iTunes7 mystery number

December 29, 2006 11:15 AM

iTunes 7 mystery number: Anybody know what this number means? [ImageShack hosting]

In the upper right-hand corner, in "CoverFlow" view, iTunes 7 displays a number in block lettering. Sometimes the number is yellow, other times it is red. I have no idea what the hell it is, and it is making me mad that I can't figure it out. It is NOT the track number, disc number, tracks per disc, tracks by that artist, tracks per genre, beats per minute, position in party shuffle, play count, or anything else that makes sense. It isn't a rating, as I haven't rated any of my music. Mousing over it does nothing. Clicking or right-clicking makes the number change, either one big jump or incrementally, but not in any logical way that I can see. The number changes randomly with each new track selected, changes when I scroll through songs, and changes occasionally when a song has been selected for a short time. Songs in the same album might be numbered as low as 1 or as high as the 40s, with no discernible pattern. There is no mention of this "feature" anywhere that I can find. Anyone else even see this? What the hell is it?

posted by caution live frogs to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Frames per second while the visualizer is on.
posted by Science! at 11:18 AM on December 29, 2006

Nuts, sorry I missed the "in cover flow" bit, so it's not the visualizer. Are you by chance playing a video or video podcast when this appears?
posted by Science! at 11:23 AM on December 29, 2006

42 is the answer to "life, the universe, and everything" in Douglas Adams' excellent Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels. It's one of the top geek jokes of all time-- appearing hidden everywhere from microscopically on processor cores to etched on grains of sand to the naming of astronomical bodies.

I have no idea why it appears, so I can't help you there, but the humor is very clear :)
posted by dmaterialized at 11:47 AM on December 29, 2006

A short summary: in the books, a giant computer was commissioned to find the answer to "life, the universe, and everything". The computer said it would take several million (billion?) years, and on the day of The Answer's unveiling, all that time later, a massive celebration was held. "I'm telling you, you're not going to like the answer," the computer says, but everyone wants to know anyway. "I've checked it multiple times," the computer assures.

"What... what is it?"

"Forty-two."

[silence]

The computer then explains that what mankind is really looking for is the question to which 42 applies. It offers to construct a massive computer capable of solving the problem--that computer is the Earth (which is subsequently destroyed five minutes before the calculation would have been complete).
posted by dmaterialized at 11:50 AM on December 29, 2006

It's probably some kind of debugging feature you've accidentally switched on. The guy that wrote CoverFlow before Apple bought it has a website, with an email link, and he'd probably be the best person to answer this.
posted by cillit bang at 11:54 AM on December 29, 2006

The number changes randomly with each new track selected, changes when I scroll through songs, and changes occasionally when a song has been selected for a short time. Songs in the same album might be numbered as low as 1 or as high as the 40s, with no discernible pattern.

Did you guys read the question? It isn't stuck on 42.
posted by null terminated at 12:57 PM on December 29, 2006

Damn. Missed that - realized when I opened Google Earth that it was showing up there too, and Science! turns out to be right. This is the result of me installing the Omega drivers for my video card (because Acer refuses to release newer ATI drivers for my laptop). Had no clue that it added the FPS display by default.

Thanks - that was driving me nuts. The feature is now turned off.
posted by caution live frogs at 1:20 PM on December 29, 2006