How can I SELECT 16 records at random from a range of rows in MySQL?

Question

I want to display a list of 16 of the most popular items in my database, but I want that list to be different every time. So from say, the top 50 downloaded items, choose 16 at random and return that in the result. Is that possible with just one query?

Answer 1

SELECT * 
    FROM (SELECT FROM table ORDER BY download_no DESC LIMIT 50) AS new_table
    ORDER BY RAND() 
    LIMIT 16

Answer 2

ORDER BY RAND()

Answer 3

Here is a webpage discussing this problem: http://akinas.com/pages/en/blog/mysql%5Frandom%5Frow/

HTH