[Pen-l] music-lovers walk

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Supposedly, if you take a random walk on a plane, there's 100% chance
of returning to the initial point in finite time. (did I get that
right?) This seems to fit the result of using Pandora's on-line radio
at http://www.pandora.com/: you tell it what kind of music you want to
hear (rock, male vocalist, etc.) and Pandora dips into a data base
that characterizes a large number of MP3s according to heir
characteristics and then plays the ones that fit for you, in random
order. But I've noticed a bit of repetition and it doesn't seem to be
the result of payola or top 40 mentality. (Luckily, I like Tom Petty's
"Feel A Whole Lot Better (When You're Gone).") Instead, it seems a
result of the random walk. So they have to have a button telling them
"please don't play this one again for a month."

-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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