A meme from laurenmitchell

[active_apathy]

Instructions:

1. It's a random-music-answers-questions meme
2. You've probably seen them before
3. In fact, you've almost definitely seen them before
4. In short: instructions?
5. It ain't got no instructions
   
6. It don't have to show you no stinkin' instructions

Um, I mean:

1. Set $media_app to random.
2. For each question, press 'next' to divine the answer.
3. Write down that song, regardless of silliness. Silliness is kind of the point.

And now, the answers:

1. Q: Are you male or female?
   A: Blackmore's Night - Self-Portrait
   
   I'll assume this is Winamp's way of saying I really should know by now.
   
   
2. Q: Describe yourself.
   A: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Once More, With Feeling - I've Got a Theory / Bunnies / If We're Together
   
   Bunnies, bunnies, I must be bunnies? o.O
   
   
3. Q: How do you feel about yourself?
   A: Bear McCreary - Battlestar Galactica Season 3 Soundtrack - All Along the Watchtower
   
   ...apparently, I think I'm a <spoiler source="BSG" season="3" episode="20"> Cylon </spoiler>
   
   
4. Q: Describe your ex.
   A: Metallica - The Thing That Should Not Be
   
   I take it Winamp's picked the evil one, otherwise it will be in trouble.
   
   
5. Q: Describe your current partner.
   A: Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring - The Bridge of Khazad Dum
   
   Obviously not fally-bleachy-Gandalf, and hopefully not a balrog, so... trapped in Moria? Told to run, fool, run? SHALL NOT PASS? Something.
   
   
6. Q: Describe your current location.
   A: Nightwish - Cadence of Her Last Breath
   
   The closest thing to a place it mentions is a blank page. It thinks I should write on stuff?
    
   
7. Q: Describe what you want to be.
   A: Serenity score - Serenity
   
   A spaceship, apparently.
    
   
8. Q: Describe your best friend.
   A: Firefly score - In My Bunk / Jayne's Statue / Boom
   
   So, Jayne would have to go to his bunk.
   
   
9. Q: Your favourite colour is...
   A: Split Enz - History Never Repeats
   
   I don't think it knows, but guesses that it's never the same one twice.
    
   
10. Q: You know that...
    A: Firefly score - River's Dance
    
    ...being kidnapped by hillfolk is, on occasion, a way of spending the afternoon.
     
    
11. Q: What is the weather like?
    A: Nightwish - Sahara
    
    So, hot and dry. Full points for Winamp.
     
    
12. Q: If your life was a television show, what would it be called?
    A: Nightwish - Dark Chest of Wonders
    
    That... could be interesting.
    
    
13. Q: What is life to you?
    A: Carmina Burana - Fortuna plango vulnera
    
    Apparently a grand festival of unkind fortune.
     
    
14. Q: What is the best advice you have to give?
    A: Tears for Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World
    
    If you're serious about taking over the world, remember: the Evil Overlord List is your friend. We listen to our friends.
     
    
15. Q: Describe your love life.
    A: Metallica - The Call of Ktulu
    
    o.O
     
    
16. Q: How are you going to die?
    A: Iron Butterfly - In a Gadda da Vida
    
    I don't know, but I can tell you that it'll take a while.
    
    
17. Q: If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
    A: Nightwish - Whoever Brings the Night
    
    ...Winamp's really loving Nightwish today.
    
    
18. Q: What do your friends think of you?
    A: Tim Minchin - Shag With the Stereo On
    
    o.O
    
    
19. Q: What is your funeral song going to be?
    A: Was (Not Was) - Walk the Dinosaur
    
    Best funeral ever! Except for the being dead part, but still!
    
    "And were active_apathy here today, I think what she'd want us all to remember is this: Boom boom acka-lacka lacka boom, boom boom acka-lacka boom boom. And now, let us open the door, get on the floor, and everybody walk the dinosaur."
    
    
20. Q: What are you going to repost this as?
    A: Garbage - I Think I'm Paranoid
    
    This one was fairly doomed from the start, seeing as how I wrote the subject line before doing the meme. This just in: Winamp doesn't actually know teh futurez. Or something.
    

Comments

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

"And were active_apathy here today, I think what she'd want us all to remember is this: Boom boom acka-lacka lacka boom, boom boom acka-lacka boom boom. And now, let us open the door, get on the floor, and everybody walk the dinosaur."

So much WINS!

~Sor

[trueflight.livejournal.com]

^Srsly! When I die, I want my funeral to contain at least a few boom boom acka-lackas.

My iTunes also has days in which it will play an improbably high number of tracks by certain artists... and my iPod is even more opinionated, if anything.

I love memes like this... I'll have to try it out when I get home.

(Oh, and kdsorceress, may I take your icon to mean that you are a book-loving pirate in boston? 'Cause that'd be awesome.)

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

(That's pretty much the long and short of it. And thanks --I'll send your compliments to the artist.)

~Sor

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

In fairness, Winamp has an option that lets you set your randomness anywhere from 'kind of random' to 'tracks be quite different' to 'zomg! SUPER RANDOM!' which has, once or twice, randomly played the same track twice in succession.

[trueflight.livejournal.com]

Haha! Fantastic.

That's never happened to me with iTunes, though it HAS played consecutive album tracks at times (to be fair, I do usually have it on 'shuffle, no repeats').

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

That happens because it randomizes the list for each pass through. If you have no multiple entries on your playlist, and repeat off, it won't happen.

But if repeat is on, you can easily get

A B C D C A D B B C D A

As you can see, those are fairly randomized compared to each other... but when playthroughs 2 and 3 abut, the same song comes up twice in a row.

You can even test this!

Make a test playlist of 4 songs, turn on Shuffle and Repeat.

Now just hit forward several times. You'll see it go through each song once, then each song once again in a different order, etc.

Now the real trick. Hit stop, then toggle shuffle off and on (this resets the shuffle to "track 1") and hit play. Then hit forward twice. Now hit back twice... you'll go back in the same order you went forward.

Now hit forward again until you pass "the end of the list" and get your first repeat song.

Try hitting back and see what happens.

Case rested.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Close, but not quite.

Winamp 2 does the CD player/iTunes/WMP/whateverelse thing of making a secret shuffled version of the playlist, and running through that, randomising each iteration.

Winamp 5 isn't perfect, but does come much closer to its semirandom ideal; the rest can be done with a plugin from somewhere that adds better randomness, while letting the user influence it somewhat by weighting different artists and tracks differently.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

There's a reason I still use 2.x

Weighted playlists are silly. I can make them easily in 2 anyways.
Just add multiple copies of each song to the playlist, in accordance with your weighting.

Regardless, weighting a playlist is actively working against your so-called random ideal. It actively works against the entropy involved in the randomization process by deliberately biasing results.

When you weight a list, it isn't random anymore. It's less random than the ideal you speak of.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

...because you like dice with a memory?

It's a plugin that, apparently, no longer exists anyway; and it's certainly not a feature of 5; even then, whatever weighting may or may not have existed was purely optional.

Out-of-the-box 5 just gives you a slight element of control over the volatility of the not-actually-shuffling, from things relatively nearby in the playlist to just grabbing a semirandom number and playing that song, which, for a 14-track playlist, just gave: 9, 5, 1, 7, 11, 6, 1, 11.

Your results (all too appropriately) may vary.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Winamp 2 has the "Shuffle morph rate" option as well. It's been there since 1.

Hrmm. At least my shuffle won't repeat songs before the end of a full playlist-through.

It's typically not an issue for me anyways, as my main (pre-weighted to only include songs I like, so to speak) playlist is over 100 tracks

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Were it not for the being dead, I think I'd rather enjoy it.

[daphyn.livejournal.com]

Bunnies, bunnies, I must be bunnies?

...or maybe midgets?

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

*takes careful note of distance to floor*

Probably not midgets. So, um... Witches? Some evil witches?

[daphyn.livejournal.com]

Which is impossible, 'cause witches, they were persecuted, Wicca good, and women power, and love the earth... and I'll be over here. *finds a corner to hide in*

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

...but that leads back to bunnies. So! Out of order!

A demon? A dancing demon?

[daphyn.livejournal.com]

Nah, something isn't right there... Maybe some kid is dreaming, and you're stuck inside some wacky Broadway nightmare!

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Dark Chest of Wonders. Sounds kind of like Evil!Dominatrix!Wonder Woman.

Uh, don't mind me.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Only if you're very, very good... and maybe even if you're not. Wait, what?

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

She always did have a lot of BDSM subtext, apparently.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

One of her superpowers is tying people up.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

True. That must be handy.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, but not very useful for dealing with salesmen or Witnesses or such.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

I beg to differ XD

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

I didn't even know there was a Firefly score.

...I wants teh 'River's Dance'.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

There is! I'll send you a copy of River's Dance later.

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

Squee!

[deepbluemermaid.livejournal.com]

I was smiling to myself while reading this, but this had me laughing out loud:

Q: How are you going to die?
A: Iron Butterfly - In a Gadda da Vida

I don't know, but I can tell you that it'll take a while.

Also, love for Split Enz :)