[uxp8u61q]

"Random" doesn't necessarily mean "uniformly distributed random." Shuffling a deck of cards randomly is random, but you're not going to get the same card twice in a row, or even the same card twice until you go through the whole deck.

[Karellen]

Do you re-shuffle after the deck is exhausted, or after every hand? It's not excessively unusual to be dealt the same card twice in two consecutive hands.

[uxp8u61q]

Who said anything about hands? I'm trying to make an analogy between shuffling a deck and shuffling xkcd comics. I thought having a visual, physical analogue would perhaps help in seeing that randomness still exists in a shuffle.

[Karellen]

Sorry, the point I was trying to make was "shuffle" could possibly mean "re-shuffle after every track" - so you could still get the same track twice in a row.

(It was a bad way of stating it, that's on me)

[uxp8u61q]

Shuffling the whole playlist to choose a new song every time is no different than choosing uniformly from all songs every time. What would be the point? I can't tell what you are getting at.

[Karellen]

My point is that, for a not-unreasonable interpretation of "shuffle", it is the same as "random".

nvm