a backdrop, how we learn from our mistakes and successes, etc.<\/p>\n

It’s also why we see pictures in the clouds. <\/p>\n

Or, to take another example, we have a small fountain in our bathroom, which makes a pleasant water-tinkle-splashing sound. Except that sometimes it sounds like someone talking, or Katherine crying, or something else as my brain tries to take the random noise and make sense out of it.<\/p>\n

Which is why this article in Newsweek was so funny, as Steven Levy became convinced that his iPod Shuffle wasn’t being actually random<\/a> about the music it selected, but was favoring certain artists. He was sure <\/em>of it.<\/p>\n

From the day I loaded up my first Pod, it was as if the little devil liked to play favorites. It had a particular fondness for Steely Dan, whose songs always seemed to pop up two or three times in the first hour of play. Other songs seemed to be exiled to a forgotten corner of the disk drive. Months after I bought “Wild Thing” from the iTunes store, I’m still waiting for my iPod to cue it up.<\/p>\n

More than a year ago, I outlined these concerns to Jobs; he dialed up an engineer who insisted that shuffle played no favorites. Since then, however, millions of new Podders have started shuffling, and the question has been discussed in newspapers, blogs and countless conversations. It’s taking on Oliver Stone-like conspiracy buzz.<\/p>\n

But, again, it’s looking for and interpreting patterns where none exist:<\/p>\n

I explained this phenomenon to Temple University prof John Allen Paulos, an expert in applying mathematical theory to everyday life. His conclusion: it’s entirely possible that nothing at all is amiss with the shuffle function. It’s quite common for random processes (like coin tosses) to get unlikely results here and there, like runs of six heads in a row. Over a very long time, it evens out, but it’s hard for us to envision that. “We often interpret and impose patterns on random processes,” he says, adding that this might be expected in the case of music, which evokes strong emotions. Paul Kocher, president of Cryptography Research, puts it another way: “Our brains aren’t wired to understand randomness.”<\/p>\n

It’s possible that the randomness algorithm that the iPod uses isn’t perfect (it wouldn’t be the first time a randomizing element was flawed<\/a>), it’s much more likely that it’s another case of clouds making fanciful pictures in the sky …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fundamental to human thinking (and survival) is pattern recognition. It’s how we spot food (or a tiger) against a backdrop, how we learn from our mistakes and successes, etc. It’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":129041,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/30\/doing-write-a-random-english-word-generator.html","url_meta":{"origin":7567,"position":0},"title":"Doing Write: A random English word generator","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 30-Nov-15 1:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Doing Write: A random English word generator http:\/\/bit.ly\/1PWCMXo #NaNoWriMo View on Twitter","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2287,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/16\/yeah_heres_a_bi.html","url_meta":{"origin":7567,"position":1},"title":"Yeah, here’s a big surprise","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 16-Jul-02 3:07pm","format":false,"excerpt":"How random are you? You're not at all random! Add some spice to your life! Give bananas to complete strangers! Whenever anyone says anything to you, reply 'Ah -...","rel":"","context":"In "Personality Tests"","block_context":{"text":"Personality Tests","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/personality-tests"},"img":{"alt_text":"That's me","src":"\/blog\/images\/ptest\/normal.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":32521,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/14\/random-encounter-table.html","url_meta":{"origin":7567,"position":2},"title":"Random Encounter Table","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Feb-13 9:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"Heh.Reshared post from +Mark MeansLulzThe Dungeons and Dragons crowd will appreciate this one... :DThis post has been reshared 1 times on Google+ View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":127869,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/02\/we-need-your-random-submission-of-data.html","url_meta":{"origin":7567,"position":3},"title":"We Need Your Random Submission of Data!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 2-Sep-15 9:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, not truly random. Self-selected. But I trust the results will be fun. Originally shared by +Doyce Testerman: Take the XKCD survey.Just do it. You probably aren't doing anything else as fun right now, anyway. xkcd: xkcd Survey Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27865,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/10\/random-houston-notes.html","url_meta":{"origin":7567,"position":4},"title":"Random Houston Notes","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 10-May-12 10:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"1. I managed to tune into a marathon of \"Storage Wars\" on the TV here in the hotel the other night. I think I have now fulfilled my lifetime quota of watching the show.2. Kudos to Houston for supporting an all-news radio station (as pablumesque as it actually is). If\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135311,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/06\/lava-lamps-random-number-generators.html","url_meta":{"origin":7567,"position":5},"title":"Lava Lamps as Random Number Generators","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 6-Nov-17 1:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, that's pretty clever. Also: lava lamps are one of the few areas where LEDs will never replace incandescent bulbs (because they depend on the heat of the bulb to melt the wax [lava]. I used to have a lava lamp in my office. Very soothing. 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