this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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Not really. That is just a fact that there's only 365 days, and the more samples you make increases the odds it's a sample that overlaps with another (there are fewer unique options).
What the OP is saying is that sometimes randomness can appear less random than other randomness. True randomness will occasionally give results that closely match something non-random. It's why almost all music players don't use true random for shuffle. True random you could have the same song play 15 times in a row. In fact, that is expected to happen eventually (assuming infinite time) just as all other sets of 15 songs are.
My dream is for Spotify (and other music playing apps) to let you customize your shuffle algorithm. Minimum number of songs between repeating an artist or album, that sort of thing.
That would be sick. 🤘
I made a random character selector app for super smash bros that makes you play through every character before it lets you repeat a character. And it won't let two people play the same character at the same time. My friends and I like playing random characters, but we kept getting the same characters over and over again, sometimes even in the same colors (online only). I got frustrated one day and made the app.
It definitely livens up our game nights.
Yeah, true random sucks pretty badly for any sort of repeated selection. You could make your algorithm potentially even better by grouping characters into different roles and not repeating them in a row either. Never give two sword characters in a row if possible, for example.
That's a really interesting thought. We do still have issues where we get like Ken then Terry (or Mii Gunner then Mii Brawler) back to back, and for people who don't like that type of characters, its a bummer.
Each character having a list of groups that they belong to, then not allowing players to play a character in the same group consecutively would probably be a huge improvement. I would need to be careful to make sure too many characters aren't excluded, though. It would be tough to get right, but I think it would be really good.
Didn't the iPod have the same "issue" that it sometimes played the same song twice in a row or randomly played the next song in the playlist?
You essentially did what Apple did and made the randomness less random so humans think it's more random.