Things you often Wonder

[snowychap]

52 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I would agree with this. They've certainly become tamer than they used to be. 

 

More old TV ads viewable here - https://retrotvads.com

Quote

Classic TV commercials from the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s...

 

[chrisp65]

Haven't watched much telly in months n months. Certainly nothing with ad breaks.

I've tried to watch a couple of Cup games on ITV but it's just awful, just ad breaks between ad breaks, I really don't know how people can sit through that shit. Really surprised by the relentless amount of advertising for gambling, what scummy 'profession' to make your living out of.

Hasn't exactly made me think I'll start watching tv again.

[TheAuthority]

It's amazing/scary how many of those old ads I still know the words too although I haven't had them in the consciousness for decades 

[TheAuthority]

2 hours ago, snowychap said:

More old TV ads viewable here - https://retrotvads.com

 

Great. You're going to make me waste the next 2 hours of my life now - thanks 

(I can't believe how much I still want a Big Track & those A team figures.)

[choffer]

12 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

(I can't believe how much I still want a Big Track & those A team figures.)

I got a BigTrak about ten years ago. I'd wanted one so much as a kid and every Saturday morning I could see one on the shelf behind Cheggers. I'd begged my mum to let me call up and swap something for it. She never let me.

Then I saw you could buy new ones online and I was all over it.

Biggest disappointment ever.

[MickeyC_UTV]

9 hours ago, choffer said:

I got a BigTrak about ten years ago. I'd wanted one so much as a kid and every Saturday morning I could see one on the shelf behind Cheggers. I'd begged my mum to let me call up and swap something for it. She never let me.

Then I saw you could buy new ones online and I was all over it.

Biggest disappointment ever.

The power of advertising!!

[Stevo985]

Is "Shuffle" on a music player really completely random? I often find that songs from the same artist/album etc get played back to back far too often.

 

This morning I had a playlist playing on the way to work. i've since checked and it is 36 songs long.

7 of the songs are from the same album, and I had 4 of them play back to back.

 

So by my calculations, that's a 0.003 chance of happening if it's completely random. I think.... 

(6/35)*(5/34)*(4/33) = 0.003

 

And now I'm wondering if that's even the right maths.

[lapal_fan]

5 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Is "Shuffle" on a music player really completely random? I often find that songs from the same artist/album etc get played back to back far too often.

 

This morning I had a playlist playing on the way to work. i've since checked and it is 36 songs long.

7 of the songs are from the same album, and I had 4 of them play back to back.

 

So by my calculations, that's a 0.003 chance of happening if it's completely random. I think.... 

(6/35)*(5/34)*(4/33) = 0.003

 

And now I'm wondering if that's even the right maths.

And you wonder why you have no friends.. 

[AVFCDAN]

6 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Is "Shuffle" on a music player really completely random? I often find that songs from the same artist/album etc get played back to back far too often.

 

This morning I had a playlist playing on the way to work. i've since checked and it is 36 songs long.

7 of the songs are from the same album, and I had 4 of them play back to back.

 

So by my calculations, that's a 0.003 chance of happening if it's completely random. I think.... 

(6/35)*(5/34)*(4/33) = 0.003

 

And now I'm wondering if that's even the right maths.

Its not random, I saw something a while back which said that music players random is not truly random, "varied" would probably be a more accurate description. As you said very often you get 2-3 songs from one album then a random track, then another couple from another album. Apparently it would be too jarring to switch from track to track and its not what we actually want.

[BOF]

2 minutes ago, AVFCDAN said:

Its not random, I saw something a while back which said that music players random is not truly random, "varied" would probably be a more accurate description. As you said very often you get 2-3 songs from one album then a random track, then another couple from another album. Apparently it would be too jarring to switch from track to track and its not what we actually want.

Also depends on the music player i.e. the software doing the randomising.  Doesn't Spotify, for example, slightly favour tracks you've only just added to the playlist i.e. ones with a lower play count, just to even things up.

[Stevo985]

22 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

And you wonder why you have no friends.. 

I have no friends because I'm a word removed

[snowychap]

6 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Is "Shuffle" on a music player really completely random? I often find that songs from the same artist/album etc get played back to back far too often.

 

This morning I had a playlist playing on the way to work. i've since checked and it is 36 songs long.

7 of the songs are from the same album, and I had 4 of them play back to back.

 

So by my calculations, that's a 0.003 chance of happening if it's completely random. I think.... 

(6/35)*(5/34)*(4/33) = 0.003

 

And now I'm wondering if that's even the right maths.

I think your maths is wrong there* but it's your view of randomness which is the issue.

Random doesn't mean evenly spread out. If something is properly random then you'll get clusters similar to the kind of thing you describe. Indeed to prevent it from happening would require the selection process not to be random.

That's not to say that the shuffle thing is random.

* For four in a row, from a particular seven, in a selection of 6 out of a total of 36, I think the probability's a little less than you've calculated. About 0.002?

Edited June 27, 2018 by snowychap

[tonyh29]

on the subject of adverts  , 2 of my friends are currently starring in a TV advert ... was a small project we were doing for a vacuum cleaner company  where they wanted us to get them some "real "people they could use ....  

they came out mob handed , gave them a bit of a makeover (real people hey ) and spent a few hours with them to get about 20 seconds of footage .... might not quite be 15 mins of fame but they seem to love the fact they are on TV

[Stevo985]

3 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I think your maths is wrong there (I think the probability's a little less than you've calculated) but it's your view of randomness which is the issue.

Random doesn't mean evenly spread out. If something is properly random then you'll get clusters similar to the kind of thing you describe. Indeed to prevent it from happening would require the selection process not to be random.

That's not to say that the shuffle thing is random.

By random, in this case, I meant does every song on the playlist have an equal chance to any other song of being picked next. Or does the shuffle feature favour certain songs (in the way that BOF has described)

 

What's the right maths? (genuine question, I'm second guessing myself)

Edited June 27, 2018 by Stevo985

[snowychap]

8 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

By random, in this case, I meant does every song on the playlist have an equal chance to any other song of being picked next. Or does the shuffle feature favour certain songs (in the way that BOF has described)

 

What's the right maths? (genuine question, I'm second guessing myself)

I'm not at all sure on the first and it's been a long time since I tried to work out probabilities so I'm prepared to be pulled up and told that the following is wrong:

Assuming that each played track is not allowed to be picked a second time from the playlist, I think it would be

(7/36*6/35*5/34*4/33) + (7/35*6/34*5/33*4/32) + (7/34*6/33*5/32*4/31) = 0.002

Edit: No, that's wrong, too. In the second and third possibilities, I haven't allowed for the first (in the second case) and the first and second (in the third case) having to be NOT from the album.

Edit 2:

So, (7/36*6/35*5/34*4/33) + (29/36*7/35*6/34*5/33*4/32) + (29/36*28/35*7/34*6/33*5/32*4/31) = 0.0016

Edited June 27, 2018 by snowychap

[Stevo985]

5 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I'm not at all sure on the first and it's been a long time since I tried to work out probabilities so I'm prepared to be pulled up and told that the following is wrong:

Assuming that each played track is not allowed to be picked a second time from the playlist, I think it would be

(7/36*6/35*5/34*4/33) + (7/35*6/34*5/33*4/32) + (7/34*6/33*5/32*4/31) = 0.002

Edit: No, that's wrong, too. In the second and third possibilities, I haven't allowed for the first (in the second case) and the first and second (in the third case) having to be NOT from the album.

Yeah i don't think that math is right.

You don't need the 7/36 at the start. The first song is already playing. It's the probability that the next 3 will all be from the same album. So you start on the 6 (i.e. 6 tracks out of the remaining 35 are valid)

So it's a 6 out of 35 chance, AND then a 5 out of 34 chance, AND then a 4 out of 33 chance.

AND in probability means multiply.

 

I can't figure out if you need the additions. I don't think you do but can't get my head around it.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Stevo985

[snowychap]

5 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah i don't think that math is right.

You don't need the 7/36 at the start. The first song is already playing. It's the probability that the next 3 will all be from the same album. So you start on the 6 (i.e. 6 tracks out of the remaining 35 are valid)

So it's a 6 out of 35 chance, followed by a 5 out of 34 chance, followed by a 4 out of 33 chance.

AND in probability means multiply.

 

I can't figure out if you need the additions. I don't think you do but can't get my head around it.

What you're working out there is the probability that, given the first track is one from that album, what would be the chances of the next three being from it.

I was trying to work out what the chances of having four tracks from the album play in a row when you have play any 6 out of 36.

Edited June 27, 2018 by snowychap

[Stevo985]

2 minutes ago, snowychap said:

What you're working out there is the probability that, given the first track is one from that album what would be the chances of the next three being from it.

I was trying to work out what the chances of having four tracks from the album play in a row when you have play any 6 out of 36.

Yeah fair enough. I was wondering the former so i think I'm right 

Edited June 27, 2018 by Stevo985

[snowychap]

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah fair enough. I was wondering the former so i think I'm right 

You didn't tell us that they were the first four songs that you heard, though.

 

[blandy]

7 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Is "Shuffle" on a music player really completely random? I often find that songs from the same artist/album etc get played back to back far too often.

No, absolutely not. It's not even pseudo-random.  When apple used a pseudo random algorithm, they got complaints that "if it was random, then sometimes you'd get 2 songs by the same artist, back to back" and they found they had to tweak it to be "mostly pseudo-random". I believe other manufacturers do much the same.