withoutnations - Mark Mitchell » the travel in between http://www.withoutnations.com Chasing a passion for good design, trying hard not to lose the plot. Sat, 08 May 2010 21:14:21 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Musings on the potential for surprise in the mundane and otherwise arbitrary http://www.withoutnations.com/2010/01/27/musings-on-the-potential-for-surprise-in-events-considered-otherwise-mundane-and-arbitrary/ http://www.withoutnations.com/2010/01/27/musings-on-the-potential-for-surprise-in-events-considered-otherwise-mundane-and-arbitrary/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:34:13 +0000 Mark http://www.withoutnations.com/?p=495 I have roughly 750 songs on my iPhone at the moment, selected at random from a pool of over seven thousand files in my library. As I listened to the music on my iPhone this evening, the playlist came to Gogol Bordello’s “Avenue B” — the earlier recording from East Infection. This was followed by the Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike version. Interesting, I thought — though not an uncommon occurrence.

Next, Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man” from Highway 61 Revisited. What followed? The same, from Before the Flood. As I considered the odds of two repeating versions of two different songs, I’m hit with the live performance included on Bootleg Series Vol. 7.

Uninspired music library — highly intelligent algorithm — random chance?

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