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Revisiting my consideration of random number generators in the context of shuffling songs in mp3 players, i found a nice summary of random number generation. I would imagine that Winamp employs a linear congruential generators of the type Xn+1 = (aXn + c) mod m, which means that it generates a random number series in which the next number in the sequence is calculated deterministically from the number before it. Such series have interesting properties that relate back to my observations of Winamp's randomness, particularly when the constants a, c, and m are not selected wisely. Moreover, i found that Winamp has an option that lets you select the "shuffle window size", which supposedly dictates the percentage of the playlist that is shuffled over. I had it set at 33% for some reason, which may further explain why Winamp appeared to be randomly-challenged. This shuffle window size bears striking similarities to the properties of the constant m above. However, i can't imagine why you would want to restrict the number of songs over which Winamp shuffles.
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