Month: May 2005

I’m not one of the iPod Conspiracy Theorists who’s convinced that Steve Jobs invested extra developer work-hours to make the “shuffle” playlist favor certain songs rather than others; “random” (or “pseudo-random,” to be precise) makes the most sense to me. That doesn’t prevent my taking delight in the juxtapositions that the iPod can produce, powered by impartial algorithms.

For instance, my iPod just played El-P (feat. Cage)’s “Oxycontin Part 2,” then followed it with the Temptations singing “Cloud Nine.” Apple can’t teach it to do that!