Hey, look, Apple released an iPod with a color screen that shows album art and has a big, wacky pull-handle on the side! Oh, wait, never mind-- it's just some designer at the New York Times having a bit of Photoshop fun. Faithful viewer Mark Murray forwarded us the link to a surprisingly in-depth study of the iPod's "Shuffle" feature, which, as you all know, lets you put the selection of your tunes into the amorphous yet all-powerful hands of a higher power. Shuffle is evidently a huge hit with the four million or so 'Podders out there, because Apple made a big deal about moving the option up out of the "Settings" section and right onto the latest iPod's main menu. When removing one level of menu selection from access to a feature becomes a major selling point, you're either out of ideas or people really want to get at said feature now now now. And you know that Apple isn't out of ideas.

So what is it about the iPod's Shuffle feature that holds the music-loving populace in such thrall? According to the Times, it's the perception that Apple's Randomizer isn't so random after all. The article tells the sad tale of one Mr. Bob Angus, who was publicly emasculated at his own party when his iPod chose to follow up a rousing Guns 'N' Roses selection by playing an Elton John ballad (probably as karmic realignment for Bob having used Canadian quarters in the washing machines or something). A bicyclist in L.A. insists that his iPod always knows just when to throw 50 Cent's "In Da Club" into the mix to get him pumped back up when his pedals aren't pushing, but invariably plays the one Ruben Studdard track on the drive whenever he's working out in the gym. A web designer claims that while he only has two Fugazi albums loaded, his iPod plays songs from them "to a degree wildly disproportionate" to the space they take up in its library. (Then again, he lives in Salem, Massachusetts, so in this case maybe it's a haunted-by-dead-witches-who-like-indie-rock sort of thing.)

We've heard of-- and experienced-- similarly spooky Shuffle behavior ourselves, so we're not surprised that some people are convinced that the iPod's Shuffle can "learn" over time, or, perhaps more realistically, is actually a conduit to a jealous god with a quick temper who can mete out praise or punishment with one flick of his Mighty Click Wheel. But Stan Ng, Apple's director of iPod product marketing, insists that Shuffle is just your basic vanilla randomizer: "When you turn on Shuffle Songs, it creates a randomized list of all the music on your iPod without repeating a song" and there's "no way that an iPod can be a 'fan' of a particular artist or band." Furthermore, Stan claims that Shuffle's randomization algorithm has remained the same since the original 5 GB model shipped lo those many Octobers ago.

Of course, if you buy all that, you're just not paying attention. AtAT mystics have devoted countless hours to determining the true origin of Shuffle's choices, and have traced them back to a minor deity from the Roman pantheon-- the original Roman pantheon (that of Jeff, god of biscuits), prior to when they just renamed all the Greek gods in an inspired act of religious efficiency. So when your Shuffle play embarrasses you or otherwise causes you pain, it's because you've somehow offended Carl, god of playlists, and you may have to burn him an offering to appease his anger. We hear he likes Hot Pockets-- any flavor but Chicken & Cheddar with Broccoli.